Page 46 of Master of Storms
A shadow moved past him, and Marduk realized he could hear someone singing ahead of him. They sounded young and drunk, and as the assassin slipped down the street in that direction, he could scarcely believe his luck.
The bastard had walked right by him.
He tried to make sense of it all.
Niels was trying to have him killed, and they were going to try to frame one of the princesses.
He had a good idea which one it would be too.
And after that rousing little rendition in the tavern, they’d have enough cause to lay this at Harald’s feet.
But why?
Why would Niels want to kill him?
He doesn’t, you idiot. He’s just following orders.
“No,” he breathed, his heart pounding out of control as realization chased its way through him.
Niels had no reason to see him dead, but there was someone else who wanted no competition at court.
It all fell into place.
He came of age next month, which meant he’d be old enough for the court to start pushing duties on him. His mother had agreed to be regent until then, but… he knew she liked power.
She’d kept him as far away from the throne as she could, and he wasn’t stupid enough to miss the fact that she’d managed to isolate him from the court. Maybe he’d been foolish enough as a young man—go hunting, Marduk; why don’t you take a trip to the coast; been in the taverns again with those human girls?—but in the last year his eyes had slowly begun to open.
His mother had done everything she could to push him away.
She’d surrounded him with court-approveddrekiyouths who dragged him to taverns and challenged him to fly through the glaciers at breakneck speed. She’d insisted he have a private tutor instead of joining the communal classes because he was “special.” And he’d often return to his rooms and find a buxomdreklingwoman in his bed.
It wasn’t until he’d caught Niels slipping one of those girls a set of coins in a darkened hallway of the court that he’d finally understood.
His mother wanted him drunk and distracted.
She wanted to paint him as a wastrel whose head turned every time a pretty young woman came into view.
She wanted him to be controlled.
He’d fought back by refusing to join his so-called friends. He’d showed up one day in council, shocking his mother and uncle when he insisted he ought to learn the court’s ways if he was going to rule it. And the next time a woman appeared in his bed, he’d politely held out her dress until she left.
“Tell my mother I am not interested in paid company.”
“You walked right into her trap,” he muttered as he hauled himself up onto a window ledge and then scaled the house to reach the roof.
It took more effort than needed—a sure sign of his level of inebriation. Or maybe it was the shock of betrayal. His hands shook. He swore his heart was skipping beats.
All he could see was his father’s blood on the floor, and there was a roaring sound in his ears as he heard Solveig’s words replay themselves, again and again…. “He never did trust your mother.”
What was he going to do?
King Harald was his mother’s ally. If he went to him for help, then he was either asking the king to risk an alliance—or trapping himself forever with one of Harald’s daughters.
Solveig had told him to crawl off into a cave somewhere and die.
And Árdís was the only link at court that meant anything to him.
Marduk looked to the sky. His mother wanted him gone?
