Kings Rising (Captive Prince 3)

The third came, death in steel shearing through Makedon’s neck.

‘Stop!’

Laurent’s voice cut across the fight, ringing with unmistakable command.

Makedon was gone. Laurent was there instead. Laurent had wrenched Makedon backwards to hit the dirt, and Damen’s sword was driving towards Laurent’s exposed neck.

If Damen had not obeyed, his whole body reacting to that ringing command, he would have severed Laurent’s head from his body.

But the instant that he heard Laurent’s order, instinct reacted, wrenching every sinew. His sword stopped a hair’s breadth from Laurent’s neck.

Damen was breathing hard. Laurent had pushed his way alone onto the makeshift battleground. His men, racing after him, had stopped on the perimeter of onlookers. The steel slid against the fine skin of Laurent’s neck.

‘Another inch and you rule two kingdoms,’ said Laurent.

‘Get out of my way, Laurent.’ Damen’s voice ground in his throat.

‘Look around you. This attack is cold-blooded planning, designed to discredit you with your own people. Do

es Makedon think like that?’

‘He killed at Breteau. He wiped out a whole village at Breteau, just like this.’

‘That was retaliation for my uncle’s attack on Tarasis.’

‘You would defend him?’ said Damen.

Laurent said, ‘Anyone can notch a belt.’

His grip tightened on his sword, and for a moment he wanted it to cut into Laurent. The feeling rose in him, thick and hot.

He slammed the sword back into its sheath. His eyes raked Makedon, who was breathing unevenly, looking from one to the other of them. They had been speaking quickly, in Veretian.

Damen said, ‘He just saved your life.’

‘I should give him my thanks?’ Makedon said it, sprawled in the dirt.

‘No,’ said Laurent, in Akielon. ‘If it were left to me, you’d be dead. Your blunders play into my uncle’s hands. I saved your life because this alliance needs you, and I need this alliance to overthrow my uncle.’

The air smelled like charcoal. From the deserted patch of high ground that he strode to, Damen could see the whole sweep of the village. A blackened ruin, it looked like a scar on the earth. On the eastern side, smoke was still rising from rubble-strewn dirt.

There was going to be a reckoning for this. He thought of the Regent, safe in the Akielon palace at Ios. This is cold-blooded planning designed to discredit you with your own people. Does Makedon think like that? Kastor didn’t think like that either. This was someone else.

He wondered if the Regent felt the same furious determination that he did. He wondered how he could be confident that he could deliver cruelty like this, over and over again, without consequences.

He heard footsteps approaching, and let them draw up beside him. He wanted to say to Laurent, I always thought I knew what it felt like to fight your uncle. But I didn’t. Until today, it was never me he was fighting. He turned to say it.

It wasn’t Laurent. It was Nikandros.

Damen said, ‘Whoever did this wanted me to blame Makedon, and lose the support of the north.’

‘You don’t think it was Kastor.’

Damen said, ‘Neither do you.’

‘Two hundred men cannot ride for days in open country without anyone noticing,’ said Nikandros. ‘If they did this without alerting our scouts or our allies, where did they launch from?’

It was not the first time he had seen an attack designed to frame Akielons. It had happened in the palace, when assassins had gone after Laurent with Akielon knives. He remembered with clarity the provenance of the knives.