Page 5 of The Prince and His Stolen Throne
I scrunched up my nose thinking of my cousin Delilah. Even though we weren’t blood related, there was literally nothing on this green earth that would convince me to marryher. “Do we have a deadline?”
Father shook his head. “We won’t know unless the spell begins to weaken.”
“That’s incrediblyunhelpful.”
Dad snorted. Father managed to suppress the urge, though his lips twitched. “I know.”
“When’s the meeting?”
“Ten days. We’ll leave for Misfortune at the end of the week.”
“Alright,” I said, clapping my hands and jumping to my feet. “Excuse me, I have some thinking to do.”
“Of course.” My fathers both stood up and walked me to the door. Standing next to each other, I realized Father and I were almost the same height. When did that happen? As a child, he’d always towered over me. I thought I would never catch up. Now that I finally had, I would be leaving soon. What would change about him while I was gone? Would his hair turn silver? Would the laugh lines around his face deepen into wrinkles?
Worse than the possible changes was the knowledge that I might never see him again.
My heart clenched and I impulsively threw my arms around my father in a tight hug.
He froze, stunned for a moment, before carefully wrapping his arms around me. “I love you, Trey. Whatever you choose, we’ll always be here for you.”
I squeezed him hard, then gestured for Dad to join the embrace. He wrapped his arms around Father and I, resting his head on Father’s shoulder. He held me just as tight and whispered, “Love you, kiddo.”
“I love you, too,” I told them both. That was the only truth I could offer them. My name, my past, my parentage—everything else was a lie. One I’d clung to for the past twelve years. I couldn’t cling onto it forever. Someday they would learn the truth. With this new development, it would be sooner than I’d hoped.
I wish I’d never come to this kingdom, claiming to be Brendon Banes’ son.
I wish they hadn’t believed me.
Chapter Two
The castle guards did their best to be inconspicuous. They stood in the shadows, patrolled quietly, and kept a low profile. Everyone else ignored them or genuinely forgot about their existence.
But I never did.
I counted six guards between my father’s office and my bedroom, the usual amount. Less would indicate something happening in another part of the castle. More would mean they were keeping an eye on me.
“Keep up the good work, Gerald,” I said to the guard stationed near my door.
His face remained blank as he said, “Yes, Your Highness.”
I suppressed a flinch and closed the door behind me. Then I began the complicated process of locking my family and the guards out. Although my fathers respected my privacy, my family and the guards had a key to my room in case of emergencies. Dad had advocated to give me my own residence when I turned eighteen, like the tower he disappeared to every few days, but Father rejected that idea immediately. Something about ‘we don’t want him developing your bad habits.’ Since he spent almost as many nights in that tower as Dad did, I didn’t think he had much room to talk.
I had to find my own way to ensure privacy.
Under my bed, in a locked trunk, there were two black sheets that weighed more than a foal. I dragged the first one out and over to the door. A series of metal hooks framed the top. Lifting the curtain above my head took some effort, but once it was balanced on the hooks, it settled over the door in a veil of darkness and silence. The ambient noise in the room cutin half. Even if someone pressed their ear to the door, they wouldn’t hear me.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t hear them approaching either. One time, Dad had come to find me and apparently spent two full minutes knocking. Anyone else would have called the guards and busted my door down. Instead, he winked at me at dinner like we shared a secret.
I dragged the second curtain over to the window and arranged it to block out the natural light and remaining ambient noise. The silence was palpable, pressing in on me, until I moved, and the slight scrape of my feet rang in my ears.
At the bottom of the trunk was a mirror. I pulled it out and set it up against the wall.
The second I let go, it tilted ominously forward.
Shit, shit, shit.I scrambled to catch it, grunting when the obnoxious gilded frame thumped against my shoulder. I shifted it back into place, then to the side, trying to lean it against the wall. The stupid fucking thing wouldn’t stay put, and I didnotwant to replace it.
Again.
