The Runaway King (Ascendance 2)

This time it was Roden who entered. The same two pirates who had chained me up came with him, and as before, several others waited in the doorway.

Roden folded his arms and stared icily at me. It was nothing new to have someone look at me with expressions of anger or dislike. But I didn’t like it coming from Roden. Back at Farthenwood, we had formed what I thought was a decent friendship. Then he became manipulated by Conner’s servant Cregan, to fulfill Cregan’s dark ambitions. Perhaps it was my own arrogance at work, but I found it hard to believe that Roden could hate me so much, just because I had the crown and he didn’t. In light of this, I thought it best to let him speak first, so I waited, eyes lowered.

He spoke first to Fink. “Erick claims he didn’t know who Sage was before. Did you?”

Fink shook his head, then said, “But I didn’t think he was a regular thief either. He was just different from the rest.”

Moving his attention to Erick, Roden narrowed his eyes. “Even the boy knew something was wrong. Neither of you leaves this room alive.”

The obvious exception to his words was me, which I found less than comforting. Whatever Roden wanted me left alive for, it wasn’t going to be good.

“Please,” Fink said, sniffing. I looked over and the kid was actually crying. “Please don’t hurt me. I’m only a child.”

“Stop that.”

“Please, sir.” Large tears rolled down Fink’s face. It was impressive, really.

Roden rolled his eyes, but the tears did their job and he softened. “I’ll think about it, all right? Just stop!”

“If you keep us alive, we can still prove ourselves.”

Roden cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah? How?”

“We’ll take care of Jaron for you.” Recovering a bit too quickly, Fink wiped his eyes and said, “Erick and I have a score to settle with him now.”

I nearly laughed. It was a good attempt by Fink to sound hateful toward me, but he didn’t pull it off well. Roden only shook his head at him. “Thanks, but I have my own plans for him.”

Which, unfortunately, I had already suspected.

Now Roden turned to me. “You ignored my threat last week.”

“Looks that way.”

“Did you think I wasn’t serious? That I couldn’t do everything I told you I would?”

“I knew you were serious,” I replied. “That’s why I had to come.”

“But you were looking for me before that. You sent Mott and Tobias all over Carthya to find me. Why?”

“I didn’t like the way things ended in that tunnel.” Roden and I had fought in a narrow passage beneath the castle on the night I returned there. If he had defeated me, he would have entered the castle and tried to claim the throne as Jaron. But it wouldn’t have worked. Roden never would’ve gotten far with Kerwyn and the fraud would have been exposed. At one point during our fight I had backed off when I could have killed Roden. There was a moment when I thought he had also backed off, though I had never been sure of that.

Roden chuckled. “You didn’t like how things ended? And how is that, with me alive?” His tone darkened. “I suppose you think you were merciful that night, allowing me to run. But you weren’t. You cursed me. Where else was I supposed to go to get away from you?”

“It would’ve been nice if you had chosen somewhere less dangerous,” I said. “You’re an even worse pirate than I am.”

In an instant, Roden’s face hardened and he backhanded me across the face. “We’re equals now, so you can’t talk to me like that. I’m as much of a king as you are.”

“Hardly,” I scoffed. “There’s no honor in being the king of the pirates. No glory, and no reward other than an eventual death at the hands of your own men.”

“Then I wonder why you’d take the trouble to come all this way and join us,” he said.

“You didn’t leave me much of a choice.”

“Or maybe you want to finish what we started in your gardens.” When I held my gaze on him he added, “I was there because you cheated before, that night you were crowned. You cheated to win that duel and cheated me out of the throne!”

When Roden and I fought that night, I had pretended to fall and lose my sword. But what I’d done wasn’t a cheat. It was a trick, yes, but Roden had no one to blame for falling for it except himself. Especially because I had warned him earlier it’s what I would do.

on as the pirates left, Fink started toward me but Erick grabbed his shoulder and held him back.