Page 16 of Of Blood & Bone: The Young Queen

“What the devil?” I ask. “How can there be two of them wearing the symbol of the king?”

“I don’t know, Your Majesty,” she replies. “It’s unheard of for someone to wear the robes of the king if they are not the actual king or at least going to be king.”

“Damnation,” I curse under my breath as I wonder which one of these princes I have stashed away in the cart.

“What are they doing?” I ask Aneeya.

She looks at Karina, her co-front rider, and from their expressions I can see they are perplexed.

“They are torturing what seem to be two of their soldiers. From what we could tell, they are accusing them of being traitors and of having involvement in a plot against the other prince.”

“What?” Ailish exclaims before I can respond. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, ma’am,” they answer in unison again.

“How far away are they?”

“A little over a thousand yards.”

Ailish turns to me. She looks deeply troubled. “My Queen, this is extremely unusual behaviour. Usually, any soldier suspected of failing in his duties or being part of a plot against a prince or king is subjected to a trial by the captains, and if found guilty is then either hung or shot through the heart with an arrow. A slow death by hanging is for traitors and a quick death by the arrow is for those who may have served Ellerban well in the past but failed their fellow soldiers in battle. However, these instances are very rare and I can’t remember the last time a soldier was accused of treason. There is something very wrong here and with your permission I’d like to ride ahead and see for myself what is happening.”

I pause for a moment and think over Ailish’s words, and also the fact that the other prince is wearing the symbol of the king. Up to this point I have been confident I have the correctprince, especially since he is the warrior I dreamed of. However, now I am curious to see the second prince as I wonder if perhaps they are similar in likeness. In truth, I feel a strange connection to the man lying unconscious in my cart and I want to see if I feel the same way about his brother.

“Very well,” I say to Ailish, “you, Kes and I shall ride ahead with the front riders to observe what is happening and the rest of the Khaleeni shall conceal themselves here with our captive and await our return.”

The words have barely left my lips when Ailish is pointed in the direction the front riders came from and urging her horse into a gallop.

It doesn’t take too long until we arrive at the spot where Kyra and Naomi, the other two front riders, are concealed in a thicket. Approximately one hundred yards away is a clearing in the forest where twenty soldiers are gathered in a semicircle around a man I presume is the other prince of Ellerban. Just as Aneeya said, the symbol of the eagle stretches across his shoulders. In front of him, hanging from the branches of a tree, are two young soldiers. It’s clear from their appearance they have been subjected to ill treatment as blood oozes from a number of wounds. Their faces have been pummelled to the extent their eyes have swollen shut and their shirts hang from their bodies in bloody shreds.

Crack!

I jerk involuntarily in response to the sudden, sharp sound of a whip cracking through the air and landing viciously upon the torso of one of the unfortunate soldiers. It lands with such force it shreds yet another piece of his shirt and opens an additional wound upon his skin. I wince at the sound and at the intense pain I imagine it must have wrought upon his already tender flesh.

“Who are you working for?” the prince bellows. “This is your last chance. Tell me whose coin you took to betray my brother and his family.”

The soldier hangs there and it’s obvious to anyone looking on that he is incapable of speech, but the prince raises his whip again.

“Your Majesty,” the soldier beside him says, “is it not time for the arrow? We’ve got nothing from them and they’re not fit to tell us any more.”

The prince turns his head, slowly and deliberately.

“Unless you wish to join them, I advise you to keep your counsel to yourself, Captain. I and I alone shall decide if and when they get the arrow. Traitors such as these deserve a long, slow death and I am not finished with them yet.”

From my hiding place in the thicket I have a good view of the prince and am surprised at how unlike his brother he is. His hair is brown, the colour of the acorn in autumn, and it falls lightly about his face. I can’t make out the colour of his eyes, only that they possess an unpleasant glint, but the cruel twist of his mouth is his most prominent feature. His thin lips are stretched tight across his face with the upper lip curled upwards in the corner like that of a snarling dog. He couldn’t be more unlike his brother, and I can’t help wondering if they have different mothers.

He raises his whip again and furiously lashes it against the young soldier’s skin until strips of flesh are hanging from his body along with the shreds of his shirt. In truth it is hard to watch such cruelty and I close my eyes for a second. As much as I wish to intervene, I dare not. I can’t risk compromising our mission or the safety of the Khaleeni, but I feel nauseous as I open my eyes and gaze upon the two young men hanging forlornly from the tree.

The one who hasn’t been whipped as much bravely struggles to raise his head and manages to say, “Stop,” before his head falls to his chest as he passes out.

I hear a sharp intake of breath beside me and I turn to see Ailish with a shocked expression on her face and her hand clasped over her mouth.

“What is it?” I ask.

“The soldier who just spoke, my Queen, he’s my cousin. He’s a good man. There must be some mistake. He doesn’t deserve this. We need to do something.”

I look back at the horrific scene and the prince looks even more furious and throws his whip to the ground. His face is contorted into an expression of anger and disgust, but there is also something else there, and it looks suspiciously like satisfaction.

The captain starts to raise his bow.

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