Page 41 of Nightingale

Her mind floated back to Castil.

By this point, he had to know that she was gone.

Did the King of Carylim know, too?

He had to have returned from his trip by now and would have found his favourite son missing, as well as his pretty prisoner. They should be keeping an eye out for Carylim soldiers hot on their heels, even if they were three or four days ahead. She wouldn’t put it past the sovereign either to send men after them.

Would Castil take up the lead?

He seemed the sort to take some sort of sick enjoyment out of hunting them down, even if it was his own brother. Maybe he’d move up the line of succession with a stab in the back, even if Rian was around six years younger or so. Vrea ran over the idea of Brioc and Regulus attacking the redhead and stealing the spot of the Golden Heir.

She was honestly surprised that none of them had yet since the King was nothing if not obvious in his devotion towards the male. Vrea was confident that she was her mother’s treasured child, but that was because Queen Casta hated men, regardless of if they came from her loins or not. Even her brothers joked about how long they would live; going so far as to place bets on how long they’d live for. It was morbid, but also hilarious enough that she set one on her own lifespan.

One that she’d outlived already, but undoubtedly her siblings thought her to be dead. The Carylimian King didn’t let on if he’d sent any letters to Niroula to plead for her trade, but she highly doubted he’d let her rot away in the chamber without any reason or attempt to negotiate her release with her mother.

A sudden thought struck her dumbfounded.

In all her time in Hawksmoor Keep, she’d never once overheard the King’s name. She couldn’t recall it from any of the texts she’d poured over in her studious research beforeinfiltrating the castle in either of her tries, nor did any of his sons mention his official name.

My father.

The King.

The sovereign of Carylim.

Vrea had only ever heard Castil call him as such, trying to think over any time with any of the sons as well before she inquired about it with Rian.

She snuck a peek towards him, only to find his eyes closed as he rested his back on the end of the horse, hands tucked under his head in a makeshift pillow as he took a fast nap. There was no reasonable way that it was actually comfortable, but any amount of sleep would be appreciated by either of them.

There was no name in her memory, no sign of the first letter than it began with, and a strange feeling filled her lungs like water as if she were drowning.

“Rian,” She called to him, his body jerking up as he rotated to see her better. He didn’t rise fully to his normal height, but blinked a couple times.

“Hmm?” The male flicked a stray piece of auburn out of his vision.

“What’s your father’s name?”

He didn’t answer which struck her as odd.

She twisted in the saddle to look at him, only to find him staring directly up at the cloudy sky.

“I-” He stumbled, fingers lacing over his wide chest. “I don’t know.” He sounded surprised in himself, as if it should be something he could easily answer instead of pausing to pass it over in his head. “He’s never told us and I don’t believe I’ve ever heard anyone mutter it before, servants in the shadows included. I don’t think evenCastilknows, and he’s the one that likes to know everything.”

“That doesn’t seem like something someone should hide.”Vrea concluded, “Even for a King.”

“Something for me to look into when I return from Nirouola, then.”

She didn’t respond, didn’t let him know that there was almost no chance that he’d be leaving Niroula again. Everything inside of her screamed that he’d be forced on his knees, a silver collar slapped around his neck and donned in the ramients of a Niroulian slave. Something low in her stomach felt nauseous at the idea of that sort of imprisonment, especially when the first week was the worst. Her brothers Alpheus and Eamin took turns beating the new additions into the help, until they took every ounce of will from them, until they were a broken shell that didn’t try to rebel, didn’t try to flee or escape. If they lasted longer than two years without any incident, then often they were given more freedom, depending on how high in the Carylim stature they stood.

Men from the war often turned sides, happily working for Casta and her heirs after years of servitude, finding freedom at the end if they earned it. But the royals, the heirs of Carylim, would never find freedom at the end of the chain. Daria had been the only one they’d managed to capture before, and Vrea hurled her stomach contents up after Eamin had his way with her.

She’d asked her brother in confidence to retreat from the first trial conditions, to leave her alone instead of decorating her in the bruises that the newest slaves were supposed to wear in honour, in pride. But he’d shoved her away and growled at her like some sort of mad beast, shouting that she shouldn’t have an ounce of pity for any of the Moordians, regardless of what lay between their legs.

Daria had shaken so violently as Eamin had entered her cell, the dusty square chamber with no windows or bars. Just a door that locked them away from the outside world and any company.

The walls were thick, but not thick enough.

Her splintering screams could have been heard at the tallest spire of the palace. And when she’d been forced to emerge after seven days and seven nights, the bruises were imprinted in places that could only mean one thing. A punishment that usually wasn’t inflicted on anyone, and Eamin had acted as though he’d stepped up a peg on the pole of succession afterwards, which confirmed Vrea’s worst thoughts.

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