Page 21 of The Prince

He was overconfident and boasting, with zero idea of who was actually part of the coup, Caro quickly realized. Toval mighthave joined Namin, but there was no way whatever was left of the king’s supporters would ever be able to best Braxton and Fen. Plus, if King Cyphus had fled from his bedroom, he likely didn’t know about their second, larger group invading the castle from the city.

“Prince Cadell is dead,” Caro replied, affecting an unconcerned shrug and hoping to enrage King Cyphus enough to perhaps make his own mistake. Caro might be locked up, but he was locked up with all his weapons. If he could dupe King Cyphus into unlocking that door, it was over. “You have no heir, and aside from me, the only other of your children to inherit the royal magic is Cybill, and she can barely even see imminent danger. She has no ability to see the present and therefore cannot rule this country. Without an heir, Namin is destroyed. The coup was successful.”

King Cyphus’s eyes narrowed and his lips thinned as anger set in, but then he gave his own unconcerned shrug, and his expression settled into his usual nasty smirk. “Do you have any idea how easy it would be to make a new heir? Women beg me for attention. They’ll be lining up in droves for the chance to bear the next heir to the throne.”

Caro scoffed, purposefully imparting as much disbelief as he could into the sound. “Please. The official report said she was sick, but we all know Cadell’s mother took her own life. My mother only begged for you to leave her alone. Cybill’s mother fled to another country. The list of women who couldn’t wait to escape you is far longer. Besides, you’re an old, decrepit waste of a human being. I doubt you have any virility left.”

King Cyphus let out a snarl full of rage and slammed the window shut, plunging Caro back into darkness. Caro waited, hand on his sword hilt, hoping to hear the thud of the bar being removed from the door. Long seconds passed, each feeling likean eon, but he heard nothing. Disappointed his idea had failed, Caro let out a sigh and sat down, the floor hard, cold stone under his butt.

He knew he was a fool. Running off without any sort of backup, with no way of anyone knowing where he had gone or why. He ought to have let the king flee, and then once he had a group gathered, used his magic to find him again. There was no need to sprint through the secret passages like Caro had, but some sort of battle madness had clearly taken him over. He hadn’t been thinking, just reacting, and now he was stuck in a dark hole until either rescue arrived or King Cyphus decided to kill him.

Self-recrimination wasn’t going to get him anywhere. And there unfortunately wasn’t anything he could actually do to escape. However, he could use his magic to see what was going on elsewhere, and perhaps gather information he could throw at the king the next time he wanted to chat in order to enrage him enough to open that door. It was worth a shot and certainly better than sitting in the dark beating himself up. Caro let out a breath and released his magic, suffusing the room in a golden glow as his third eye opened. He pushed, sending his consciousness out, away from his body. He closed his physical eyes and looked with his magical ones instead.

The hallway outside his cell was empty, no sign of the king or anyone else. Caro pushed farther out into the castle proper, which was teeming with people. Soldiers in groups of four, mixed groups wearing both the uniforms of Namin and Toval, were going door-to-door and room-to-room, and anyone they found was being gathered into a group and brought to either the throne room or one of the large servant’s halls. Some of the nobles were definitely less than enthused to be woken before noon and dragged out of their comfortable suites in theirbedclothes. Lots of shouting, and a few were struggling, but the soldiers didn’t bend. Every room was emptied and every person delivered to their meeting location. The beautiful, powerful woman Caro had met once, Captain Patricia Zain, stood in the entrance hall, giving out orders and listening to reports, her fierce scowl shutting down any arguments from the nobles being guided past her before they could start.

Caro didn’t see Braxton though. He directed his magic and zoomed through the halls in the direction of the royal wing, although he bypassed it and went into the secret passages. Thankfully, he found Braxton after only a few moments of searching. Braxton’s forehead was wrinkled in concentration, a deep V lowering his brows, but he looked determined and somehow even more beautiful than usual. He was part of a team of four exploring the hallway one story down from the royal apartment. Curious, Caro went up one flight to find Fen with his own group, exploring the cross hallway there.

“I think these passages might run through the entire castle,” Fen groaned out to one of his group members. “Hopefully, we’ll get more searchers soon!”

“As soon as they finish clearing the actual castle, I’m sure Zain will send more groups our way,” one of the men with Fen replied. Caro recognized him, but could only remember his name started with an R.

While their conversation was interesting, Caro much preferred to watch Braxton. He directed his magic to return to Braxton’s group.

“I’ll bet there are secret doors hidden all along these walls,” one of Braxton’s group members was saying when Caro reached them again. “There’s no telling what we might be missing behind them, but figuring out how to open each door would be impossible!”

“Thris seemed certain that any of the hidden doors led into actual rooms in the castle, which the other groups are searching. We might run into someone trying to escape this way, but we don’t need to open each door ourselves,” one of the other group members added.

