Page 13 of The Prince

“We’ve met,” Shairon said dryly, winking at Caro and giving Braxton an impish grin.

“Oh, no,” Braxton said, his tone only half joking.

“In the garden yesterday,” Caro explained.

“Yes, we had a lovely chat,” Shairon cut in. She leaned back to let the servant place a small bowl of what looked like cooked fruit to Caro’s very untrained eye in front of her. When she leaned forward again, she was mock scowling at her brothers. “Why did I have to corner him in the garden to meet him? I should have been introduced ages ago.”

The servant returned, placing bowls in front of Braxton first and then Caro. Hungry, Caro reached for his spoon, only remembering as his fingers touched the cool metal that he ought to wait for the king and queen to eat first and neither of them had started yet. Except a whoosh of magic ran through him, tingling from where his fingers touched the spoon up to his third eye. Danger had just entered his passive magical awareness.

“Don’t eat!” Caro gasped out, his mouth moving even before his brain could connect the dots. He moved his hand from the spoon to the bowl of fruit thing and suddenly his vision gained a gold sheen. “Something’s wrong with the food.”

A crunch noise sounded, followed by a thud. Braxton jumped to his feet, followed by Fen, both of their chairs hitting the ground with twin bangs. Caro slowly turned to look, his heart beating in his throat. The body of the servant who had brought the fruit to the room twitched where it had fallen before lying still, white foam flecking the sides of his mouth. Braxton appeared completely calm as if he encountered things like this every day, and then he tilted the head to the side to look behind the ear.

“Not one of those Tri-people,” he said with a shake of his head. “Just another regular spy.”

Caro let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding and pressed his hands flat against the table to still their shaking. This attack on the royal family wasn’t his fault. At least, not entirely.

“Did you eat anything?” Shairon asked her son, who was sitting in a special chair on her far side.

“No, Mummah.”

Shairon let out her own relieved breath before turning to the rest of the table. “How did they sneak poison into our food? Don’t we pay that Musen chef an exorbitant amount of money to prevent this?”

Char had been stirring his bowl, frowning as he carefully mixed the cooked fruit in sauce. He scooped up a small amount on his spoon and licked the edge where the juices were threatening to drip.

“Mushrooms. Who would think adding mushrooms to a bowl of fruit is a good idea?” Char exclaimed, sounding mortally offended, but when he looked up at Fen, his eyes were serious. “It’s the same fool’s mushrooms Roe used when she tried to kill us. Presuming we didn’t notice something as ridiculously obvious as mushrooms mixed in fruit compote, we would have noticed when we all collapsed and died in a few hours, too late for a healer to save us. Because of the elapsed time, we would never be able to pinpoint exactly where the poison had come from. But,” he added, looking at Shairon and then over to the king, who was frowning, the line between his eyebrows a deep crevasse. “I don’t believe this compote came from my cousin’s kitchen. Look at the consistency. They tried to use cornstarch to thicken this, rather than cooking it properly, which tells me it was made quickly and in secret. Besides, I’ve eaten breakfast in here with you enough times to know it usually comes with cloches and tea and multiple servants. I suspect our actual meal is still on its way, with Terrance’s minimalist efforts fully engaged as usual.”

“I believe Char has a point,” King Aurelius said, still frowning. His eyes had appeared to be a lovely green blue, rather than the hazel of the queen and all their children, when Caro entered the room, but they were shaded to a deeper green by his lowered brows as his frown grew. “I am also wondering what their larger plan was. Killing the entirety of the royal family would have destabilized Toval, but not irrevocably. My cousin, Pauline, Duke Lefoile, would have become queen, and she would have very successfully kept Toval together while enacting revenge for our deaths.”

“So either this was a crime of opportunity, where this servant saw his chance and took it, or there’s a larger plan at work.” Queen Trina finished.

“Exactly,” Aurelius said with a nod. “Fen, find some people you know you can trust to remove this body and safely dispose of this concoction in complete secrecy. Braxton, summon a servant to retrieve Healer Alina to come see Prince Caro. She comes to this wing regularly, so her presence wouldn’t seem odd, and we can ensure none of us have been poisoned this morning without giving away that we know about this plot.”

He paused and looked slowly around the room, catching everyone’s eyes in turn with his own. When he reached Caro, Caro was grabbed by the intensity King Aurelius exuded, as if there were magnets hidden in the pupils of his green eyes. Charismatic, a drawing pull that he had definitely passed down to Braxton since Caro felt the same thing when Braxton looked at him with similar levels of intensity. And yet, there was nothing accusatory about it, nothing angry or suspicious. He was simply including Caro with the rest of his family, gauging his willingness to participate and welcoming him into their plan to combat this plot.

“Char, you are certain this is a slower-acting poison?” When Char nodded, Aurelius continued. “Healer Alina will tell us when this poison would have killed us. I suggest we all disappear from public view at about that time and see what, if anything, might crawl out of the woodwork. And we should be prepared to squish whatever that might be,” he added, a slow grin brightening his face.

The grin was echoed by all four of Aurelius’s children and his wife. Fen and Braxton left the room, and Char followed, saying something about delaying the kitchens for long enough as he went. Caro huddled in his chair, wishing there was something more he could do to help stop Namin from constantly targeting this wonderful family.

Shairon stood and walked over to him, bending and wrapping her arms around him. “Thank you,” she whispered into his ear. “Thank you so much for saving my family.”

“It wasn’t me. It was my magic. It’s automatic when I’m threatened.” Caro shrugged, but he reached up and gripped her wrists where her hands rested across his chest.

“You could have stayed quiet, but instead you chose to save us. Thank you, Caro. Thank you so much.”

Interlude

BRAXTON FOLLOWED FENinto the hallway, but while Fen vanished through a secret door behind a convenient painting, heading through the secret passages to obtain the help he needed, Braxton went to Caro’s room. Once inside, he quickly closed the door between the bedroom and sitting room, lowered the shades in the sitting room to imply Caro hadn’t yet left the bedroom, and then yanked on the bellpull to summon a servant.

“Prince Caro isn’t feeling well this morning,” Braxton lied when the servant arrived. “Please have Healer Alina summoned, but quietly,” he admonished. “No need to worry anyone else.”

“At once, Your Highness.” The servant bowed and hurried off.

Braxton collapsed onto the couch to wait, sighing as he tipped his head back against the cushions and trailed his fingers along the beautiful quilt Caro had clearly fallen in love with.

What a day, and all before breakfast.

As horrible as it sounded, Braxton knew he focused more on the uniform than on the face when it came to the servants who worked in the castle. There were hundreds of them, and they were all paid well, with food, clothes, and housing also provided. But they were completely interchangeable. Braxton was alwayspolite to the servants who kept the building running in ways even he didn’t understand, and he certainly expressed his thanks for all their hard work. However, he couldn’t provide a name or any additional information about the servant he had just sent to the healing ward, and that was unacceptable. Things would have to change if they were going to ensure a trusted and trustworthy cadre of servants continued to work in the royal wing. The pay and benefits might keep many of them happy, but being treated as little better than a warm body, completely exchangeable with any and every other servant in the building, did not engender much appreciation of those being served. Feelings of resentment would fester—highly exploitable by enemies like Namin. Fostering a different environment was going to take a lot of effort but was definitely worth it. Without Caro there today…Braxton shuddered.

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