The Decoy Princess (7 page)

“Mother!” I cried, falling to pull her head onto my lap. Her eyes were open, glazed.

“Tess,” she whispered, her eyes unseeing. “Don’t think—we didn’t love you.”

“Mother? Mother!” I looked down. There was so much blood between my fingers. I couldn’t stop it.

I couldn’t stop it!

The tension eased from her, and she went slack. I looked up in delirium. My father was under a pile of guards. I could hear him angrily sobbing my mother’s name over and over. Garrett stood over us.

“This can’t be real,” I whispered. “This can’t be happening.”

Garrett’s attention flicked down to me. He reached out, and before I knew what he was doing, he yanked me up from my mother. She slumped gracefully as if sleeping, her blood staining the moss between the flagstones. The white of my nightdress was crimson and warm. Garrett pushed me into the grip of one of his guards. “Her turn,” he said softly.

“May,” my father wept as the men pulled him to his feet. “May. You took my May.”

Garrett strode forward and slapped my father smartly across the face. “And I’ll take your gutter trull next if you don’t tell me where the Red Moon Princess is.”

A guard held me. Terrified, I looked at my father. His grief shone from him, beaten and overpowered.

He slumped as the hands holding me tightened. “No,” I whispered plaintively, too shocked to do more.

My mother was dead. She had been alive, and now she was dead. The grief and loss in my father’s eyes when he raised them to mine was like a blow to my middle. I struggled to find enough air.

I tried not to, but I cried out when the guard holding me put the knife, still red from my mother’s throat, against mine. He stank of sweat and fear, and the knife trembled against me.

Garrett’s smile broadened as my father hung unresisting. “She’s at the nunnery on Bird Island,” my father said, his voice cracking. “Damn you to hell. She’s in the mountains on a peak called Bird Island.

Leave Tess alone. Please… don’t hurt my daughter.”

Garrett leaned close, smug and confident. “Are you sure?”

“Yes!” my father shouted, beaten. “Yes. She’s there. I swear it. Oh God, you took my May. She’s gone.” His head bowed to hide his eyes, and he slumped.

Garrett made a satisfied noise and motioned the guard to take the knife from me.

I took a shuddering gasp of air. My father pulled his eyes up. They met mine from under his mussed hair falling about his face. My only warning was the tightening of his jaw.

Crying in rage, my father struck at the guards. I broke free of the grip on me at my father’s triumphant shout as he took another’s sword and drove it deep into its previous owner.

“Run, Tess!” he shouted, magnificent as he fought the Misdev guards in his nightclothes. The softness I’d always seen was gone. He swung and parried, swirled and danced in a pattern of movement and sound given purpose and grace by the grief in his heart. His shouts were thundering vengeance, his blows carried the might of desperation of a loss never to be paid. He stood over his fallen love and fought as if mad, thinking only to assuage the pain in him. Three Misdev guards fell before him, and Garrett’s brow furrowed.

“Father!” I shouted as a soldier he thought downed ran my father through from the back.

My father faltered. Horrified, I watched the second remaining soldier swing his sword in a smooth arc to land like an ax upon my father’s neck. His breath escaping in a pained sound, my father reached upward. Blood flowed past his fingers. Face confused, he slumped from the table to the floor. His outstretched hand touched my mother, and he went still.

“No!” Garrett shouted, his beautiful face ugly with frustration. “You killed him! I needed him alive!”

“He attacked me, Prince Garrett,” the man whined. “He killed Terrace.”

“You bloody fool!” Garrett shouted, cuffing him with enough strength to send the man staggering. “He had to verify the true princess’s birth!”

The man scrabbled backward, standing white-faced and shaking. The guard holding me tightened his grip. Heart pounding, I heard the distant sound of the door opening and feet on the path. Garrett scowled. Pulling me away from the guard holding me, he said, “Kill him.”

The man who had murdered my father froze. His mouth opened and shut.

“Sorry, Kent,” the soldier said, pulling his blade. “Better you than me.”

Kent didn’t even try to run. Falling to his knees, he whispered a prayer, his eyes fluttering closed, unable to watch.

I turned away, finding my head resting against Garrett’s chest. I tried to shove him away, but he pulled me close. His breath caught as the sound of a sword meeting bone thunked through me. My eyes closed, and I thought I was going to vomit.

