Page 2 of The Royal Curse
Philippa shrugged and leaned forward, setting aside her finished letter and taking up a new sheet of paper and her pen.
“Only because no one had noticed and everyone assumed you were taking a guard with you as you knew you ought to. Go and argue with Mama and leave me alone, Niko. I need to work.”
Her small smile indicated that she knew precisely how far that would get me—and also that she knew I’d already tried and failed before coming to her. My efforts to change Mama’s mind had resulted in a withering glare and a hint that if I didn’t want a guard, she’d assign me a noble husband instead.
I’d run like hell.
Anyway, how dare Philippa mock me. I humphed, fidgeted, was completely ignored, and stalked out of her study in high dudgeon, determined not to give in so easily.
Gods, it simply wasn’t fair—and I knew how sulky and childish I sounded even in the privacy of my own head: childish enough to need that nursemaid after all.
But I’d never been allowed to be truly alone, except for those long rides. Royal children had an entourage of nurses and tutors and governesses, not to mention my parents and three siblings, and once puberty brought on the first displays of my magic, I’d acquired mages and physicians to add to the mix. And then there were courtiers and servants…all of them with that expression in their eyes when they looked at me.
Dawn mage. Twilight mage. Those were the official descriptions for what I was.
Cursed, useless, damaged,dangerous. Those were the words everyone actually used.
Of course, we were mostly only dangerous to ourselves, aside from the danger anyone possessing magic could present in the abstract—although modern mages were quite weak, compared to the legends of our ancestors who’d received the god Dromos’s mixed blessing directly. Most could only set a broken limb or start a campfire. But our relative harmlessness didn’t matter to the superstitious, who believed twilight mages were disfavored by the gods and brought bad luck. Very few of those bothered to harass a mage, though. They just avoided us. And in my case, also, I had the shelter of my royal title and royal family and royal guards—much as I didn’t always want them hovering, I appreciated their existence most of the time.
But in the end, contempt and distaste, even when it didn’t come with a side dish of anything resembling persecution or injury, started to wear on a person after a while.
Riding out alone, in the peace and quiet of the woods around the city, had been my only escape. No one staring at me. No pity or whispers, no veiled disgust.
At least my use of the potion kept me from being a laughingstock. If I’d been using the only other available method to control my faulty magic…well. That would’ve made me the target of every prurient joke from the palace kitchens to the grimiest dockside tavern.
Down the corridor from Philippa’s rooms, I reached a crossroads, both literal and metaphorical: to the left lay my own apartments, my luxurious bedroom and bath, a sitting room and small library, a broad balcony overhung with flowering vines and equipped with a cushioned day bed and a view of the gardens. My opulent prison. Confinement and obedience and safety.
To the right, I could go down a set of stairs and slip out a side door and make my way to the stables. Try for one last moment of freedom from expectations and unwanted attention.
Gods, it wasn’t like the surrounding forest and countryside held any dangers, anyway. We hadn’t had bandits in our woods or on our roads for decades. The people were too well fed and comfortable to turn to robbery and violence to survive, and our soldiery dealt with the occasional real criminal quickly enough. And politically speaking…no one loyal to my mother would want to hurt me, and no one who hated her, if you could even find someone who fit that description, would bother with me. As a mage, I had no place in the line of succession, a law that had been in place in Surbino for centuries. As a mage who couldn’t use his magic, and thank you Philippa for putting it so bluntly, no one had a use for me at all, for good or ill.
Fuck it. I wouldn’t go too far, just north of the city along the river to the sea, and then back in through the dockside city gate. I’d clear my head, shake off my temper, and prepare to discuss the issue with my mother in a more rational frame of mind.
On my way to the stables I met a couple of passing servants: a maid carrying a stack of towels, a footman with a letter in his hand. But none of my family and none of the guards, thank the gods. I stepped out through a discreet side door, crossed a small walled courtyard that held a splashing fountain, made my way along the side of the stables, and then ducked into the stable building through another little side door.
My heart pounded absurdly, although I’d made this same short journey hundreds of times before.
What was it about being forbidden that made even the smallest, most insignificant actions take on such absurd significance?
I eased my way around the corner from the tack room I’d entered through and into the stable proper. Hmm. Silent, that was odd for the daytime. Well, no stable was eversilent. Horses stamped and whuffed to themselves, hay rustled as a mouse or two skittered around, and a cat leapt down from the hayloft with a soft thump in pursuit of the mice.
But human-silent. No voices. No sounds of work.
What a stroke of luck that the grooms had all had business elsewhere, out in the yard training a particularly recalcitrant horse, or cleaning the carriages, or who knew what. It was enough that they weren’t here to question me. My mother might very well have already thought to order them to keep me from riding out alone.
I tiptoed down the row of stalls, whispering a few words to any of the horses who stuck their noses over the doors as I passed, and taking a moment to pat Mr. Nose, my little sister’s mare, who’d been named before Amara understood what made a foal a boy horse.
The next stall held Fluffy, my black stallion. And yes, Amara had named him too.
He eyed me balefully, flicking his ear and baring his teeth. His personality didn’t match his name, but he did love me. He simply didn’t like to wear his heart on his sleeve.
“Don’t give me that,” I hissed at him. “I know you’re just looking for a treat.”
“Are you talking to him or to me?” said a deep, pleasant voice.
The fuck—I staggered back a step, all my limbs going cold for a second from the shock along my nerves, as a man’s head popped up over the stall door beside Fluffy’s. And up. And up even more. His shoulders matched his height: broad and clad in black with a hint of chain mail peeking out at the neck. A muscular neck, and above that, a strong-featured, tanned and freckled face as plain as his tunic, topped with a mercilessly short-cropped mess of dark red hair. He looked to be about my age, perhaps a year or two older. I’d never seen him before, I didn’t think. Perhaps a vague familiarity? But I couldn’t place him.
Who the hell…? Fluffy didn’t let anyone in his stall except for me and the grooms, who’d learned how to deal with him. Could he be an assassin? But no one wanted to kill me, I wasn’t worth it. Had this fellow drugged my horse?
