03 - Sworn (11 page)

He folded his arms over his chest, mirroring me. “You’ll know my mind when you’ve earned the right to answers. For now you will obey me because I am your king. Prove to me you deserve more consideration than that.”

I fought the urge to look away from his cold, dark eyes. “With respect, father, you need me. Without me, you’d still be locked in a Darmish prison cell without magic or hope of escape.”

He sneered. “Is that a threat? If I don’t change my mind, will you flee like you did when Severn’s demands became too much for you? Run away as you always do?” He spat on the ground. “The scar on your back marks you as a coward.”

Heat flashed into my cheeks, brought by shame as much as anger. An echo of pain cut into my right shoulder, and the ache spread across my back. Severn had nearly killed me. Worse, his magic had worked its way into my body, and he used the pain to control me as he made me his servant.

“I was a child,” I said as clearly as I could with my jaw clenched tight. “Should I have stood and fought, and died? Fleeing seemed prudent at the time.”

“Perhaps you would have died. Severn’s older siblings did. But at least you’d have fought.”

I kept my shock from registering on my face even as my heart stilled. “His older what?”

I’d suspected my father had other children, but he’d never spoken of them. No one did. They’d been erased from written records. But then, so had Nox, if she’d ever been recorded at all.

The corners of his lips twisted downward. “There’s nothing to be gained by speaking of them now. Severn may be a traitor and a power-hungry fool, but he knows how to do what’s necessary to secure his future. Can you say the same?”

“I don’t know.” The words were out before I’d considered them. “I don’t know what future I’m securing.”

“You are my only heir, Aren.” A pained expression crossed his face that cut me deeper than his accusation of cowardice. “Severn will die for his crimes. Wardrel and Dan have supported him, and they will suffer the same fate. Nox has no magic, and the others are all dead by Severn’s hand. You will be king some day.”

“No.”

His cold smile didn’t reach his eyes. “You think you’re the first who’s wished to ignore this responsibility? I tried to escape, once, in a small way. Your grandmother did, too, and both of us for the same stupid reason as you.”

“A desire for freedom?”

He shook his head. “Love. And the idea that it’s anything but folly, that it brings anything but pain and defeat.”

“And how would you know?” I asked. As if he had any idea. I suspected he’d felt more for my mother than he’d ever admitted to anyone, and knew he’d risked everything when he spared her life and sent her into anonymous exile instead of having her killed as a traitor. But the Ulric I knew was incapable of feeling true affection, or of putting anything or anyone ahead of his position and power.

He almost smiled at that, but whatever he was thinking turned it into a rueful smirk. “I know more than you’d think. You know how it ended, how that relationship nearly cost me everything. I only wish you were clever enough to learn from my mistakes instead of repeating them.”

“I’m not you.”

“How well I know it.” I didn’t respond to the implied insult, and he frowned. “I don’t want to talk about this. Not now. But if it’s the only way to make you understand, so be it.”

I waited.

He rubbed a hand over his jaw, then looked away. I let my arms relax, but kept my guard up. This wasn’t a friendly conversation, and I’d be a fool to believe he was opening up to me for my benefit. But the magic that tightened the air surrounding us lessened, withdrawing that threat.

The creases in his forehead deepened. “I made it many years, ruled for a century without letting my guard down. I held my throne, increased my power, maintained peace and nurtured my people—occasionally with a firm hand, but they were ultimately grateful for it. When I felt my position was secure enough to take a queen and my magic strong enough to risk an heir who might some day challenge me, I made that decision based entirely on the potential of our children to keep the crown in the Tiernal line. She seemed like a worthy match. I cared for her as one might a fine brood mare, I suppose. She did not disappoint me in that, even if she did in everything else later. Nor did my other wives, though only two of their children could stand up to Severn. The others…” He shrugged.

