Page 193 of Settle Down, Princess

“You don’t know?” Roan looked him up and down. “Aren’t you supposed to be his heir?”

“The man shot his seed into the woman that bore me,” Silas replied, his lips thinning. “Apart from that, I know little more than anyone else, but…” He looked me over, those keen eyes catching the moment I flinched when Princess Rochelle appeared beside me. “A potential transfer of power? The palace is a good place to look for him, because he would have his fingers in this pie.”

“Aren’t you lucky that your little princess passed the inspection?” Rochelle said, baring her teeth at me. In reality, she’d been a picture of reserved dignity, but death had stripped her of that. “I had my skirts flipped and I was inspected like a horse at market day and then found lacking. I’d never touched another man.” Her look of disgust intensified. “I’d never wanted to until your ‘brother’ decided I’d make him the perfect wife, because my kingdom was too small, too powerless to strike back at him when he was done with me. I didn’t even get a chance to become queen…’

She stared off at some point beyond me, growing taller by the second, seeing something that I didn’t.

“I didn’t get a chance to do anything. I went from the doctor’s rooms straight to the executioner’s axe, right before he—”

Her words were cut off as her whole body stiffened, then I watched her head drop from her shoulders.

“At least her death was quick.” I turned to see Princess Helena standing there, staring down at the other ghost with pursed lips. She was the second, no, the third princess we escorted here. “He was at me for days.”

I knew this. I knew exactly what had happened to her. People couldn’t stop talking about it in the palace. In an environment hardened to his cruelty, the length and breadth of Magnus’ abuse of Helena was notable.

“He and that bitch, Giselle. She egged him on, then held him off, stopping him from finishing things—” she said, the bitterness in her voice like lemon juice being squeezed over a thousand cuts.

“I know,” I muttered.

“They gave me a temporary reprieve, made me think there was a way out of this—”

I raked my hand over my face, scrubbing at my eyes as if that would dispel the sight of so many bruises splotching her skin. It didn’t.

“I know,” I said again, dimly aware that the others were staring at me.

“He sent you away on ‘business’ once you delivered me and you went.” Helena moved to stand before me, but I kept moving, just like I had when she lived. “You left the castle. You left me.”

I walked through her then, because she wasn’t actually here. If there was any way to save her spirit from this prolonged pain, I would’ve done it gladly. Found where her body was dumped and laid her to rest on her home soil. Atone for my brother’s sins.

And mine.

As I walked on I saw more ghosts, more, some of women I didn’t even know, but the same look in their eyes, the same pattern of bruises on their skins created bonds of kinship between them.

“Brother…” Silas said, his touch bringing me back to the tunnel, the smell of dank earth and water that had pooled in the same spot for too long filling my nose as I sucked in one breath after the other. “Who are you talking to?” He cast a wary eye around the empty tunnel. “What’re you seeing?”

“The past…” That admission felt like it was torn from me. “The future.” But as I looked up I saw the wooden trapdoor inset into the ceiling a few feet in front of us, a rope ladder leading up to it. “But most importantly the present. What’s the bet that trapdoor will bring us behind the palace gates?”

“Before them, I reckon,” Silas corrected. “Father wouldn’t be giving the likes of Weasel access to tunnels that got him into the palace itself.”

“That means we’re likely to run into those lads that say they protect the king.” Roan drew his sword with a smile.

We knew exactly what those ‘lads’ were like, because once we were pulled from the army, we were placed among their number. Cruel, venal, they wouldn’t just turn a blind eye to whatever the king got up to with his women. No, these bastards discussed his exploits with relish. Magnus had to have scoured every cesspool, every stew to find a group of men as vicious as them.

And as poorly trained.

They faced few obstacles in the palace, their presence more as decorative displays of the king’s strength. They stood around and looked impressive, that’s what they did. Our attempts to stay sharp, to keep training every day was marked by derision and hilarity, right up until I challenged one of their number on the practice ground. Putting each contender on their arse didn’t establish anything other than resentment though. My hand gripped my sword hilt and when I looked back, I imagined I could see the shadowy shapes of all of Magnus’ victims standing in the darkness. Perhaps that lax attitude could be used against the king’s guard now.

A thin howl filtered through the tunnels, the sound muffled, but clear with his intent.

“That’s Creed!” Silas threw himself at the rope ladder, clambering up as quick as a monkey before thrusting the trapdoor open, revealing one of the garden beds set just outside the palace gates. “If he’s here—”

“Where is Jessalyn?” My teeth ground against each other, dismissing ghosts, the past, everything, in favour of now. “Not in the palace. She is not in the palace. She can’t be—”

“Only one way to find out,” Roan said, pulling himself up the ladder and after Silas.

Chapter 109

Creed

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