Page 77 of A War of Crowns

He remembered Edmund’s threats perfectly well.

“Then why must you test me?” Edmund scrubbed his fingers through his hair. “You are just like him, you know,” he muttered, flicking him a sidelong glance. “Father was always testing me, too.”

Aldric frowned.

Drawing himself up to his full height, Edmund clasped his hands behind his back. “I tell you I will kill your little forest nymph if you do not comply and yet,clearly, you do not believe me. Very well.” His brother tilted his head to the side and smiled. “Shall I send a Kingsguard to cut off one of her ears right now? Hmm? Will that sate you?” Edmund pursed his lips. “Which do you think she will miss the least? The left or the right?”

Aldric tightened his jaw. He fought to keep his face devoid of all expression. “I did not bring her,” he bit out through clenched teeth. “She is still at Blackrun.”

Edmund laughed at that assertion. “You’re a terrible liar, you know. Let me see.” His brother leaned in closer, eyes narrowed. “Have you hidden her in the camp with your mutts?”

“No.”

Edmund smiled again. “She is on your ship, then.”

“No,” Aldric snarled. “As I said, she’s at Blackrun.”

But he realized his mistake when his brother’s smile widened.

His pulse quickened, trilling out a warning in the moment before Edmund purred, “Well, there’s only one way to settle this once and for all, I suppose. Shall we go set fire to your ship and find out together?”

Aldric didn’t remember grabbing the dagger hidden within his left sleeve. But there it was all the same, gleaming in his grasp. Hepressed its tip against his little brother’s abdomen in unspoken warning and waited.

No doubt Edmund would call for the Kingsguard standing just outside the tent’s entrance. No doubt Aldric was moments away from imprisonment. Or execution.

And he didn’t care. He wasn’t just going to stand there and let thiswormthreaten the one person who actually cared for him. His Sons knew what to do if he didn’t return to the camp.

They would take care of her.

But Edmund didn’t call for his guards. He didn’t draw his own blade.

He simply sneered and withdrew from that nearness. “You disappoint me, Aldric,” his brother admitted while pouring himself another goblet of wine. “I was raised on stories of you, you know. The great Crow of Drakmor.” Edmund barked out a laugh. “Kunishi’s Bane, they called you.”

Aldric’s brow furrowed.

“Now, I see you’ve grownweak,” his brother spat in the midst of sinking back into his chair. “Old and weak. And here I had hoped you might be my ally in this. Especially since I am giving you such a great gift—”

“Gift?” Aldric echoed with a harsh laugh of his own. He slammed his dagger back into its place within the sheath strapped about his left forearm. “You wish me to paint my hands with the blood of that silly girl.”

“I am gifting youElmoria,” Edmund snarled. “So you can finally be a king, as you were born to be.”

Those words hung in the air between them, smoldering with the full weight of their siren’s song. A king, as he was born to be.

Yes. Hewasborn to be a king.

Drakmor’s king.

Aldric’s heart raced as he looked at his little brother. The pretender. The usurper. Edmund was born second.Edmundwas the spare. Not him.

He drew in a slow breath through his nose, trying to still the rising tidal wave of his anger. He reminded himself that Edmund had been just a boy. Only five years old. The fault lay not with him.

It lay with that vile mother of his. She was the serpent who had always been hissing in King Warwick’s ear, poisoning his father against him.

As if the viper herself had heard his thoughts, Charlotte Hargrave suddenly appeared. Her silhouette haunted the doorway leading deeper into the pavilion, her face cast in the harsh shadows thrown by the one lantern illuminating the room. Within her hands, she held a flat, slender box.

The sight of her was enough to boil his blood anew.

There stood the wench who had seduced his father. The villainess who had driven his mother to despair.

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