Page 100 of A War of Crowns

Aldric had only a few seconds at most to enjoy the moment, though, before laughter rang out through the courtyard, followed by a call of, “And here comes your replacement now, Crestley!”

Aldric swiveled a hard glance to his right until his left eye could take in the pack of noblemen loitering off that way. There were four of them.

“Who are they?” he asked Calix sidelong, though he kept his attention fixed on the four men. The prettiest of them glared back, though the other three were all smiles. Clearly, they found something amusing about the situation.

Him. He was what was amusing about the situation.

Calix muttered beneath his breath, “The pretty one is Tiberius Beaumont, the Baron of Crestley. The sickly looking one is Bennett Threston, son of the Duke of Coreto. I don’t know the other two.”

One of those names, Aldric knew. One of those names, the entire world knew.

Tiberius Beaumont, the Baron of Crestley.

The queen’s lover.

Crestley was tall, golden, and oozed with excess. The man wore more jewelry than even Edmund, and he dressed with all the flamboyance of a bard.

He now saw that the Queen of Elmoria had atype.

And it was the exact opposite of him.

“He is hardly a replacement,” Crestley snarled to his peers, disdain dripping from his every word. “Do not dare stand there and compare me to adwarf.”

Rakon grunted at the nobleman’s words. But Calix did far more than that.

Before Aldric could stop him, his second-in-command stalked off in that direction and announced, “You will refer to the Prince of Drakmor as His Highness, or you will not refer to him at all.”

Aldric took swift stock of the noble quartet. Only two of them were clearly armed, with rapiers belted at their hips—the peacock and the one with the sickly cast to his features.

In contrast, all of his men had live steel hidden somewhere on their persons. The palace guards had already confiscated their visible weapons aside from Aldric’s own. But a member of the Twelve Sons was never unarmed.

He liked their odds, should it come to blows.

But he was hoping it wouldn’t come to that. He was supposed to bebehaving, after all.

When Crestley sneered down at Calix and proclaimed, to the amused chuckles of his companions, “No one asked for your opinion, you Kunishisavage,” that hope was promptly dashed.

That was absolutely the worst possible thing anyone could have ever said to Calix Fitzjesmaine, the bastard son of a Drakmori border lord and the Kunishi shieldmaiden his father had once seduced.

At his side, Leif let loose with a low whistle, while Aldric shifted his weight to his right foot and reached back to grasp the glaive harnessed over his shoulder.

Calix’s response to the nobleman was immediate. Visceral. His anger roared to life with all the abruptness of a wildfire as he launched himself at Crestley with one of his many daggers suddenly within his hand. “I amnotKunishi,” he hotly denied with all his usual self-loathing.

Rakon sighed, “Thought we were supposed to be behaving, boss,” when Aldric unsheathed his glaive and turned it about so its sharp point was angled downward and behind him.

Without answering, he launched himself toward the growing madness.

“Calix!” Aldric called as he whipped the length of his polearm between the two men and swept his second-in-command backward from the queen’s favorite. “Calix,stop.”

But it was too late.

Blood had already been drawn.

“He cut me,” Crestley screamed, blood oozing down his cheek. “Hecutme.”

Setting his jaw, Aldric stepped between the nobleman and Calix and took up a defensive stance, his glaive held in a guard position.

But the baron ignored him. He had eyes only for Calix over Aldric’s shoulder when he snarled, “You’re going to hang for this, savage. You’re going tohang.Guards! Guards!”

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