Page 128 of Settle Down, Princess

“Arik needed some time away from the machinations of the castle to see the world and how it worked. If it took the deaths of a few high born lasses to make him see the way of things, so be it.”

It was useless to protest. My father wasn’t like everyone else, seeing another person as a living, breathing being with sentience and a right to live without pain. They were just pieces on a game board and when I played chess with him, he always mocked my reluctance to sacrifice pawns. I wanted to win with as many pieces as possible still on the board, but he would frequently get to the point of having only the king and queen left and still win the game.

“And now he has…” I swallowed hard, knowing giving my father even an inch was a mistake, but the words came anyway. “For Jessalyn. If you allow anything to happen to her, I can tell you what will happen.” My hands slapped down on the desk, nails digging into the finely polished surface even as I longed for the feel of my knives in my hands. “The only way I’ll ever become Raven is to take you on in a duel and cut your head from your shoulders, but I’ll do it. Your head will be set on a spike outside the castle walls, staring out blindly across a world you used to rule, the flies laying maggots in your eye sockets.”

This was the moment when he clicked his fingers, summoning men from the shadows to put me down for my insolence, but instead my father managed to surprise even me. His bark of a laugh echoed around the entire room, filling it, making clear how seriously he took my threat, right before he calmed and faced me.

“I need to meet this Jessalyn.”

“Over my dead fucking body,” I growled.

“A woman that broke the Bastard Prince out of his interminable funk? That would be enough to intrigue me, but one that has caught your heart as well?” He inspected me slowly, smiling when his eyes landed on my hands wrapped around the hilts of my knives. I didn’t even realise I’d reached for them until he noted that. “Does she know?’

“Know what, Father?” I snapped that out, but the tremor in my voice did me no favours.

“About your preoccupations. A pretty princess like that, she’d need lessons on how to wield a knife just the way you like. Perhaps I can have her brought to me, introductions made between her and someone like Rose.”

Rose was the first one to help me explore my obsession with knives sexually. She was this fascinating mix of sultry seductress and calm, centred teacher, showing me what to do and how to do it without killing myself or my partners. She vetted each one of the girls I played with after that, not letting them come near the son of the Raven until she was certain they knew what they were doing. I’d told her one day, before I met Arik, that I thought she would make a perfect wife for the future Raven.

“If your sister asked me, I might say yes.” I’d blinked as she smoothed a strand back from my face. “Boys are fun to play with, but women…” I was all of seventeen, so being called a boy rankled, which only made her laugh more. “There is a complexity, a depth there that calls to me. You understand.” She’d held my gaze for what felt like a long time. “The idea of tying yourself to someone who doesn’t understand you completely is repellent, yes?”

It was only now that I understood what she was trying to tell me. Not about the strange arrangement she and my sister maintained, despite Selene’s outward appearance of being a devout sister of the temple, but the last part. Of being understood, seen, in all your glory and indignity, both the low and highs of you. I would surf the wave of each and every one of those Jessalyn possessed, but… I pulled my hands away from my knives. Would the princess feel the same about me when she saw me truly as I was?

“You will never bring Jessalyn here, or I will burn this and every other establishment you own to the ground.”

Father’s eyebrow jerked up, but he sucked on his cigar and then exhaled lazy circles of smoke.

“Fair enough. She serves her purpose where she is anyway. An incitement to spur you lot into action and… She has delivered a very valuable parcel into your sister’s hands.”

I frowned. None of us had gone through the princess’ bags because that was a step too far. It was bad enough we had been escorting her to her death.

“What… parcel?”

“Missed that, did you? You’re getting soft, boy. They say the army makes a man out of you, but I’ve yet to see the evidence of it. The mamas of the various royal families across the continent have grown tired of King Magnus’ hijinks, no longer willing to sit by and wait for him to select one of their daughters to use as a whip to flog the Bastard Prince. I may have circulated a list of desirable poisons and hallucinogens through the various Guild chapter houses around the continent. Ones far too expensive, too far flung or exotic for me to purchase from here. Temple gossip is that the ladies have come through, getting me everything I need. Slow acting poisons that will take a man’s bladder control, then his bowels, even his ability to walk.”

Father’s smile widened.

“Hallucinogens that rob a man of his senses, but not instantly. At first there will just be a feeling of euphoria, but that will quickly sour. Small illusions will appear and disappear, the king now plagued by strange dreams, when awake as well as asleep. If these lordlings manage to kill the king, well, good for them. I have a veritable king’s ransom in poisons to add to my collection, but—”

“Selene’s involved.” My eyes flicked across the desk top, but I wasn’t seeing the finely carved surface. “That’s why she was at the castle, why the doctor was ‘indisposed’.”

“You didn’t think I was doing that out of the goodness of my heart, did you? Gods, boy, you have been away for too long.”

Not long enough, it seemed.

I lay in my bed later, tossing and turning as I sought sleep, I was up as soon as I caught the first grey fingers of dawn.

“Get up.” Roan frowned, squirmed on the bed, and then went to roll over, so I tossed a pillow at his face. “Get up, both of you!”

“What now?”

Arik seemed as resigned as he was bleary eyed, as if nothing I could say would surprise him.

“My father used Jessalyn as a means to transport some of the most lethal and rare poisons in the world to the capital.” Both of them went perfectly still, as if that’s what it required to hear my words. “The Raven will be happy if the duke manages to kill the king on the hunt, but that plan is merely a salve to the lordlings’ pride. He plans to poison the king slowly, stripping him of his faculties.”

“And who will put his plan in place?” Arik asked, but we both knew. We turned to stare at Roan.

“Desiree?” I was very familiar with the curious mixture of despair and disbelief in his voice. I’d heard it often enough when at my father’s work. “No, not my fucking sister. Silas—!”

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