Page 32 of The Uncrowned Prince

A single shove sent the two men in his grip staggering forward, and even in their outrage, they seemed to recognize they’d bitten off more than they could chew.

Grasping their companion’s arms, they pulled him off the floor and dragged him towards the door. As they passed, Vaniell reached out swiftly to pluck his string from around the man’s ankles, wondering how many of the onlookers had seen it.

Jarek, certainly, judging from his expression. But thankfully, as was often the way in such establishments, the moment the situation was resolved, everyone else went back to their meals or their ale, steadfastly refusing to acknowledge that anything had ever happened. It wasn’t their problem, and therefore they wanted nothing to do with it.

“Your friend was awfully quick to run,” Jarek observed, crossing the floor to pull Vaniell to his feet.

“She’s not my friend, exactly,” Vaniell muttered, wincing as the motion drew a stab of pain from his ribs. “We’re… allies. And I suspect she’s chasing down the man who fled.”

After a quick glance around the room, Jarek gestured for Vaniell to follow him and led the way to the kitchen behind the bar. The space was neat and almost painfully clean—each pot and utensil sparkling in its place—which somehow did not surprise Vaniell very much. Jarek struck him as the type who preferred order and control, and would frown on anything that disturbed it.

When they were out of earshot of the other patrons, he pinned Vaniell with an assessing gaze.

“You know him, then?”

Vaniell shook his head. “I didn’t recognize him, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t know me. He was babbling about some pretty dangerous things though, so I don’t doubt that he’s running scared from something.”

“But that something isn’t you.” It was not a question, but how Jarek had arrived at that conclusion, Vaniell wasn’t sure.

“I have enough enemies for three lifetimes,” Vaniell assured him wearily. “I neither need nor desire to collect more. Whatever he has against me, I have no personal knowledge of. Perhaps he’s mistaken me for someone else.”

But he hadn’t.

He sent you… The queen told me and now she’s dead. He’s going to kill us all and there’s nothing we can do…

There was only one person the drunk man could have been talking about. The King of Garimore. And the queen of Iria was indeed dead, but what had she told the man in the blue robe before she was killed? How was he so sure that the man they knew as Melger was responsible?

You did it, didn’t you? You wielded the knife for him…

Not this time. Even if the King of Garimorewasresponsible, it had not been Vaniell’s doing. But the accusation echoed with the pain of all those times hehaddone the king’s bidding, and others had suffered for it.

“I doubt he was mistaken,” Jarek said quietly, his eyes fixed on Vaniell’s face. “The insignia on his robe makes him a part of the ambassadorial staff, and you’re not that difficult to recognize… Your Highness.”

The title sank in like a knife. He was not that man anymore. He didn’t know exactly who he was, but never again would he pretend to be a Prince of Garimore.

Though at least Jarek’s information made sense of why the man in blue had recognized him. At some point in the past, the Irian official must have visited Garimore. But how recently? And what had he meant by the words, “I escaped”?

Perhaps Karreya would find answers, but for now, Vaniell needed to ensure that his anonymity was still safe.

“Whatever you think you know,” he told Jarek, “I would ask you to forget. Here and now, I am Niell.”

Jarek folded his arms and tilted his head slightly. “And who is Niell?”

Niell was many things. A man broken by his failures, haunted by his mistakes, and driven by an impossible task. One without friends, hiding from everyone who knew him, kicked in the teeth by the family he loved most. Crushed by the weight of a threat only he could see.

“Niell is nothing and no one,” he said. “Just an ordinary man.”

CHAPTER8

Karreya’s quarry was actually quite fast—at least for a drunk man in a dress.

Not too fast for her to keep up, though, so for a few blocks she merely followed him, wondering where he might lead and what he might know.

He seemed to think he knew who ordered the death of the Irian king, and none of his statements had been a lie. But he’d also been convinced the assassin was Niell, which did not give her much confidence in the accuracy of his assumptions. Even her magic was no help in a case like this—all she could tell for certain was that he believed in the truth of what he was saying.

For a time, the man simply ran. His path seemed panicked and aimless, but after a while he appeared to come to his senses and pause to look around, wide-eyed and breathing hard. Each glance he threw over his shoulder was twitchy and fearful, as though he expected the shadows to vomit forth assassins at every turn.

And they might, eventually. Just not yet. Not until she determined whether there was anything to be learned from his behavior.

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