A Dirge for Princes Read online

  “You need to get aboard,” she yelled, then realized the stupidity of expecting it to understand that. Instead, she summoned up the little power she had left, wrapping the need to get aboard with an image of the boat leaving, and threw it at the creature.

  It turned its head, sniffed the air once, and bounded for the boat. Kate saw its muscles bunch, and then it leapt. Its claws dug into the wood of the ship as it pulled itself up the side, and then it settled on the railing pushing its head against Kate’s hand and purring.

  Kate stumbled back, feeling the solidity of a mast at her back. She all but slid down it to the deck, sitting there because she no longer had the strength to stand. But that didn’t matter anymore. They were already well away from the docks, only a few scattered shots marking the presence of their attackers there.

  They’d done it. They were safe, and Sophia was alive.

  At least for now.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sebastian woke to pain. Total, complete pain. It seemed to surround him, throbbing through him, absorbing every fraction of his being. He could feel the pulsing agony in his skull where he’d struck it as he fell, but there was another repetitive pain, bruising his ribs as someone tried to kick him awake.

  He looked up and saw Rupert looking down at him from possibly the only angle where his brother didn’t look like some golden ideal of a prince. His expression certainly didn’t match that ideal, looking as though, had it been anyone else, he would have cheerfully cut their throat. Sebastian groaned in pain, feeling like his ribs might have broken under the impact.

  “Wake up, you useless idiot!” Rupert snapped. Sebastian could hear the anger there, and the frustration.

  “I’m awake,” Sebastian said. Even he could hear that the words were anything but clear. More pain flooded through him, along with a kind of foggy confusion that felt as though he’d been hit over the head with a hammer. No, not with a hammer; with the whole world. “What happened?”

  “You got thrown from a boat by a girl, that’s what happened,” Rupert said.

  Sebastian felt the roughness of his brother’s grip as he hauled him back to his feet. When Rupert let go, Sebastian staggered and almost fell again, but managed to catch himself in time. None of the soldiers around him moved to help, but then, they were Rupert’s men, and probably had little love for Sebastian after his escape from them.

  “Now it’s your turn to tell me what happened,” Rupert said. “I went through this village from end to end, and they finally told me that was the boat your beloved was taking.” He made it sound like a curse word. “Since you were thrown off it by a girl with the same look to her—”

  “Her sister, Kate,” Sebastian said, remembering the speed with which Kate had propelled him from the cabin, the anger there as she had thrown him. She’d wanted to kill him. She’d thought that he’d…

  He remembered then, and the image of it was enough to make him stop, standing there in blank unresponsiveness, even as Rupert decided it would be a good idea to slap him. The pain of that felt like just one more iota added to a mountain of it. Even the bruises from where Kate had thrown him felt like nothing compared to the raw pit of grief that threatened to open up and claim him at any moment.

  “I said, what happened to the girl who fooled you into being her fiancé?” Rupert demanded. “Was she there? Did she escape with the rest of them?”

  “She’s dead!” Sebastian snapped without thinking. “Is that what you want to hear, Rupert? Sophia is dead!”

  It was as if he were looking down at her again, seeing her pale and lifeless on the cabin floor, blood pooled around her, the wound in her chest filled by a dagger so slender and sharp that it might as well have been a needle. He could remember how still Sophia had been, no hint of movement to mark her breathing, no brush of air against his ear when he’d checked.

  He’d even pulled the dagger out, in the stupid, instinctual hope that it would make things better, even though he knew that wounds were not so easily undone. All it had done was widen the pool of blood, cover his hands in it, and convince Kate that he’d murdered her sister. It was a miracle, put like that, that she’d only thrown him from the boat, not cut him to pieces.

  “At least you did one thing right in killing her,” Rupert said. “It might even help Mother to forgive you for running off like this. You have to remember that you’re just the spare brother, Sebastian. The dutiful one. You can’t afford to upset Mother like that.”

