Page 58 of Blood King, Part I (Crowns #4)

Chapter forty-five

Cyrus angled the tip of his knife against the base of the Pryamese girl’s throat as he held her pinned against the wall. No more games. If this girl didn’t think he’d kill her…

Her sobbing breaths told him that she did.

“You’d better start talking,” he demanded, “and every word that comes out of your mouth better be true. Now, where is Morak?”

“The king is dead,” she said, her words clipped by her cries.

“How? And when?”

“Consumption.” Her breaths shook her body. “A little over a month ago.”

Cyrus dug his blade into her skin as he shook his head. “No. I just received a letter from him two weeks ago.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, spilling tears down her cheeks. “I wrote it. The letter was from me.”

His eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”

She blinked back more tears and sucked in another breath. “I haven’t lied to you. I really am Princess Miriel.”

“Why not write to me truthfully, then? Why not tell me Morak was dead?”

“Because no one knows,” she said.

His brow stitched. “What do you mean no one knows ?”

“I haven’t told anyone. Not even my kingdom.

The only people who know are the few who remain of my castle staff and royal guard, and Amish, who was my father’s personal guard and friend.

” Her eyes moved to the man Everan held at swordpoint.

Kord pulled off his mask. Cyrus couldn’t tell how much the man’s hair was graying through his prominent blond, but the creases on his forehead and the lines around his eyes aged him well beyond Cyrus, by fifteen or twenty years perhaps.

“They’ve been helping me keep the secret until I can figure out what to do. Please,” she begged, and struggled with a swallow. “I wrote because I need you. I need your help.”

Cyrus didn’t believe her, or rather, he didn’t want to believe her. He glanced at Everan, who had lowered his blade from the older man’s neck and raised a brow back at him, subtly urging him to do the same.

Cyrus glared at her. “What did you do with him? Where is Morak’s body?”

Her eyes darted to the man she called Amish, and he nodded. Looking back at Cyrus, she said, “We’ve put him in the crypts, below the castle.”

“I want to see him.”

She glanced back at Amish, who nodded again.

Cyrus stepped back and gave her room to collect herself, but he didn’t sheath his knife. If she was lying…

Shakily, she led them from the dining hall. She walked with her head down and her hands at her sides, clutching her skirts.

Everan pushed Amish in front of them, and he, Cyrus, and Kord followed. As they stepped into the hallway, four guards against the wall pulled their blades and moved toward them, but the girl waved them to stay.

“It’s all right,” she said.

So, they were real… apparently. Where were the rest? They’d all disappeared.

“The whole army was an illusion?” Cyrus asked her.

She gave a shaky nod. “Pryam’s never had an army. We’ve always relied on the protection of the Etrean Union. But then we were expelled.”

Wait… “Pryam was expelled from the Union?” His council certainly wasn’t going to be happy about that. The connection to the Union was the whole reason they were even pushing an alliance with Pryam. “Why?”

“My father wouldn’t tell me.”

Cyrus sighed. This was just getting worse. “How many do you have in the royal guard?” he asked.

Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Twenty-four.”

“Twenty-four units? And each unit is a hundred—”

“No, twenty-four men.”

Cyrus balked, rocking back on his heel. It took a moment before he could speak. “Twen… Twenty-four men ?”

She kept her eyes down. “We never had many to begin with, but… well, my father released most of them from service, sent them away.”

Cyrus snorted in bewilderment. “Why would he do that?”

“To protect me.”

Then she turned and started again down the hall, her pace quickening now, as if running from where the conversation was heading.

Cyrus looked at Everan and Kord, who both stood speechless as well. This kingdom was absolute madness. But what else could Cyrus really do but follow her?

They reached another hall, which took them to a stairwell. The girl led them down another lengthy hall below and then to yet another stairwell. A very narrow stairwell.

Cyrus grabbed the girl’s upper arm, jerking her to a pause. “Where are we going?”

“I told you—the crypts.”

“No one is carrying bodies down this stairwell.”

“There’s a processional way,” she said quickly. “But this way is shorter.”

Cyrus narrowed his eyes. It could be the truth, or she could be quick-witted. He released her, only because he couldn’t hold on to her and walk down the stairwell at the same time. “Go on, then,” he said.

They descended farther down, and when they reached the bottom, the narrow stairwell opened to a dimly lit room.

Amish pulled a blazing torch from the wall beside the stairwell and made his way around, lighting more torches to illuminate the room.