Ice pooled in my stomach. “How many?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Enough that you should be amazed by your own survival, but that’s completely beside the point. I met your mother when I was vulnerable, feeling weary and longing for—” He shook his head and looked away. “It doesn’t matter. The fact is that she made me weak. I allowed affection to cloud my judgement, my passion for her to overcome reason. And though I’ve never forgiven Severn for what he did to your mother, or myself for not being able to prevent it, he wasn’t wrong. He saw weakness that should never be visible in a king, and he used it to challenge me.” My father lifted his gaze to meet mine again, and it had become hard as I knew his heart to be. “This is why I taught you that love is dangerous. You can’t begin to imagine what my foolishness cost me, or what the loss of her did to me.”

I tried to imagine doing what he had—banishing Rowan, letting people think I’d had her killed, never seeing her again—and felt the briefest moment of sympathy for my father. “You overcame his challenge, though,” I said when it seemed he’d finished speaking.

He nodded absently. “After that incident, I knew I needed to keep a closer eye on Severn and his ambitions, and for years I did. Things were going well in Tyrea. Severn seemed to have regained his respect for me, and he’d turned his attention to you, among other things. Yet I developed an empty ache inside. I dreamed of your mother, wondered what happened to her, whether she’d fared well and found a place for herself. I knew my orders and her desire to protect her family had kept her from returning to Belleisle, but I knew nothing else. She never tried to contact me.” He swallowed hard. “From the day she left, every time I looked at you it reminded me of her, of how stupid and blind I was to marry her. I hardened myself to you, shut you and everyone else out, and still she haunted me.”

My father sat on a boulder and rested his elbows on his knees. I had so many questions, but held them back. He had never opened up to me. Though I thought I knew where this conversation was headed, I wasn’t in a rush to see it end. Much as part of me hated my father, decades of desiring his approval and attention were hard to let go of when that desire was being rewarded. My guard slipped.

“I made a foolish decision,” he continued. “I went to look for her. I kept it quiet. Didn’t tell my governor in Cressia that I was coming, though I’d have paid him a surprise visit to discuss some displeasing matters. We were attacked along the way by magic I’d never felt before. Confusion and disorientation that made it impossible to fight. I was down before I could use my magic, and woke in a Darmish prison cell.”

Probably the greatest embarrassment of his life, even if no one but him had survived to talk about it.

“You’re certain Severn was responsible for that?” I asked.

“I am, though I still don’t know why he didn’t just have me killed.” He stood and stalked toward me, expression closed, invading my space, forcing me to step back. It seemed our friendly chat was over.

“Severn betrayed me, but he only had the opportunity because of my weakness. Love is every bit as dangerous and foolish as I raised you to believe it is. Had I walked away after I met your mother, I might never have lost my keen edge. I kept my distance from my other wives. Caring for Magdalena put the ridiculous notion in my head that I should search for her after she was probably long dead.”

“She wasn’t,” I said quietly. “She is now.” My sympathy for my father’s struggles only went so far, and I wanted to see how much truth there was to his admission of weakness. “She was alive when you set out to look for her. You might have found her if you hadn’t been captured.”

He drew in a sharp breath, and for a moment his pain and grief were written clearly on his face before he forced them back. He wasn’t lying. He’d loved her, and he had sacrificed her for the sake of his power and his people, and the shame and pain of it had made him the Ulric I knew and despised.

The knowledge changed nothing for me.

“Listen well, Aren,” he said when he’d regained his composure. He spoke softly and reasonably, almost pleading. “We aren’t like regular folk. We have privileges. We have wealth and power. We also have a great and terrible responsibility, and it needs to come before anything else. I will have my kingdom again, but some day it will be yours. And you know as well as I do that a king cannot marry a Sorceress. It’s never been possible for two people with strong magic to produce an heir, and our laws will not bend to allow such a union. Not even if a king wishes it. Rowan is jeopardizing your future. She’s making you weak, distracting you, and will become a powerful enemy when you leave her for someone better suited. And she—” He thrust a finger toward camp, and his expression closed in anger. “She is the worst match you possibly could have chosen.”

I took another step back, creating space between us. I couldn’t think with him so close. “You know nothing about her. About either of us.” He wasn’t wrong about the laws, or about the fact that Rowan and I could never have children. He was wrong if he thought that I gave a damn, though.