“His death is your fault,” Garrett whispered, his breath moving my hair. “The last one there? He’s dead, too. I can’t use the real princess now. Who would believe me? Everyone who knows who you are is going to die. Congratulations. You’re royalty again.”

Horrified, I tried to break free. He held me tight, his strength far beyond mine. Sobbing, I stomped on his foot, and when his hand got too close, I bit it.

“Slattern!” Garrett exclaimed, shoving me at the remaining sentry.

I landed hard, crying out as the man brutally squeezed my arms. “Damn you, Garrett,” I spat.

Garrett’s face showed a dark anger as he inspected his palm. It was his sword hand, and I had drawn blood. “I’ll see more of your blood before I’m dead.
I promise you
!” The words raged from me, hot in vehemence. I couldn’t look at my parents; I would collapse from the truth.

Garrett stepped close. Green eyes placid, he drew his arm back and swung the flat of his hand at me.

His palm met my cheek with an explosion of hurt so unexpected I almost didn’t recognize it as pain. I reeled and would have fallen had the last guard not been holding me.

“Keep her quiet,” Garrett muttered as two guards came around the corner. Cheek burning, I gazed numbly at them, trying to make sense of it all. I couldn’t.

The oldest paused as he took in the carnage, going ashen behind his salt-and-pepper beard. The other gave it only a brief glance. He was the only Misdev guard I’d seen who looked the part, being neither too old nor too young.

Taking off his overdone hat with long drooping black feathers, he stood beside the prince with a comfortable ease. He wore a black sash about his narrow waist that the other guards lacked, and I guessed he was the captain of Garrett’s guards. He stood a good head taller than the prince, strong and broad of shoulders, in the prime of life.

“You said you weren’t going to kill them,” the captain said. His eyes lingered on me. I alone was unhurt in the room, the blood on my nightdress and hands clearly not mine. My eyes widened at the man’s audacity.

“It was your men who did it,” Garrett said tightly. “And I don’t need a king or queen, only a marriage.

We have the outer garrisons. In sixteen days, the rest of my men will be here, and we will have the town and harbor. Until then, we will hold the palace and continue as if nothing has happened. Do you think you can manage that—Captain Jeck?”

My eyes widened in understanding. Garrett was going to pass me off as the real princess. He was going to… He was going to kill Kavenlow!

Garrett flicked his fair hair from his eyes and frowned at the blood on his uniform’s coat. “Have your men managed to find the last of the guards?” he asked as he took it off. Sweat stained his silk shirt underneath.

“Yes, Prince Garrett.” It was a tight admission, and I could hear Jeck’s frustration for having to take such abuse from someone so young.

Garrett’s smile made a mockery of his handsome face. “Good. Something done right. Lock them in their own cells. They will be oarsmen when we need them.”

I stood in shock. My betrothal plans had been nothing but a ruse. Garrett glanced at me and rubbed his bitten hand. “Has her room been searched?”

Jeck nodded. A part of me noticed his boots were as well-made as Garrett’s, but heavier.

“Put her there,” Garrett said. “And keep someone outside her door. I don’t care if it’s the Second Coming, there will be a guard on her. Is that clear, Captain?”

“Yes, Prince Garrett.” Jeck’s tone was heavy with repressed anger. “And the bodies?”

Garrett had moved to the game board, his breathing slowing as he took in the shifting of the pieces that had occurred. My father’s careful plans to snag me had been destroyed, knocked askew in the slaughter. “Bury them in the gardens,” he said as he tipped a piece upright onto the wrong square. “All of them.”

My stomach twisted. Buried without markers, without rites.

“And, Jeck,” Garrett said idly. “Have someone run down their chancellor. He’s headed for a mountain peak called Bird Island.” The prince nudged a pawn on the dividing line to sit dead center on a black square. “When he joins up with a woman with straight, fair hair, I want them, and anyone with them, killed.”

“Yes, Prince Garrett.”

My pulse quickened. I had known it, but to hear it said aloud made it terrifyingly real.

Garrett shifted to the opposite side of the board and reached for a black piece. “Knight takes pawn,”

he said, eying me as he removed the piece and set it aside.

“You’re wharf slime,” I said, knowing I would stay alive only as long as he needed me. “You’re the muck we scrape from the bottom of our boats and throw into the chu pits. Starving wolves wouldn’t eat you. Your insides will be drawn out through your nose. You—”

Taking three steps, Garrett closed the gap between us. My eyes widened, and I gasped when he pulled his sword. Panicking, I twisted to escape. The guard’s grip on me jerked and went slack. I broke free and ran for the unseen door.

