A Dance of Dragons: Series Starter Bundle (38 page)

Now, they would feast.

He remained with his family as they exited
the throne room, his father and mother first, then Whyltarin and
Awenine carrying their son, then Whyllem, and then him. Last, as
always. The ache of missing Whyllysle constantly weighed on his
thoughts, but it sprang to life stronger than ever in that
moment.

Rhen politely nodded to the nobles as he
walked past, but their attention was elsewhere. The third son, the
third wheel. He was known by everyone, but as an afterthought. If
only his partner had still been alive. They would both be looked
over, but they would experience it together. Experiencing it alone
was, at times, too much to bear.

Rhen retreated behind his façade as the
procession continued, slow ceremonial steps to the banquet hall. He
kept his mind on the pattern of shuffling his feet—one, two…one,
two—leaving no room for self-pity.

Unbidden, Jin jumped into his thoughts. The
hand that outstretched to help him up from the floor where his
father had left him. The smile that greeted him after their escape
from the Golden City. The priceless look of alarm when they had
stepped into the Staggering Vixen. One after another, the images
came uncalled, memories that began to thaw Rhen's iced over
insides, to melt the hard shell he had erected to protect
himself.

From the start, Rhen had known that Jin
would depend on him—the last of his people thrown into an unkind,
unjust, and unfamiliar world. But he had never realized that he
would come to depend on the boy too—that they would maybe save each
other.

Part of him wished that Jin could have been
there today. Maybe the ceremony wouldn't have felt quite so lonely
if he had been.

But the royals and the nobles with them,
lived in a separate reality. Rhen could try to ignore it all he
wanted, but on days like this, when he was forced to be Prince
Whylrhen, there was no way around the rules.

Shuddering to a halt, Rhen stopped inches
behind Whyllem's back. They had reached the banquet hall without
his even realizing it.

The royal table sat at the far end of the
room in front of the two long tables where the rest of the nobility
would sit. Rhen followed his brothers there, taking his seat at the
end of the row, watching absently as more nobles flowed into the
room, vision glossed over by thoughts of Whyllysle and Jin.

He was too distracted to notice that only
men entered.

Too distracted to wonder where the women
were—the wives and daughters.

Too distracted to see weapons glinting under
their jackets.

He was not, however, too distracted to hear
the resounding boom of the door slamming shut.

No—at that, his heart sank and the world
snapped into focus.

Rhen looked up, sure he would find
olive-skinned, tattooed soldiers looking back at him. Sure that
King Razzaq would be there, smug and confident, stepping from the
shadows. So certain he had been right about the Ourthuri threat,
Rhen never even expected the sight that awaited him.

They were men of Whylkin.

His own people.

Something Rhen, as much as he played at
being a spymaster, had never seen coming. Shame filtered into his
heart, curling his stomach, making his insides rot. How had he been
so wrong?

They walked between the banquet tables,
silently approaching, boots clicking on the stones beneath their
feet. A few yards away, just before the royal table, they paused.
One man stepped forward. Rhen recognized him—Lord Hamish, the Lord
of Roninhythe. Brows furrowed, he scanned the group for a sign of
Cal—could he have been so wrong about his friend? His loyal,
trusted, friend?

But no, he looked at the dozen faces
standing alert in a line, facing off against the throne. Cal was
not there. These men were all his father's age, all Lords of
Whylkin cities.

"What is the meaning of this?" His father
stood. The echo of his chair scraping on stone filled the silence
in the room. "Lord Hamish, explain yourself."

"The reign of Whyl has gone on too long," he
said simply, as a matter-of-fact, emotionless. "The time has come
for the old kingdoms to return. What happened to the Kingdom of
Roninhythe? The Kingdom of Fayfall? The Kingdom of Lothlian?" The
men behind him nodded in agreement, standing firm.

"They were conquered," the king informed,
sarcasm heavy in his deep voice.

"Maybe so, but—"

"No buts," the king interrupted, anger
brimming, hands slamming down on the table before him. "You were
conquered, not out of spite, out of good—for everyone who now lives
peacefully and prosperously in my kingdom, under my rule."

