Nick sighed at the panoramic views splayed out before them. Wow indeed. “I’m safe. No one else knows of this place.” No one still alive, at least.
Rolan dropped next to him on the boulder. “When you lived here, people wouldn’t be aware of it, no, but in the years since—”
Nick patted the moss. “The copse has reverted to its former untamed state, to what this spot must have been like when Lyssandra first discovered it.” He waved at the encroaching underbrush, some of which had already overtaken the other end of the boulder upon which they sat. “No one has been here since I last was.” Nick was willing to bet on it.
Rolan was right, though. A few in the tribes were less enamored with the survival of the monarchy and would seize any vulnerable moment to end him. Seeing one familiar place in this ghastly marathon of ludicrous parties was so important to Nick, he’d been willing to risk his life on setting foot where his lost brothers and sisters had once stood. “Tribe representatives in the capitol were never eager to wander from the landscaped paths of the formal garden. They still aren’t.”
“We passed two piles of clothing.” Rolan crossed his arms over his chest.
“True.” Nick shrugged. He walked three paces to one of the oaks edging the copse and lifted his hand. He pushed his fingers into the trunk, searching behind a masking layer of lichen growth until the tips found a groove. Joy lighting his heart, he concentrated on his fingers to loose a partial shift that transitioned his fingernails into claws.
Over his shoulder, Rolan gasped.
Smiling, Nick carefully pried lichens free of his find.
“You were quiet about your tribal blood. Mom and Dad wouldn’t talk about it, but I guessed what you were. What you must have been,” Rolan said, voice low and tone brimming with wonder. “But I never thought I’d see it.”
“Witnessing what was only possible inside the royal family would’ve put you in too much danger. You might have suspected my bloodline was imperial enough to achieve a partial shift, but you, Mom, and Dad were safer as long as I never confirmed I could do it.” He wiped the debris away from the tree trunk, revealing the letters that had been carved into the wood. Relief swamped him. “There it is.”
Rolan peered over Nick’s shoulder. “Toly?”
Nick chuckled. “He never went by Tolescu except when ceremony demanded. To us, he was always Toly.”
The crown prince.
Toly had been the first to engrave his name into the tree, claiming this place as theirs, but he hadn’t been the last or the only prince and princess to leave his mark. “Toly, Lyssandra, Catterin, Mandariss, Allena…” Rolan’s voice trailed off. He walked to the tree and then bent to more closely examine the bottom of the carving Nick’s scraping claws had revealed. His eyes narrowed. “Elba’s name is missing.”
The razor-sharp claws tipping his fingers couldn’t stop Nick from fumbling around his neck, patting the fabric of his fancy clothes for the slight bulge indicating the locket still hid beneath. “The rebels captured the palace before Elba’s second Saint Day, but even if they’d waited until Elba was formally recognized as tribe and a princess of the peoples, mother and father wouldn’t allow us to leave our suite once the fighting began.”
As battle had approached, Nika had tried. If nothing was to be left of them beyond a list of names scratched into a tree, he had wanted the list to be completed with the newest Marisek. Father had understood but had paddled Nick’s butt for endangering himself when guards had discovered him slipping into the woods during the shelling that had preceded rebels overrunning the palace. “We hadn’t been permitted to shift, run, or hunt for many moons.”
Chuckling, Rolan traced Nika’s name in the wood. “Moons.” He arched an amused eyebrow at Nick. “You talk like they do.”
Nick grunted. “I measured time by the lunar cycle and the seasons until Dad brought me to the lands of men.” He tapped his temple with a claw before forcing the partial shift to subside so only the tips of his fingers remained. “How we once lived, the culture of our people, all of it is still in my head. Living with humans could never erase my childhood heritage.”
“I wanted to forget.”
By all appearances, his brother had succeeded, too. “I’m sorry.” Sorry for what Rolan, too, had lost in the rebellion. Sad what war had cost them both.
“Don’t apologize.” Rolan’s mouth curved to form a crooked smile. “If I’d been certain of your identity inside the imperial family and what you’d been destined for, I might have left Mom and Dad. Kept running as soon as we reached the lands of men. The war didn’t destroy me, but losing our new family might have.” His wide palm clapped Nick on the back between his shoulder blades. “We’ll get through this like we always have: together.”
His brother was a good man, better than Nick had ever been. “Your kin belonged to the Ural tribe.”
“Had your mating pact been fulfilled, you would’ve become my tribe’s prince, yes, but that was a long time ago.” Rolan’s jaw clenched. “It doesn’t matter. Probably none of my family are left.”
“Probably?” Nick turned from the engraved list of his dead brothers and sisters to face the brother he, rather than biology, had chosen. “You don’t know?”
“My parents are dead. My brothers, too. When rioters demanded our blood, I was the youngest, but also the fastest and the one who knew the surrounding countryside best.” Rolan shuddered. “My family fought to cover my escape because I was the strongest shot at continuing our line.”
Nick lifted his arm. He cupped Rolan’s cheek in his palm. “There are others? Grandparents. Aunts, uncles, cousins.”
“Of all the tribes, the Urals were least important politically and strategically. You were to marry into us. You know it’s true. My kin were never remarkable, wouldn’t have and didn’t catch the attention of the media with too many other slaughters to report.” Fear and hope shone in Rolan’s eyes. “I couldn’t find any news of them. Not during the genocide and not since. We were many, though. The mountains in northernmost part of the Ural range are too steep to cross safely into the lands of men there. Few would have tried it, but some might have survived by waiting out the purges in caves.”
“You haven’t made inquiries since we arrived?”
“I don’t dare.” Rolan shook his head. “Drawing rebel attention to a potential bargaining chip to use against you risks any survivors…and you, too.”
Renewed excitement stirred Nick’s heartbeat to a gallop. “Benjic suggested an adventure tour in the Urals while we wait for the forensic teams to finish their work.”
His brother snorted. “He wants to get us out of the capitol, let the whole return-from-the-dead furor die down.”