And Cyrus saw it wasn’t just a room. The massive hall spanned almost twice the size of Rael’s great throne room, but the hall’s low ceiling made it feel smaller.

Columns ran throughout, supporting the myriad arches that stretched the entire space above them.

Whether they were for structural support or adornment, he wasn’t sure—perhaps both.

The girl led them past another hall—no, not a hall, a deep alcove that opened to a vaulted bay. They passed several of these. Within each bay lay a stone sarcophagus in lavish baroque. Cyrus assumed each of these held a king.

But the girl didn’t stop at one of these bays. Instead, she led them behind a dividing wall to an unmarked sarcophagus. Her lip trembled and another tear spilled down her cheek. “We haven’t engraved it yet or placed him in his chamber,” she said quietly, “for fear of someone seeing.”

Cyrus nodded to Everan and Kord, and the three of them clasped the top of the sarcophagus and pulled back the heavy stone from its place. Everan handed Cyrus a torch, and Cyrus held it close to view the man inside.

It was certainly a man a month dead, although some kind of embalming had been done, staving off signs of decay and the smell of death.

He was an older man, with features similar to the girl’s, and dressed in Pryam’s colors of white and gold.

The tassels that lined his embroidered tippet sash had been meticulously straightened and evenly spaced.

Small flowers, long dead, had been scattered around him.

His arms lay folded, with his hands clasping a crown that had been placed on his chest.

Cyrus sighed as he slid his knife into the sheath at his back. He had no doubt about the girl’s story now. “Why did you write to me?” he asked.

“My father wanted to write to you with the offer months ago, but I was scared, and I begged him to wait. I…” She paused and moved her eyes to the old man in the sarcophagus. “I thought he had more time.”

“But why me?”

“We heard how you took Rael with the help of a witch. We’d lost support of the Union, and we needed protection, and”—she cast her gaze to the ground—“we thought that maybe… you wouldn’t be so unsettled by me, like everyone else is. They call me a witch, which is utterly ridiculous.”

“You are a witch,” Cyrus said.

Her eyes darted up to him and her mouth opened in objection. “W-what? No! I can only project images, I have no power—”

“Projecting images is power. And you do it very well, so you likely have a lot of power.”

Her objections still sat on her tongue, but she didn’t say anything else. She only stood, gaping at him with her eyes wide.

“And it’s true; I’m not unsettled by you,” he said. “But I can’t help you.”

Her eyes widened even more. “Why not? You don’t want to be king of Pryam?”

“I don’t even want to be king of Rael.”

He saw his words sink in, and the devastation his answer brought. He pitied her, but there was nothing he could do. He was struggling to rebuild Rael; he couldn’t take on another kingdom that needed support. “I’m sorry,” he said.

He nodded to Everan and Kord, who helped him move the lid of the sarcophagus back into place. Then he started back up the narrow stairwell.

“Where are you going?” she cried.

“Back to Rael.”

In his chamber on the ship, Cyrus lay on the mattress made of layers of wool and down.

It would be another night of no sleep, he was sure.

This trip had been a massive failure and a waste of time.

They’d set sail in the morning, back to Rael, where he’d tell his council that he had not, in fact, secured an alliance with a child of a crumbling kingdom.

Commotion outside his door pulled him from the bed. Bash’s voice carried through, not yelling but forceful. Then came a rush of footfalls. When Cyrus opened the door, he took a step back in surprise to see the girl, and Ram and Bash trying to hold her back without actually touching her.

“It’s all right,” Cyrus told them. His brow stitched as he looked at the girl. “Princess”—what was her name?—“Myrel,” he said, half greeting, half questioning.

“Miriel,” she corrected him, and she pushed inside.

His mind hadn’t quite recovered from the surprise enough to stop her.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

Her lips were pursed and firm. “I need to talk to you.”

Cyrus glanced out at the gathered men, who wore faces of equal exasperation.

Then he looked back at the girl. There was something different about her—a look of determination.

Fine —he could at least have a conversation with her.

He let go of the door and it swung closed, but as he turned, he found her pulling the straps of her dress off her shoulders.

“Oh, wait, no.” He quickly stepped forward and scooped them back into place. “Let’s just leave those right there.” He realized his fingers were now touching her skin, and he flattened his hand, turning his touch into an awkward pat.

Her lip trembled, and her eyes welled.

“Mariam…”

“Miriel,” she corrected him again.