"We were conquered by the lord of a dying
city who saw no other route to wealth and power." Lord Hamish's
voice was sharp, dripping with the hatred of three hundred years
finally surfacing. "Rewrite history how you want, Whylfrick, but we
all know the truth. Rayfort had no trade, no money, and no way out
of the spiral except to take our resources for themselves. And how
well you've prospered selling the wood from my forests, the silks
from Fayfall caves, the herds from Lothlian fields, the wines from
Airedale hillsides. Every man here is lord of a city that has been
dampened by the weight of Rayfort, a city that offers nothing but
white rock it can't even mine."

"What we offer," the king said, stepping
around the table, closing in on his rebellious lords with nothing
but rage on his face, "is the same thing we've offered for hundreds
of years—soldiers."

"Soldiers who are not here to protect you,"
Lord Hamish replied. The men around him grinned.

But at that same moment, the clash of swords
rang, muffled by the door but still recognizable. A fight had
broken out in the hall.

Rhen couldn't stop his lips from twitching.
The royal guard was coming. They would be here any minute. The
rebellion would not survive.

"You cannot beat me," King Whylfrick
shouted, arrogant and strong, spurred on by the noise. He had
completed his walk and now stood directly before Lord Hamish, still
not a drip of fear evident on his wrinkled face.

"Wrong," Lord Hamish replied, voice cutting
through the hall, low and precise, calm. "King Razzaq recognized
our cause. As we speak, his men are landing on our shores, ready to
fight with us, and together we will defeat any army that dares
fight in your honor. For after today, no one will fight for a Son
of Whyl ever again, only for their memory, and soon even that will
fade."

The Lord of Roninhythe pulled his sword free
of its sheath. One by one, slow and menacing down the line, the
other lords followed suit. The air was filled with the drawn out
scrape of metal, a sound that only meant one thing—death.

Rhen couldn't breathe.

The word
Ourthuri
played on repeat in
his mind, circling back and back around, mingling with feelings of
fear and vindication that he could not suppress. All along, he had
been right. No one had listened. No one had believed him enough to
understand the urgency in his voice, the truth in his words. The
unflagged ships were Ourthuri ships. Their soldiers were on Whylkin
shores. And they were undoubtedly here for war.

But now, staring into the face of that war,
Rhen wished he had been wrong. Oh, how he wished his father were
laughing in his face, joking with his brothers about Rhen's new
bout of failure.

That he was used to. That would be easy to
take.

But watching men close in on his
father—point their weapons at his unarmored, ill-prepared body—that
was something that burned his eyes, dried his throat, and made his
whole being tremble.

Almost as one, the sons of King Whylfrick
stood and rushed to their father's side—surrounding him, protecting
him. Rhen reached for his hip, pulling his brand new sword free. It
wouldn't remain untainted for long.

Four against twelve.

Behind them, the baby began to wail.

Rhen wished to yell right along with his
nephew, but he held steady and strong, shifting his weight between
feet, waiting for the inevitable attack. He stared at the traitors,
eyes narrowing, watching them examine his family with hunger in
their eyes.

No one stepped forward.

No one motioned to attack.

They all surveyed each other, letting the
pressure build so the room began to feel heavy, full. Tension
thickened the air, pulled taut across the small space, stretching,
thinning, lengthening, until finally—snap.

It broke.

With a bellowing cry, King Whylfrick surged
forward, refusing to wait any longer for his enemies to make their
move.

Lord Hamish blocked the blow, their swords
slammed together, deafening as the ringing bounced from wall to
wall across the great banquet hall.

Just like that, chaos erupted.

Rhen leapt forward, eyes on the three men
before him. These were his men to fight, to take down. He took a
wide swing, bringing his sword to each of their eyes, hoping just
to distract the lords from his brothers, from his family—hoping to
entice them into a match.

The center man immediately turned to Rhen,
challenging him with a full-body charge. Holding his sword steady,
Rhen deflected the blow and jumped sideways. Unprepared to be so
easily outmaneuvered, his enemy flew past, pulled by his own
weight—off balance and momentarily harmless.

