I heard his chuckle echo along the barren palace hall. It was disconcerting. Usually the king’s palace was filled to the brim with wandering courtiers, mages, off-duty knights, servants, and, of course, my favorite, his older brother by three years, Prince Blayne.
Luckily, today was not most days. The entire court—with the exception of a small sampling of its staff—had departed that morning for the yearly first-year trials at the Academy of Magic in Sjeka.
Traditionally the Crown—the king and his two sons—was supposed to attend, but Darren had been granted a leave of absence since his new service as a mage in the King’s Regiment was to begin at the week’s end.
The two of us continued on in a comfortable silence—well, as comfortable as it could be given my new injuries. It was nice. We had barely shared any time together since the ascension. After Darren had publicly declared our engagement most of his time had been stolen in long meetings with the king and his advisors, and I had been thrown into a parade of anxious courtiers eager to earn the favor of a future princess of Jerar.
King Lucius had not been thrilled with his son, and he definitely did not look favorably upon the former lowborn who had caused his son to make such a “reckless” decision in the first place. Darren and Princess Shinako of the Borea Isles had found a way to avoid their own impending marriages by promising her dowry to me in exchange for a renewed treaty between her island country and Jerar. It had been a brilliant move, and one no one had seen coming, but after the initial night of revelry there had been new problems to contend with.
There were many concerns about someone with my background taking on such a vital role within the Crown.
It didn’t matter that said role was purely ornamental since Darren would never be king. It didn’t matter that as an apprentice I had acquired a highborn status on my own. And it certainly didn’t matter that I was hopelessly in love with the boy.
What mattered was that I had ruined a very strategic match between Blayne and an important ally. Now King Lucius was stuck in negotiations with Pythus. As heir to the kingdom of Jerar, Blayne needed to marry above Darren. And since the Borea Isles’ princess’s dowry had already been promised to me, Blayne was forced to pursue a new match with one of King Joren’s daughters instead.
In truth, it was a great opportunity. The Borea Isles were a much smaller territory and couldn’t provide the resources a large continent like Pythus could offer. But try telling that to Blayne. Darren and he had been intended for quick marriages to secure their dowries’ funds as fast as possible, and now Blayne had to find a new wife. King Joren was a much shrewder man than Emperor Liang. It didn’t matter that the Crown needed as much support as it could get in order to go to war against its northern neighbor, Caltoth; to Blayne, I would always be the unruly lowborn who had managed to ruin all his plans.
And now he was determined to ruin mine. The very next morning after Darren’s and my engagement, Blayne had petitioned his father to hold off on our wedding until he secured his own. When Darren had tried to counter his brother’s absurd proclamation citing the impending war with Caltoth, the king had stiffly sided with his eldest, stating that the suggestion might motivate Darren to become more involved in Crown affairs. “Besides,” he had added dryly, “we need two dowries to finance an army, not one.”
I wasn’t sure I believed that. More likely, the king just wanted to punish Darren for the public humiliation he had faced the night of our ascension. Lucius had been all too willing to go along with his youngest son’s strategy until he found out the second half of the arrangement: marriage to a lowborn. Since the king had already agreed to Darren’s proposal and Emperor Liang’s treaty had specifically mentioned me by name there had been nothing the king could do. Not if he wanted to keep the princess’s dowry.
Needless to say, the last couple of days had not been pleasant. On the bright side, however, the king’s general distaste had an advantage. Since he could hardly stomach the idea of me in his court, Lucius had been more than willing to grant my petition for service in Ferren’s Keep. Darren hadn’t been pleased, but he knew just as well as I that once Blayne’s wedding passed I would be forced to take up permanent residency in the palace.
If anything, I think Darren envied my freedom. Now that he was done with his apprenticeship he was limited to the palace regiment. The same for me once that year was over.
It wasn’t a bad thing. The King’s Regiment was the most prestigious company in the land, and who could forget the palace housed the current Black Mage, Marius? But an eternity was daunting. Ferren’s Keep was my one chance at glory, and I hadn’t forgotten what the Combat mages said about its action: the northern border was the place to be.