Page 28 of Nightingale

“I would never think you stupid, Cas.”

“Then what are you doing helping her?”

“Because I can get to her family.” He shifted a look towards the locked closet where Vrea slept. The walls were thick enough that she wouldn’t be able to hear their conversation, but they spoke in hushed voices as a precaution. The Princess was a tricky little thing, after all.

“Because I can end this damned war at long last and she’s the key to it all.” He added.

Castil studied him for a moment, silent as if he could find some answer to whatever question he was mentally pondering. It was unnerving, intruding and a touch chilling as Rian knewwhyhe looked at him that way.

As he knewwhyCastil cared so much about this.

“And how did you manage to convince her to let you join along for this ride?” His sentence was short, clipped, but still as regal as the White Knight himself.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Tell me.” He pushed.

“No,” Rian shoved the last shirt in his bag, searching for a couple pairs of trousers next. “How do I know that you won’t run to our King and spill everything I’ve shared with you in this room?”

Because even if he’d sired them all, regardless of which woman bore them in the end, he was their King first.

“How do I know thatyouwon’t do the same with the information I’vealreadyhanded over? Our siblings know quite a bit because of you, if not everything.” His brother interrogatedhim as if they were enemies, which he supposed they were in most cases. “Everything I’ve shared with you is a sensitive matter, one that could have my head in a noose if you opened your mouth about it.”

Rian heard regret there.

“I wouldn’t.” He shook his head, “Trust in this family is scarce and I don’t plan on breaking your confidence.”

“Trust doesn’texistin this family.” Castil corrected, dragging a strand of blond over his shoulder and toying with the straight ends. It had always been down his back, for as long as Rian had been alive. He never wore it up, never tucked it into a full braid, never cut it.

He continued as he ran his hands through it. “But you haven’t thought this through, not in the slightest. She could plunge a stolen dagger in your back when you’re not looking or poison your food. She could leave you to fend for yourself against the Blacklegs.”

The massive spiders that roamed in the east.

The ones known for devouring humans whole and spitting out their bones, melting their flesh right off of them with their acid breath if the stories were to be believed. Rian and Vrea would need to sneak past the massive spiders if they had any hopes of making it to Niroula. The tales said that they lurked in their massive caves and only came out for a meal at night. Their legs were twice the size of any human, with viciously jagged teeth to match.

“You know,” Rian began quietly, “I don’t have any threat to you, since I’m the last heir of our father. Only Daria was below me, and she’s gone now thanks to the Greenvasses. I thought you out of all people would have wanted me to put an end to this war.”

“Why?” Castil asked softly.

Rian tossed two pairs of pants into the bag, not caring wherethey ended up. It would all get jumbled on the ride there anyways. “Because of how many of them you’ve killed on the battlefield. Because of how many of us they’ve killed in return. Do I need to go on?”

“I’m older than you bysixyears. I’ve had more time to kill, more fights that I’ve been shoved into. Don’t credit me with those kills when it was either that I survived by staining my hands red, or that I died by the blade of someone else.” He ground out, frustration clear in his sharp features. His cheekbones looked as if they could cut glass alone, as did his jaw. “I’m not so willing to die easily, like Theseus did.”

“Vrea killed him,” Rian said, buckling his bag closed and tossing it by the door. “By dressing as a servant and adding poison to his food. He wasn’t exactly looking for trouble and found it anyway. I wouldn’t call that easy, just unsuspecting. Weren’tyouthe one that executed the man blamed for her crimes until another stepped forward?”

Castil flinched but ignored his question, finding other things in his statement to focus on.

“Remind me again why you’ve decided to trust her?” He asked, having moved out of the way as the bag tumbled to a stop right before his polished knee-high boots. “Considering she’spersonallyresponsible for Theseus, and don’t forget that she was caught trying to get intoyourroom, to killyou?She’s a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield, let alone travelling while alone.”

“You almost sound like you admire her.” Rian snorted in amusement, rotating on his flat heel to face Castil. “Oh wait, that’s right. Youdo.”

“Enough.” Castil’s cheek jumped, muscles flexing in his neck. “I think it’s admirable how she never gave up. A fighter, through and through. You know my feelings regarding her situation and howfuckedup this entire war is. If her parents didn’t force herinto this, didn’t breed for the sake of adding moreweaponsto their already large arsenal of heirs, then she wouldn’t have been here in the first place.”

He let out a puff of tight air that held a fraction of his frustration. “And is that more or less fucked up than our parents forcing us to fight each other? To kill in order to get to the throne?”

“Theirs do it too.” Castil reminded him with a sing-song tone of warning. “It’s a mess, on both sides. I admire you for wanting to put a stop to it all, however I don’t think you’re the right man for the job. Nor do I entirely buy your reasoning, considering everything that you do know.”

He held his siblings’ stare, locked in with the icy grey eyes that were almost molten silver.

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