  Sebastian felt disgust in that moment. Disgust that his brother would think he could ever hurt Sophia. Disgust that he saw the world like that at all. Disgust, frankly, that he was even related to someone who could see the world as just his plaything, where everyone else was on some lower level, there to fit into whatever roles he assigned.

  “I didn’t kill Sophia,” Sebastian said. “How could you think I could ever do something like that?”

  Rupert looked at him in obvious surprise, before his expression shifted to one of disappointment.

  “And there I was thinking that you’d finally grown a backbone,” he said. “That you’d decided to actually be the dutiful prince you pretend to be and get rid of the whore. I should have known that you would still be completely useless.”

  Sebastian lunged at his brother then. He smashed into Rupert, sending the pair of them tumbling to the wooden slats of the docks. Sebastian came up on top, grabbing at his brother, swinging a punch down.

  “Don’t you talk about Sophia like that! Isn’t it enough for you that she’s gone?”

  Rupert bucked and twisted underneath him, coming up on top for a moment and throwing a punch of his own. The tumbling momentum of the fight kept going, and Sebastian felt the edge of the dock against his back a moment before he and Rupert plunged into the water.

  It closed over them as they fought, their hands locked on one another’s throats almost through instinct. Sebastian didn’t care. He had nothing left to live for, not when Sophia was gone. Maybe if he ended up as cold and dead as her, there was a chance that they might be reunited in whatever lay beyond death’s mask. He could feel Rupert kicking at him, but Sebastian barely even acknowledged the tiny extra hint of pain.

  He felt hands grabbing at him then, hauling him out of the water. He should have known that Rupert’s men would intervene to save their prince. They pulled Sebastian and Rupert from the water by their arms and their clothes, hauling them up onto dry land and all but holding them up as the cold water seeped through them.

  “Let go of me,” Rupert demanded. “No, hold him.”

  Sebastian felt the hands tighten on his arms, holding him in place. His brother hit him then, hard in the stomach, so that Sebastian would have doubled up if the soldiers hadn’t been holding him. He saw the moment when his brother drew a knife, this one curved and razor edged: a hunter’s knife; a skinning knife.

  He felt the sharpness of that edge as Rupert pressed it to his face.

  “You think you get to attack me? I’ve ridden halfway across the kingdom because of you. I’m cold, I’m wet, and my clothes are ruined. Maybe your face should be too.”

  Sebastian felt a bead of blood form under the pressure of that edge. To his surprise, one of the soldiers stepped forward.

  “Your highness,” he said, the deference in his tone obvious. “I suspect that the Dowager would not wish us to allow either of her sons to be harmed.”

  Sebastian felt Rupert go dangerously still, and for a moment, he thought that he would do it anyway. Instead, he pulled the knife away, his anger sliding back behind the mask of civility that usually disguised it.

  “Yes, you’re right, soldier. I wouldn’t want Mother angry that I had… miss-stepped.”

  It was such a benign term to use when he’d been talking about cutting Sebastian’s face to pieces only moments before. The fact that he could switch like that confirmed almost everything Sebastian had heard about him. He’d always tried to ignore the stories, but it was as though he’d seen the real Rupert both her
e, and earlier, when he’d tortured the gardener at the abandoned house.

  “I want all of Mother’s anger reserved for you, little brother,” Rupert said. He didn’t hit Sebastian this time, just clapped a hand to his shoulder in a brotherly fashion that was undoubtedly an act. “Running off like this, fighting her soldiers. Killing one of them.”

  Almost too fast to follow, Rupert spun, stabbing the one who had raised an objection through the throat. The man fell, clutching the wound, his expression of shock almost matched by those around him.

  “Let us be clear,” Rupert said, in a dangerous voice. “I am the crown prince, and we are a long way from the Assembly of Nobles, with its rules and its attempts to contain its betters. Out here, I will not be questioned! Is that understood?”

  If it had been anyone else, he would have quickly found himself cut down by the other soldiers. Instead, the men murmured a chorus of assent, each one seeming to know that anyone cutting down a prince of the blood would be the one responsible for reigniting the civil wars.