The line between Braxton’s brows only deepened. The group continued on until they reached what appeared to be a dead end. The hidden door to one of the extra-large meeting rooms was there, but required knowing how to use a complicated lever to open it.

“Right. Let’s search the other side of the landing now,” Braxton said, turning and leading the group back down the hallway.

Caro clenched his teeth, desperately wishing he could reach out and grab Braxton and drag him down two flights of stairs and through the hall to the door with a bar locking it. Unfortunately, his magic only allowed looking, not touching. As frustrating as it might be, Caro was glad he at least knew Braxton was coming. He leaned his physical body against the wall in his cell to conserve energy and followed Braxton with his magic as he returned to the staircase and continued onward down the other side of the hall.

Minutes inched by, moving as quickly as a slug climbing a hill. Caro watched Braxton, his face pinched with worry and his eyes blazing with anger, and Caro relaxed. Braxton wouldn’t stop searching until he found Caro, and he was moving in the right direction. Only two floors to go, and Caro would be freed again. Of course, Braxton had to find Caro before the king returned, but Caro felt it safe to assume if the king knew search parties were looking through the secret passages, he would hide elsewhere. At least, Caro hoped that was the case.

Braxton was nearing the secret door Caro used to get into his small bedroom here in the castle, about halfway down this particular secret passage, when his magic suddenly flared. Gold flashed against the stone walls of his cell as Caro gasped and opened his eyes, jumping to his feet and dropping a hand on his sword hilt. He cast around the room, but didn’t see anything different. He didn’t hear anything happening outside the cell door either.

Caro gritted his teeth and tried to get his magic under control. He wanted to thrust it out, past the cell door to see where the danger was, but it slipped out of his control like water sliding between his fingers. And yet, strangely, the magic didn’t feel like a warning of danger. He didn’t have the normal feeling of panic or imminent attack in the focus. Rather, the magic seemed to be flaring with joy, as if it was a warning of welcome, which had never happened before.

“Is something good coming?” Caro asked aloud.

The magic flared one last time, bright and eye-searing, before finally settling as if expressing its pleasure that Caro understood its message. Since his own magic wasn’t supposed to be sentient, Caro swallowed hard. Still, the magic was designed to provide advanced warning, so maybe this was merely another aspect of it that had been forgotten. Or, more likely, that Caro had never been taught, since once he had gained control over the basics, the lessons had abruptly ended. Caro had always suspected he was magically the strongest of all his siblings, but the unwanted bastard could never be heir. By refusing to teach him, they prevented Caro from appearing to be stronger than Cadell. Although, Caro had only realized that in hindsight. At the time, losing those lessons had just compounded the hurt of everything else he had been enduring.

“Okay,” Caro said, closing his eyes and focusing on his magic. “What do you want to show me?”

The magic yanked his consciousness away, relentlessly tugging him through the castle and all the way to the main entrance courtyard outside. Sometime in the last hour, Captain Zain had moved out there and was currently scowling at two people riding in through the gate on horseback.

“Who are you and how did you get past the guards?” Zain’s voice boomed loud enough to be heard even over all the commotion, bringing the noise to an abrupt halt as everyone turned to look at the newcomers.

The taller of the two held out one empty hand. Green magic flared for a brief moment, before solidifying over that hand in the shape of the seal of Toval.

“I showed them this,” they replied. A deep hood covered the head, concealing any facial features, and the voice was androgynous, but Caro was certain Ama was the one speaking. At Braxton’s request, Ama had gone in search of a new ruler for Namin, someone who had the royal magic and who could take over as ruler of the country once the coup was complete. At the time, Ama’s face had gone suspiciously blank, as if he was concealing some sort of raging thoughts. His only response was, “I’ll see what I can do,” and the next morning he had vanished from the fortress.

That he had arrived so quickly, and with a companion, hopefully meant he was successful. Caro eagerly turned his attention to the smaller person. She had her hood up as well, but it draped over her curves enough to reveal her gender. And then graceful hands lifted, gripped the edge, and lowered the hood.

Golden blonde hair and brilliant blue eyes shone, and Caro’s gasp was echoed by many of the people in the courtyard. Shelooked to be in her late thirties or early forties, but from her looks, she could very easily have been Caro’s sister or aunt. The blood relation was blatant to anyone who had ever even glimpsed a member of the Namian royal family.

“My name is Carmillian, and I am the rightful Queen of Namin, returned from exile now that the false king has been removed from his stolen throne,” she called out, her voice clear and ringing. Her smile was gentle and full of understanding as she looked around at everyone assembled in the courtyard. “I don’t expect you to simply believe me, so let me prove it to you, for I am the true All-Seeing, the true All-Knowing. The past, present, and future all bare their secrets to me as they did to the rightful kings and queens of old.” Golden magic flared, and her third eye opened in the center of her forehead. The light grew and grew, until it was almost blinding in intensity. Even Caro’s spirit body squinted through the glare. As it finally started to dim, she turned and looked in the direction of where Caro hovered.

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