The plan had taken shape over a map. He’d put it to Laurent simply. ‘Look at Charcy’s location. Fortaine will be the launching point for troops. Charcy will be Guion’s fight.’
‘Guion and all his other sons,’ Laurent had said.
‘The strongest move you can make right now is to take Fortaine. It will give you full control of the south. With Ravenel, Fortaine and Acquitart you’ll hold Vere’s southern trade routes to Akielos as well as to Patras. You already hold the southern routes to Vask, and Fortaine gives you access to a port. You’ll have everything you need to launch a northern campaign.’
There had been a silence, until Laurent had said, ‘You were right. I haven’t been thinking about it like this.’
‘Like what?’ said Damen.
‘Like war,’ said Laurent.
Now they faced one another on the dais and words rose to Damen’s lips, personal words.
But what he said was, ‘Are you sure you want to leave your enemy in charge of your fort?’
‘Yes,’ said Laurent.
They gazed at one another. It was a public goodbye, in full view of the men. Laurent extended his hand. He did it not, as a prince might, for Damen to kneel and kiss, but as a friend. There was acknowledgement in the gesture, and as Damen took his hand, in front of the men, Laurent held his gaze.
Laurent said, ‘Take care of my fort, Commander.’
In public, there was nothing he could say. He felt his grip tighten slightly. He thought of stepping forward, of taking Laurent’s head in his hands. And then he thought of what he was, and all he now knew. And he forced himself to release his grip.
Laurent was nodding to his attendant, mounting his horse. Damen said, ‘A lot depends on timing. We have a rendezvous in two days. I—Don’t be late.’
‘Trust me,’ said Laurent with a single bright glance, straightening his horse out with the tug of a rein in the moment before the order was called, and he and his men moved out.
* * *
The fort without Laurent felt hollowed out. But, manned by a skeleton force, it still had enough men to repel any serious threat from outside. The walls of Ravenel had stood strong for two hundred years. Besides which, their plan relied on splitting their forces, with Laurent leaving first, while Damen remained, waiting for Laurent’s reinforcements and then launching from Ravenel a day later.
Because it was not possible, no matter what was said, to completely trust Laurent, the morning was a thin skein of tension, drawn tight. The men prepared in true southern weather. The blue sky, high-flung, was uninterrupted except where it was cut by a crenellation.
Damen rose to the battlements. The view stretched over hills to the horizon. Set wide in broad daylight, the landscape was empty of troops, and he marvelled again that they had been able to take this fort without the spilt blood and churned earth of a siege.
It felt good to look out over what they had accomplished and to know it was only the beginning. The Regent had held ascendancy for too long. Fortaine was going to fall, and Laurent was going to hold the south.
And then he saw the haze on the horizon.
Red. Darkening red. And then, streaming across the landscape, six riders, drawing ahead of the oncoming red at a gallop—their own scouts, pounding back to the fort.
It played out in miniature below him, the army still far enough away that their approach was silent, the scouts just points at the ends of six lines converging on the fort.
Red had always been the colour of the Regency, but that was not what changed the beating of Damen’s heart, even before the far-off sound of the horn—ivory that struck the air, splitting it open.
They marched, a line of red cloaks in perfect formation, and Damen’s heart was pounding. He knew them. He remembered the last time he had seen them, his body pressed out of sight behind outcrops of granite. He had ridden for hours along a river to avoid them, Laurent dripping in the saddle behind him. The nearest Akielon troop is nearer than I expected, Laurent had said.
These were not the Regent’s troops.
This was the army of Nikandros, the Kyros of Delpha, and his Commander, Makedon.
A burst of activity in the courtyard, the clatter of hooves, voices raised in alarm—
Damen was aware of it as if from a distance, he turned almost blindly as a runner came bursting up the stairs, taking them two at a time, throwing himself down onto one knee in front of Damen and gasping out his message.
‘Akielons are marching on us,’ he expected the runner to say, and he did, but then he said, ‘I’m to give this to the fort Commander,’ and he was urgently pressing something into Damen’s hand.
Damen stared at it. Behind him, the Akielon army was approaching. In his hand was a hard loop of metal set with a carved gemstone, the etching a starburst.
He was looking at Laurent’s signet ring.
He felt the hair rise all over his body. The last time he had seen this ring, he’d been at an inn at Nesson, and Laurent had given it over to a messenger. Give him this, and tell him that I will wait for him at Ravenel, he’d said.
Distantly he was aware that Guymar was on the battlement with a contingent of men, that Guymar was addressing him, telling him, ‘Commander, Akielons are marching on the fort.’
He turned to face Guymar, his fist closing over the signet ring. Guymar seemed to stop and realise who it was he was talking to. Damen saw it written on Guymar’s face: an Akielon force massing outside, and an Akielon in command of the fort.
Guymar pushed past his hesitation, said, ‘Our walls can withstand anything, but they’ll block the arrival of our reinforcements.’
