Falling Kingdoms (Falling Kingdoms 1)

Amia’s breath hitched and she cast a look at him. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “No one. I spy for no one. I’m just a stupid girl who eavesdrops for her own entertainment.”

Magnus’s chest tightened.

He didn’t underestimate his father. The king took great pleasure in playing with prisoners, male or female. He had a taste for blood that could never be sated. It had been born in him. Magnus’s grandfather, who’d died when Magnus was only a small child, had been disappointed that his son and heir had such a wide sadistic streak. The former king of Limeros had been known to be kind and gentle. Though even the kindest and most gentle king had a torture chamber in their castle’s dungeon.

“I grow bored.” Magnus forced the words out. “I’m not sure why you made me stop sword practice for this meaningless matter. The girl is a fool, obviously, with a simple mind. But harmless. If this is her first offense, this should be enough to scare her. Should she be caught again, I’ll cut out her eyes myself.”

The king glanced at him, a smile curling the side of his mouth. “You’d do that? And could I watch?”

“I would insist that you do.”

The king took the girl’s face between his fingers, squeezing hard enough to bruise. “You’re very lucky that I agree with my son. See that you behave. If you step out of line once, just once, whether it’s eavesdropping or merely breaking a plate, I promise that you’ll be back here. And your eyes will be the very least that you’ll lose. Do you understand?”

She inhaled shakily. “Yes, your majesty.”

He patted her cheek. “Good girl.” Then he glanced at the guards. “Before you send her back to work, give her twenty lashes to ensure she doesn’t forget.”

Magnus left the tower with his father and forced himself not to cast a single glance back at the girl. Her sobs echoed off the stone walls all the way down to the ground floor.

“My son.” The king put his arm around Magnus’s shoulders. “Such a gentleman. Even to the lowliest kitchen whore.”

When he laughed, Magnus made sure to join in.

• • •

The next day, when his father had gone out on a hunt, Magnus found Amia in the kitchen mashing the distasteful kaana for their dinner while the head cook butchered a half-dozen chickens. The girl’s face was bruised black and blue, her right eye swollen shut.

She tensed when she noticed Magnus standing there.

“I said nothing,” she whispered. “You have no right to be angry with me.”

“It was stupid of you to get caught.”

She turned back to her work. Her shoulders shook with her sobs. How this girl had survived so long in the Limerian castle, he honestly didn’t know. There was no steel inside her. No ice. No hardness at all. He was frankly surprised that a violent beating and twenty lashes hadn’t killed such a weak, soft girl outright. That she was still standing was a shock to him.

“I didn’t expect you to speak up for me,” she said quietly.

“Good. Even if he’d taken that knife to your eyes, I wouldn’t have tried to stop him. No one tells my father what he can and can’t do. He does as he pleases. And anyone who gets in the way is trampled.”

Amia didn’t look directly at him. “I have much left to do for dinner. Please let me get back to work, your highness.”

“No. You’re finished here. Permanently.”

He grabbed her wrist and roughly pulled her along with him out of the kitchen and along the halls of the castle. He listened to her sobs. She likely thought that he was taking her back to the tower for more abuse—at his hand this time. Even so, she didn’t struggle.

Finally, when they’d emerged into the cold late afternoon air, he let her go. She staggered back from him and looked around, uncertain. Her gaze fell on the horse-drawn wagon waiting nearby.

“You’re leaving,” he said. “I’ve instructed the driver to take you east. There’s a well-populated village fifty miles from here that will make a good home for you.”

Her mouth gaped open. “I don’t understand.”

Magnus placed a sack of gold in her hands. “This should be enough to last you for a few years.”

“You’re sending me away?”

“I’m saving your life, Amia. My father will kill you. Soon enough, he’ll find a reason, no matter how small, and I’ll have to be a part of it. Watching you die doesn’t interest me. So I want you to leave and never return.”

She stared at the heavy sack she now held, her brows drawn together. Clarity entered her expression and her gaze snapped to his. “Come with me, my prince.”