Prince of Fools (The Red Queen's War 1)

“You’re too big a boy to be scared of the dark.” The fear in my voice convinced me I was better off keeping silent. I listened for any sound other than my own breathing, but none reached me.

I threw myself down into the pillow, pulled the sheets about me, and to distract myself from night terrors I concentrated on my last exchange with Sageous.

“The difficult way?” he had asked, as if surprised I would consider it. “The difficult way would be to complete the spell’s work for it. Each enchantment is an act of will that strives towards completion. The desires of the most powerful, when spoken, when enunciated along the paths that their art has graven within the fabric of what is, become like living things. The spell will twist and turn; it will change, consider, conspire until it achieves the aim that formed it.

“The spell is incomplete because the target remains. Destroy that target, and the enchantment, this curse that bends you to its own ends, will fade away.”

I had thought of the eyes behind that mask.

“Kill Snorri, you say?” The easy way did sound easier.

The eyes that had glittered behind the slits in that porcelain work of masquerade, those same eyes had watched me through my nightmares. My skin crawled with the possibility of that scrutiny even now. The linen sheets I held were a child’s protection, and even steel armour would offer no salvation against this horror. Kill Snorri?

“A simple matter that I can arrange for you, my prince.” Everything the heathen said sounded reasonable.

“No, truly, I can’t. He’s become something of a f—” I bit that off. “Something of a trusted retainer.”

Sageous had shaken his head, lines of text blurring before my eyes. “This is a madness you have fallen into, my prince. The barbarian has taken you prisoner—a hostage to his own fortunes—and drags you into terrible danger. A wise man, Lord Stoccolm, wrote of this many centuries ago. By degrees the prisoner comes to see his captor as a friend. You have fallen into his dream, Prince Jalan. Time to wake up.”

And lying there in the silent dark of that room, with nothing but two handfuls of sheets for protection from the conviction that the nameless horror from Vermillion stood watching at the foot of my bed, I did try to wake. I ground my teeth and tried either to sleep or to wake—but only the memory of Sageous’s voice offered any escape.

“You merely need ask King Olidan for his protection—I will carry the message—and come morning this Norseman will occupy a pauper’s grave down by the river. You will wake a free man, ready to return to the life you were snatched from. Free to take up your old ways as if nothing had happened.”

I had to admit it had sounded very tempting. It still did. But my tongue kept refusing the words. Perhaps that too was part of this Stoccolm’s disease. “But he’s . . . well, a loyal retainer.” And of course, whilst I may be a liar and a cheat and a coward, I will never, ever, let down a loyal retainer. Unless, of course, it requires honesty, fair play, or bravery to avoid doing so—or an act that in some other manner mildly inconveniences me. “I see your point . . . still, there must be another way. Can’t you do something? A man with your skills?”

Again the shake of the head, so slow and slight that you could almost believe the sorrow. “Not without great risk, my prince, to myself and to you.” He turned those mild eyes on me and I felt the draw of them immediately, as if at any moment he could pull me in to drown. “There is a third way. The blood of the person who placed the curse on you.”

“Oh, I couldn’t—” The thought of that old witch unmanned me almost as much as the creature at the opera did. “The Silent Sister is too cunning and Grandmother dotes on her.”

Sageous nodded as if expecting this. “She has a twin. One whom fate may place in your path. The blood of the twin will accomplish the same goal. It will quench the spell’s fire.”

“A twin?” It was hard to imagine two such monsters. The blind-eye woman had always seemed so singular.

“She is named Skilfar.”

“God damn it all!” I’d heard of Skilfar. And anyone you’ve heard of is trouble. That’s bankable wisdom, that is. The Wicked Witch of the North—I’m sure I’d heard Grandmother call her that, smiling as if she’d said something clever. “Damn it all.” Killing Snorri would be hard. I’d been happy to spend his life in the blood pits against the possibility of coin. But now I knew him and it put a different shine on things. In fact, it soured the whole business of the pits. All the men there had lives, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to enjoy the sport again knowing that. Life has ways of getting under your skin, spoiling your fun with too much information. Youth is truly the happiest time where we roll in the bliss of ignorance.