Without a moment to lose, the second man
swatted at Rhen. He was older, slightly gray haired and clearly
less agile than the rest. Ducking easily out of the way, Rhen aimed
his sword low, slicing the man's thigh open in a deep nerve-ripping
cut.

Blood dripped to the floor and the man cried
out in pain. The strength eased from his leg, going limp, until he
slid diagonally to the floor, eyes wide with shock.

But Rhen had already shifted his attention
to the third foe, who waited more cautiously before engaging in a
fight, focusing instead on reading Rhen—moving left when he moved
left, right when Rhen moved right. His eyes shifted ever so
slightly, over Rhen's shoulder, signaling…

Rhen fell to the ground as a whistle filled
his left ear, the sound of a sword flying harmlessly overhead.
Rolling over, he kicked, nailing his first foe in the sensitive
spot between his legs.

The man dropped, howling in pain.

Rhen rolled again, already anticipating the
sword rushing for his head. It clanged against the stone floor.
Before his enemy could right his weapon or center of gravity, Rhen
kicked the man's wrist and the sword dropped to the ground.

Fear crept into the lord's eyes and he
backed up.

Rhen advanced, facing the weaponless man,
unsure if he was ready to kill one of his own people—even a
traitor.

One thought of Whyllean was enough to
destroy his hesitation.

In a quick and determined move, Rhen gripped
his sword with both hands, bringing the sharp edge deep into the
man's throat, wedging it beneath his skin. Life faded from the
man's eyes, empty and unseeing.

Raising his boot to the man's chest, Rhen
yanked his sword out of the wound, wincing as blood gurgled,
spurting forth. But there was no time for that, no time for
thought.

Instead, he twisted back around, facing the
man who still clutched his balls in pain. As their gazes met, the
man straightened, teeth bared as he raised his sword. But he was
already beat. He knew it and more importantly, Rhen knew it.

Slowly, Rhen approached.

When he was within distance, Rhen raised his
sword, giving the man just enough time to set up a defensive
strike. As his foe parried, Rhen loosened his wrists, letting the
sword twist over so he could deliver a knockout blow to the man's
head with the rounded blunt end below his fingers.

He heard a sickening crunch as contact was
made. Instantly, the man fell to the floor.

Spinning, Rhen searched for his
brothers.

Terror clenched his gut.

Bodies were strewn all over the floor, but
the only man in Whylkin red who Rhen saw standing was
Whyllem—Whyllem, wounded and moving slowly, surrounded by six
lords.

Pushing thoughts of Tarin and his father as
far out of his mind as possible, Rhen sprinted across the hall,
jumping over a perfectly made table, tossing plates to the ground,
not caring as they crashed and broke into a million porcelain
pieces.

Rhen's vision, tunneling narrower and
narrower, shifted over his shoulder, past Whyllem to the crying
women huddled together and using their bodies to shield little
Whyllean from view.

"Protect the king!" Whyllem shouted at Rhen
as he neared. Confused, Rhen took a second to search the room for
his father, quickly scanning from wall to wall.

But his father was nowhere to be seen,
hidden out of view on the ground, buried under a body or a
table.

Rhen paused. He brought his gaze back
around, processing the world in slow motion.

Realization dawned harshly.

Whyllean.

Whyllem meant protect Whyllean—which meant
Tarin and his father were dead.

Dead.

Pain pricked his body, numbing his
senses.

He had failed.

His family was dying.

"Rhen!" A woman screeched, bringing him back
to reality. Back to the scene around him. Back to those still
alive.

He would not lose anyone else, not today,
not while there was still breath left in his body.

The spark of a flame pierced his eyes.

Rhen's memory flew back to the ship, back to
Jin's swift maneuver, his trick to make Rhen speak the truth. He
had been able to steady those flames, to keep them from burning the
ship to ash. He had done it once…

It was crazy.

It just might work.

Dropping his sword, Rhen grabbed two
lanterns from the table. Praying no weapon would pierce his
unprotected belly, Rhen charged into the fray, placing his body in
front of Whyllem, and more importantly, in front of their king.