“Catch her!” I heard.

I fell, my feet pulled out from under me. Scrabbling violently, I twisted. The heel of my palm struck something. There was a pained grunt, and I was yanked to my feet. It was Jeck, the captain of the guard.

The man held me up off the floor. My pulse hammered, and I froze as his grip bit painfully into my arms.

This one would give me twice the hurt if I struggled.

There was a wet cough from the floor. My gaze darted from Jeck’s eyes to the tiles. I took a frightened breath, unable to look away. The guard had dropped me because Garrett had run him through.

The young sentry writhed on the floor, his blood washing the slate tiles as he struggled to rise with little gurgles, finally falling still.

“He was the best man I had!” Jeck exclaimed in frustrated anger. “Why?”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you.” A bright flush hid Garrett’s freckles. “Get her to her room.”

Jeck held me as Garrett wiped his sword clean and sheathed it. The Misdev prince walked past me without a glance, a frown twisting his youthful face into an ugly mask.

“Let me go!” I demanded when Jeck pulled me down the path in Garrett’s footsteps. My fingers pried at his grip as Jeck pushed me stumbling through the door and into the hallway. It was quiet, with only one Misdev soldier standing guard. There was a soft shuffle as the old guard followed us out and closed the door to the solarium.

Garrett was disappearing around a corner, flanked by two of his own. I twisted, stomping on Jeck’s foot. He grunted, his grip tightening on my arm. I went still. As his fingers loosened, I jammed my elbow into his gut, and his breath whooshed out. “Hold her,” Jeck gasped, and the old guard grabbed my shoulders.

“Squirmy little thing, isn’t she?” he said, then yelped when I lunged at him, only to be yanked back before I could reach his eyes. The third man laughed until Jeck barked at him to be silent.

As I fought to get free, Jeck wrenched my arms behind my back and bound my wrists with the black scarf he took from his waist. “Let me go!” I demanded, the pain from my shoulders making tears start.

My hands were sticky from my mother’s blood. It felt awful.

“Hold still,” Jeck muttered, jerking me roughly around and flinging me over his shoulder.

Outraged, I kicked my bare feet at nothing. Jeck gave a little hop, resettling me as if I was a sack of salted fish. His shoulder cut into me, and I struggled for air. “Get the room cleaned,” Jeck said tersely.

“Bury the bodies in the garden. Make it deep enough so the dogs don’t dig them up. I’ve got her all right.”

“I said, let me—go,” I wheezed, feeling my face redden as Jeck started down the hallway. “Put me down. You’re a coward. A lackey for a spineless, gutless excuse of a man. Garrett is seaweed caught on my boat’s keel. He’ll kill you as quick as that soldier. He’s a cur. A—”

Jeck turned the corner and shifted me from his shoulder to the floor. I made a tiny shriek as I slid from him, struggling to keep from falling while I found my balance. The hallway was empty, and I pressed against the wall in fear as Jeck stood before me. His arms were as strong and muscled as if he pulled nets all his life. His brown eyes were cold, and his jaw clenched under his closely cropped beard. He smelled like horse, and my mother’s blood on my nightdress stained his shoulder. “Why did he kill my man?” he asked in a whisper.

“W-what?” I stammered, my fear faltering in surprise. He reached out, and a gasp slipped from me as he pinned me against the wall. The stones were cold on my back.

“Why did Prince Garrett kill my best swordsman?” he asked again.

My chin trembled. I wasn’t the princess. If that became common knowledge, Garrett would kill me and use the real princess despite the problems of ill confidence it might instill.

Jeck saw my fear, and he jerked me up to push me back into the wall again. I bit my lip, refusing to cry out again as the stone hurt my shoulder. The man looked only a few years older than I was. He must be brutal to have gained captain so quickly.

“Tell me, Princess,” he whispered, glancing down the empty hall. “King Edmund’s second son is reckless. Ambitious, but reckless. I want to get out of this alive. If I like what I hear… I’ll let you escape.”

Hope warred with common sense. Hope won. “Prince Garrett killed him because he knew I wasn’t the crown princess,” I stammered.

Jeck’s face went still. I felt three pounding heartbeats, and then he breathed, “The real one is on the road from Bird Island. The devil takes my soul. Who else knows?” I said nothing, and he shook me until my head snapped back. “Who else?” he demanded.