  “Don’t worry,” Rupert said, wiping the knife. “I was kidding about cutting your face. I won’t even say that you killed this man. He died in the fighting around the ship. Now, thank me.”

  “Thank you,” Sebastian said in flat tones, but only because he suspected that it was the best way to avoid further violence.

  “Besides, I think Mother will believe a tale of your uselessness more than one of your murderousness,” Rupert said. “The son who ran away, couldn’t get there in time, lost his lady love, and got himself beaten up by a girl.”

  Sebastian might have thrown himself forward again, but the soldiers were still holding him tight, as if expecting exactly that. Perhaps, in a way, they were even doing it for his own protection.

  “Yes,” Rupert said, “you make a far better tragic figure than one of hate. You look the very picture of grief right now.”

  Sebastian knew that his brother would never understand the truth of it. He would never understand the sheer pain eating through his heart, far worse than any of the aches from his bruises. He would never understand the grief of losing someone he loved, because Sebastian was sure now that Rupert didn’t love anyone except himself.

  Sebastian had loved Sophia, and it was only now that she was gone that he could begin to understand how much, simply by seeing how much of his world had been ripped away in the moments since he’d seen her so still and lifeless, beautiful even in death. He felt like some shambling thing from one of the old tales, empty except for the shell of flesh surrounding his grief.

  The only reason he wasn’t crying was because he felt too hollow to do even that. Well, that and because he didn’t want to give his brother the satisfaction of seeing him in pain. Right then, he would even have welcomed it if Rupert had killed him, because at least that would have brought an end to the infinite expanse of pain seeming to stretch out around him.

  “It’s time for you to come home,” Rupert said. “You can be there while I report everything that has happened to our mother. She sent me to bring you back, so that’s what I’m going to do. I’ll tie you over a horse if I have to.”

  “You don’t have to,” Sebastian said. “I’ll go.”

  He said it quietly, but even so, it was enough to get a smile of triumph out of his brother. Rupert thought that he’d won. The truth was that Sebastian simply didn’t care. It didn’t matter anymore. He waited for one of the soldiers to bring him a horse, mounted up, and heeled it forward with leaden limbs.

  He would go home to Ashton, and he would be whatever kind of prince his family wanted him to be. None of it would make a difference.

  Nothing did, now that Sophia was dead.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Cora was more than grateful when the ground started to level out again. It seemed as though she and Emeline had been walking forever, although her friend didn’t show any of the strain of it.

  “How can you just keep walking like you aren’t tired?” Cora asked, as Emeline continued to press forward. “Is it some kind of magic?”

  Emeline looked back. “It’s not magic, it’s just… I spent most of my life on Ashton’s streets. If you showed that you were weak, people found ways to prey on you.”

  Cora tried to imagine that, living somewhere where there was the chance of violence any time anyone showed weakness. She realized that she didn’t have to imagine it, though.

  “In the palace, it was Rupert and his cronies,” she said, “or the noble girls who thought they could abuse you just because they were feeling angry at something else.”

  She saw Emeline cock her head to the side. “I would have thought that it would be better in the palace,” she said. “At least you didn’t have to dodge the gangs or the slave takers. You didn’t have to spend your nights hunkered down in coal cellars so that no one would find you.”

  “Because I was already indentured,” Cora pointed out. “I didn’t even have a bed in the palace. They just assumed that I would find a corner to sleep in. That, or some noble would want me in their bed.”

  To Cora’s surprise, Emeline put her arms around her in a hug. If there was one thing Cora had learned on the road, it was that Emeline wasn’t usually a demonstrative person.

  “I saw some nobles once, out in the city,” Emeline said. “I thought that they would be something brighter and better than one of the gangs, until I got closer. Then I saw one of them beating a man senseless just because he could. They were exactly the same.”