He remembered the night Laurent had addressed him in Akielon for the first time, remembered long nights speaking in Akielon, Laurent shoring up his vocabulary, improving his fluency, and his choice of subject matter—border geography, treaties, troop movements.
He said it as it opened up inside him, ‘They are our reinforcements.’
The truth was marching towards him. His past was coming to Ravenel, a steady, unstoppable approach. Damen and Damianos. And Jord was right. There had only ever been one of him.
He said, ‘Open the gates.’
* * *
The Akielon march into the fort was the flow of a single red stream, except that whereas water swirled and swelled, it was straight and unyielding.
Their arms and legs were crudely bare, as if war was an act of flesh impacting on flesh. Their weapons were unadorned, as if they had brought only the essentials required for killing. Rows and rows of them, laid out with mathematical precision. The discipline of feet marching in unison was a display of power, and violence, and strength.
Damen stood on the dais and watched the full sweep of it. Had they always been like this? So stripped of everything but the utilitarian? So hungry for war?
The men and women of Ravenel were crammed in at the edges of the courtyard, and Damen’s men were deployed to keep them back. The crowd pressed and swelled at them. Word of the Akielon entry had spread. The crowd was murmuring, the soldiers were displeased with their duty. The Regent had been right, people were saying: Laurent had been in league with Akielos all along. It was a strange kind of madness to realise that this, in fact, was true.
Damen saw the faces of the Veretian men and women, saw arrows trained down from the battlements, and in one of the corners of the vast courtyard, a woman held her son where he clutched at her leg, her hand encircling his head.
He knew what was in their eyes, visible now beneath the hostility. It was terror.
He could feel the tension of the Akielon forces too, knew they were expecting treachery. The first sword drawn, the first arrow loosed, would unleash a killing force.
A strident horn blast hit the ears, too loud in the courtyard. Echoing from every stone surface, it was the signal to cease march. The halt was sudden. It left a silen
ce in the space where the sounds of metal had been, the tramp of feet. The horn blast was fading, until you could almost hear the sound of a bowstring being drawn tight.
‘This is wrong,’ said Guymar, his hand tight on his sword hilt. ‘We should—’
Damen held out his hand in a repressive gesture.
Because an Akielon man was dismounting from his horse, beneath the main standard, and Damen’s heart was pounding. He felt himself move forward, he was coming down the shallow steps of the dais, leaving Guymar and the others behind him.
He felt every pair of eyes in the silent courtyard watching him as he made his descent, step after step. It wasn’t the way things were done. Veretians stood atop their daises and made guests come to them. None of that mattered to him. He kept his own eyes on the man, who was watching him approach in turn.
Damen was wearing Veretian clothes. He felt them on himself, the high collar, the fabric tight-laced to follow the lines of his body, the long sleeves, the shine of his long boots. Even his hair had been cut in Veretian style.
He saw the man see all of that first, and then he saw the man see him.
‘The last time we spoke, the apricots were in season,’ said Damen, in Akielon. ‘We walked in the night garden, and you took my arm and gave me counsel, and I did not listen.’
And Nikandros of Delpha stared back at him, and in a shocked voice, speaking the words half to himself, said, ‘It’s not possible.’
‘Old friend, you have come to a place where nothing is as any of us thought.’
Nikandros didn’t speak again. He just stared in silence, white as one who had been struck a blow. Then, as though one leg gave out, and then the other, he dropped slowly to his knees, an Akielon commander kneeling on the rough trampled stones of a Veretian fort.
He said, ‘Damianos.’
Before Damen could tell him to rise, he heard it again, echoed in another voice, and then another. It was passing over the gathered men in the courtyard, his name in tones of shock and of awe. The steward beside Nikandros was kneeling. And then four of the men in the front ranks. And then more, dozens of men, rank after rank of soldiers.
And as Damen looked out, the army was dropping to its knees, until the courtyard was a sea of bowed heads, and silence replaced the murmur of voices, the words spoken over and over again.
‘He lives. The King’s son lives. Damianos.’
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book was born in a series of Monday night phone conversations with Kate Ramsay, who said, at one point, ‘I think this story is going to be bigger than you realise.’ Thank you Kate, for being a great friend when I needed it most. I will always remember the sound of the wonky old phone ringing in my tiny Tokyo apartment.
I owe an enormous debt of thanks to Kirstie Innes-Will, my incredible friend and editor, who read countless drafts and spent tireless hours making the story better. I can’t put into words how much that help has meant to me.
Anna Cowan is not only one of my favourite writers, she helped me so much on this story with her amazing brainstorming sessions and insightful feedback. Thank you so much, Anna, this story wouldn’t be what it is without you.
All my thanks to my writing group Isilya, Kaneko and Tevere, for all your ideas, feedback, suggestions and support. I feel so lucky to have wonderful writer-friends like you in my life.
Finally, to everyone who has been part of the Captive Prince online experience, thank you all for your generosity and your enthusiasm, and for giving me the chance to make a book like this.
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