His shoulders tensed. “Think with your damned brain for a minute. She’s a powerful Sorceress. With training and time, she could be as powerful as you. And she’s from Darmid.”

“So you know about that problem?” Severn certainly did, and was planning to go to war with them to release the magic that should have been flowing freely in their land.

He snorted sharply. “Know about it? I was the first person to notice that their killing off of magic was having an effect on ours. I have no doubt that Severn is blowing it out of proportion, using it as proof that I’m an unfit king. He’ll march an army over those mountains to prove himself, I suppose.”

“He’s said almost as much.”

“He’s a fool. It is a problem, and Darmid will pay for it.” He pressed his lips together and clenched his fists. “They have so much more to answer for now. But it’s a problem we had time to approach by other methods.”

“He seemed so certain that he had to act now,” I said.

Ulric scowled. “If he had to act, it was to secure his position, not for the good of magic or the people. But listen carefully. Even if I take the throne back and dismantle Severn’s plans, the time will come when we must face this problem in Darmid, and there will be war. Think about what happens with Rowan when I have to act. Or gods forbid it, if I die and you take the throne and have to deal with it yourself.” He watched me carefully as he spoke. “Will she sit idly by and allow you to take her people’s land? Watch them die under our swords if they resist? Will you do what must be done to save Tyrea and our magic, or will you have mercy on them for her sake? Or will she fight you, take the throne for herself if she has to? She might, if she’s as strong as I suspect she is, and if she learns to channel her power properly.” He looked deep into my eyes. “End it with her now, before you get in any deeper and lose yourself completely.”

“Or what?”

For the briefest moment, I felt something from him. Not the rage he projected with his body and movements, but fear. He recovered quickly, but the chill remained on my skin after I’d lost access to his mind—access I never should have been able to gain.

“Or we fail in this.” No anger in his voice now. “I can’t use you to win this fight if you don’t respect me and obey my orders. In spite of your insistence otherwise, you will follow me as king.” I caught the fear again, like a scent on the breeze. “But we won’t make it that far if you run from your responsibilities now. Severn will keep the throne, though he’s nowhere near ready for it. He’ll let his ideas about magic and power ruin Tyrea as he strives to claim more of both, and he’ll take Belleisle down as soon as he’s finished with Darmid. Or perhaps before, if he sees an advantage in that.”

Belleisle. The beautiful island. My grandfather’s home—and my mother’s, before she left it behind for the love of a king. Had my life gone differently I might have been at Severn’s side as he attacked, might have been his greatest weapon against the island. Instead, I would fight against my brother to save it.

“Tyrea needs me,” Ulric said. “They need a king who will watch over them—all of them, not just those with power, those who Severn considers important.” He stepped back and looked me over. His forehead wrinkled, but the confident expression he usually wore returned quickly. “You won’t walk away from your responsibilities or your rightful place. Prove to me that you deserve answers beyond
because I’m your king
, and you’ll have them. Prove to me that you’re not a coward, that you deserve to rule Tyrea after me. Let go of this dangerous infatuation and learn from my mistakes.”

I couldn’t find words to answer. He wanted to mold me, to shape me to his image as he hadn’t been able to do with Severn. My own desires and plans didn’t matter. Not compared to the fate of Tyrea.

But that was his battle, not mine. He wouldn’t control me.

Before I could speak again, he strode back toward camp. “Move your things now,” he ordered over his shoulder, then turned back. “If you fight me on this, if you keep on with her, I will have her imprisoned for defying my orders and tortured until she begs for death. Don’t think I won’t. If you won’t end this for the sake of our people or to save your own sorry future, do it for her.”

He walked away, moving with as much strength and confidence as he had before his magic weakened him.

I fought my anger down, pushing it deep beneath a layer of false indifference.

He wouldn’t dare. He can’t do this without me.

I sat on the boulder and considered my options as rationally as I could. He was wrong about Rowan, surely. If he knew her better, he’d see that. She’d left her family behind, and knew better than to return to Darmid again. She would never betray me, never let magic die for the sake of people who hated her.