  It seemed strange, bonding like this over how harsh their lives had been, but Cora did feel closer to Emeline than she had at the start of this. It wasn’t just that they’d been through a lot of the same things in their lives. They’d traveled a long way together now too, and there was still the prospect of more miles to come.

  “Stonehome will be there,” Cora said, trying to convince herself as much as Emeline.

  “It will,” Emeline said. “Sophia saw it.”

  It felt strange, putting so much trust in Sophia’s powers, but the truth was that Cora did trust her, absolutely. She would gladly trust her life to the things that Sophia had seen, and there was no one she would rather share the journey with than Emeline.

  They kept going, and as they headed west, they started to see more rivers, in networks that connected like capillaries leading to bigger arteries. Soon, there seemed to be almost as much water as land, so that even the fields in between were semi-flooded things, people farming in mud that threatened to turn into marsh at any moment. Rain seemed to be a constant, and while occasionally Cora and Emeline huddled down out of the worse of it, for the most part they pressed on.

  “Look,” Emeline said, pointing to one of the riverbanks. All Cora could see at first were reeds rising beside it, disturbed here and there by the movement of small animals. Then she saw the coracle upturned on the bank like the shell of some armored creature.

  “Oh no,” Cora said, guessing what Emeline intended.

  Emeline reached out to put a hand on her arm. “It’s all right. I’m good with boats. Come on, you’ll enjoy it.”

  She led the way to the coracle, and all Cora could do was follow, silently hoping that there would be no oars. There was a paddle, though, and it seemed to be all Emeline needed. Soon, she was in the coracle, and Cora had to jump in beside her or be left walking along the bank.

  It was faster than walking, Cora had to admit. They skimmed down the river like a pebble thrown from some giant hand. It was as relaxing as it had been sitting on the cart. More relaxing, since they’d spent half the time on the cart jumping off to help push it up hills and out of mud. Emeline seemed to be enjoying piloting it too, navigating the changes in the river as it went from rough to smooth water and back again.

  Cora saw the moment when the water shifted, and she saw Emeline’s expression shift in the same instant.

  “There’s… something there,” Emeline said. “Something powerful.”

  What have we here? a voice asked, sounding in C
ora’s mind. Two fresh young things. Come closer, my darlings. Come closer.

  Ahead, Cora saw… well, she wasn’t quite sure what she saw. At first, it seemed like a woman made from water, but a flicker of light later, it seemed like a horse. The urge to go toward it was overwhelming. It felt as though there was safety ahead.

  No, it was more than that; it felt as if it was home waiting for her there. The home that she’d always wanted, with warmth, a family, safety…

  That’s it. Come to me. I can give you everything you want. You will never be alone again.

  Cora wanted to urge the coracle forward. She wanted to dive from it, to be with the creature that promised so much. She half stood, ready to do just that.

  “Wait!” Emeline called out. “It’s a trick, Cora!”

  Cora felt something settle around her mind, a wall rising up between her and the promises of safety. She could see Emeline straining, and knew that the other girl had to be the one doing it, blocking the power pushing at them with her own talents.

  No, come to me, the thing urged, but it was a distant echo of what it had been.

  Cora looked at it, really looked at it, now. She saw the swirling water there; saw the currents around it that would drown anyone foolish enough to pass through them. She remembered old stories of river spirits, kelpies, the kind of dangerous magic that had turned the world against all of it.

  She saw the water start to shift beneath the coracle, and only realized what was happening as the current started to drag it forward.

  “Emeline!” she yelled. “It’s pulling us in!”

  Emeline remained still, shaking with obvious effort as she fought to keep the creature from overwhelming them both. That meant that it was up to Cora. She grabbed for the coracle’s paddle, aiming for the shore and paddling with all the strength she had.

  At first, it seemed that nothing was happening. The current was too strong, the kelpie’s pull too total. Cora recognized those thoughts for what they were and pushed them aside. She didn’t have to paddle against the current, just to its side. She pulled at the water with it, forcing the coracle to move through sheer strength of will.