Page 4 of The Crownless Prince

“Then you eat it.”

Edwin shook his head with a sigh and stood, scooping up both bowls. “I’ll wash up. You go tame your hair or it’s going to be a rat’s nest after wrestling.”

“Fine, fine.”

While Edwin scraped the bowls clean and rinsed them using as little water as possible, Marcus lit the candle inside a metal lantern, then headed up the spiral stone staircase in the back corner.

Once upon a time, the tower had served as an important defense along some lord’s border. That fief had been subsumed into a larger territory and the border moved, but the tower on its lofty, manmade hill in the middle of a valley had been maintained for emergency defense—until Prince Arlius had decided to turn it into a prison for his son.

The square tower consisted of four levels of one large room each, accessed by the spiral staircase inside the protruding stone attachment at the back corner of the tower. Thin arrowslits in the cylindrical outer wall of the stairwell illuminated the steep, narrow steps and small stone landings before the doors that opened to each level.

The ground floor held the kitchen, dining room, and a small entrance foyer. They’d converted the second floor into a training area.Edwin had the third room to himself, and Marcus’s bedroom was at the top. Or, almost the top—there was a crenelated roof, but the ladder to the roof hatch had been removed and the hatch barred and locked before their arrival. The roof had also resisted his efforts at escape.

There wasn’t much to his bedroom. Three windows had wood shutters that, when closed, he could pretend didn’t have iron bars on the other side. A desk and chair were placed beneath a window. A small bed with a feather-stuffed mattress covered in a pile of blankets rested on a wood frame that lacked posts and curtains. Another wood chair stood by the fireplace, and he had a chest full of clothes and a wood basin barely large enough to bathe in—although he’d had to give up baths and use only a wet rag since their supply deliveries had become unstable.

The used water, like his chamber pot, had to be hauled down to the first floor and dumped out a window that had only one bar and a chute to carry their waste to a pit dug at the base of the hill. Another window by the kitchen also had one bar, which allowed them to receive supplies, although it was a tedious process to pass sacks and crates back and forth through a window with a horizontal bar in the middle.

But Marcus would take the humiliation of pulling supplies through a prison window over starving to death. He had to live. Sooner or later, they would leave the tower. He refused to die without seeing Adriana again…even though sometimes he feared she hated him for disappearing without a word and wouldn’t want to see him.

He glanced at his desk as he braided back the top half of his longhair. Two of the desk’s four drawers were filled with letters to Adriana that he wasn’t allowed to send. Then he’d run out of parchment and quills, and although Marcus had asked the servants to request more on his behalf, his father had never replenished them. Maybe the writing supplies and the small bookcase on the third floor full of common, well-worn books hadn’t been left there intentionally as a kindness. Perhaps they’d merely been left by the previous occupant, and his father hadn’t ordered them to be removed.

Marcus shook his head. There were many things he might never get answers to and wondering would only sour his mood further.

His cold fingers fumbled with his hair. At last, he had braided back the front section of his hair with two uneven plaits on both sides of his head, which he secured together at the back of his head with a thin strip of leather. The tails of the braids fell down over the rest of his loose hair. He jogged back down the steps, rubbing his icy hands. Edwin was already in the training room. He’d started the fire and was going through a series of defensive forms with one of the blunt training swords Father had sent them toward the beginning of their stay—after months of Marcus sending messages back with the silent delivery servants.

On reflection, maybe his letters asking for the swords were why his father hadn’t sent more writing supplies.

Edwin set aside his blunt sword and looked at Marcus with raised eyebrows. “After four years, you should be better at doing your own hair.”

“It’s not my fault there are no mirrors here. Not all of us can braidwith our eyes closed.”

“Mmm, but it’s notmyfault you refuse to let your servant do it for you.”

“Servant where?” Marcus tapped his chin. “Wait, aren’t you the prince’s servant?” He faked a gasp. “But there’s no prince here! So clearly, there’s no servant, either.”

Edwin kept his expression blank, but amusement showed in his eyes. “You were never officially stripped of your rank, Your Highness.”

“That we know of.” He strode onto the wool rug and began stretching to loosen up his muscles. “Besides, if I’m still a prince, you can’t beat me at wrestling.”

“Because you’ve always been such a rule-follower.”

“I—”

A tremble shook the tower, and the words died on Marcus’s lips.

Chapter 2

Pressed against Adriana in the wardrobe, gowns on either side forcing them close together, Marcus clapped a hand over Adriana’s mouth to stifle her giggling. As much as their current situation amused him, it would be much less humorous if they were caught, especially by her father.

“Adriana?” Prince Mortimer Faine’s footsteps made a dull clunk on the stone floor, then the rug muffled his steps as he walked in front of their hiding place.

She stiffened, and Marcus held his breath. While normally he’d rather be caught where he shouldn’t be by Prince Mortimer than his own father, when he was alone in Adriana’s bedroom—and a little bit tangled with her, squeezed as they were into the wardrobe—Prince Mortimer might not be forgiving.

Not that Marcus had done anything untoward. But as his father had forbidden him from visiting the Faines, they concealed his presence from anyone who might mention him to Prince Arlius, which included Adriana’s father. Since Marcus had sneaked into thecastle, slipping in amid the chaos of a visiting noble family’s departure, Prince Mortimer was unlikely to look upon their clandestine meeting favorably. A cowardly action, perhaps, but it was that or give up seeing Adriana entirely.

“Where has that girl gotten off to now?” her father muttered. He sighed, then his footsteps moved away, and the door closed.

Adriana pulled down on Marcus’s hand, but he tightened his grip.

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