Harbor (On the Wind #3)

43. Orestes

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

ORESTES

I turned back from cleaning the last of the snack plates and found...

Olive.

No longer sitting with Tybalt, the girl was sitting there in the same seat alone, looking miserable. Her eyes were red and her arms wrapped around herself, and she kept glancing at the door. I couldn’t tell if she was nervous about who might come in, or...

“Olive, where is Tybalt?”

She looked up at me, swallowing hard, and glanced again at the door.

“Did he leave?”

She swallowed again, nodding. She had never been frightened of me before, not since our first meeting in the hall, but she looked terrified now. So either she had done something she thought I’d be angry about, or she was frightened for a different reason. Or possibly both.

I went and knelt down beside the bench she was sitting on, meeting her eye. “Olive, sweet, this is very important. Where did Tybalt go?”

She glanced around the room, not as though looking for him, but for danger. Then she swallowed hard and leaned toward me. When she spoke, her voice was low and hoarse from disuse. “He went to stop Uncle Eric. He’s... he’s a bad man. He killed Daddy.”

Killed Daddy.

Olive hadn’t spoken much since her father’s death.

Since she’d seen her uncle kill her father, then. My blood ran cold at the realization of what had happened. “You told Tybalt that your uncle killed your father, and then he left?”

She ducked her head, her eyes filling with tears, and nodded. “I’m sorry.”

I pulled her in and kissed the top of her head. “Don’t you be sorry. You haven’t done a single thing wrong. I’m sorry about your father. But I... I need to go find Tybalt. To make sure he’s okay.”

She nodded, and I didn’t hesitate a single moment longer before rushing off. Except... where would he have gone? Where would Eric be? The problem here wasn’t just that I was unfamiliar with the castle—that wasn’t even true any longer. I’d been at the castle for long enough that I knew my way around it rather well.

I just didn’t know Penelope’s brother from the next random unpleasant person, and had no idea where he spent his time.

So instead of wandering aimlessly, I stopped the nearest passing servant. Because if there was one thing I’d learned from my time in Urial, it was that the castle servants knew everything, even if they didn’t know it.

“Have you seen Prince Tybalt?” He shook his head, so I asked the next obvious question. “Queen Penelope’s brother, then. Eric. Where would he be?”

He considered for a moment, head cocked to one side. “He makes a point of inspecting the battlements regularly, milord. As though he were a general and Urial were expecting a war.”

The battlements.

My mind went back to that conversation I’d overheard, so long ago in my stay in Urial. The king and a man I didn’t know, threatening Tybalt’s life. I’d been horrified enough at the time, but now it all seemed more real.

They had already sent one killer after Tybalt, so there was no doubt they would kill him without a bit of hesitation.

I hissed in frustration and turned back to the man. “Go tell the queen her brother is on the battlements, and he intends to murder Prince Tybalt.”

He blinked, dropping the stack of linens he’d been holding in his arms, and ran off in the direction of the nursery.

Good lad.

I headed for the battlements, since there was no time to lose. I couldn’t afford to wait for the queen to arrive and come with me. Tybalt’s life was at stake.

It wasn’t hard to remember the way, but as I neared the stairs up, I found my first obstacle: guards flanking the staircase. They stepped in front of me as I neared, hands on their swords.

I wasn’t even fucking armed, but if I had to go through them, I would.

“Lord Eric?—”

“Is planning to murder the prince, I know. I plan to stop him, and if you don’t get out of my way, I’ll take you down with him.”

They blinked in shock, as though they hadn’t known the depths of their lord’s treachery. Perhaps they hadn’t. If so, it would reflect well on them in the fallout of this disaster, but it didn’t make a difference to me in this moment.

“You have seconds to decide. I haven’t the time to waste on your consciences.” They glanced at each other, one of them tightening his grip around his sword hilt, and the other loosening his. I grabbed the one prepared to fight me by the neck of his shirt, lifting him up and slamming him against the wall. With my free hand, I grabbed the hilt of his sword and pulled it free. Swords were terrible, useless weapons, but if it was what I had access to, it was what I’d use.

The bastard bared his teeth at me. “Your useless princess is already dead,” he hissed.

Behind me, the other man made a loud noise. I turned to look at him, and he was backed against the wall, staring in horror at not me, but his partner. “What? The prince is?—”

“A useless piece of fluff,” the asshole sneered.

I threw him to the ground, keeping his sword in my hand. “I suggest you arrest your partner here, since he’s complicit in a plot to murder the prince of Urial.”

The still-armed guard nodded, swallowing hard and drawing himself up. “You go help His Highness, milord, if you can.”

Damned right I would.

I rushed up the stairs, and only halfway up, I started to hear shouting.

“Killed your sister’s husband, your niece’s father, you complete bastard,” Tybalt yelled, and I didn’t think I’d ever heard his voice filled with so much passion, outside the bedroom. “What kind of monster murders a man who has done him no wrong?”

“A man who’s going to be uncle to the next king of Urial,” came the sly, sneered answer. “But you wouldn’t understand, because your ass will never sit on that throne.”

Tybalt’s sharp laugh was answer enough, but he was a man of words, so he used them. As usual, they were sharp, biting, and dangerous as hell. “You think I give a single damn about the throne? You and my ass of a father can have it. Sit on it yourself, for all I care. Except that you can’t, because you murdered a man. You might be uncle of the next king of Urial, but you’ll be doing it from beyond the grave, because murdering your brother-in-law is going to see you hanged.”

“And who’s going to hang me? You? Not too busy fucking your fool Nemedan for once?” It was easy to hear the same man who had met with Albany on those very battlements not long after I’d arrived in that voice. The man who had even then been plotting Tybalt’s death, and for what? So he could be uncle to a child who hadn’t even been conceived yet, let alone born. Who would never be conceived, if Penelope had her way.

I burst through the door and onto the battlements myself to find Eric and Tybalt standing at the edge of the stonework. They both turned to look at me, Tybalt surprised and Eric sneering like the bastard he was.

“You’re too late, Nemedan. Urial will be free of your lover’s terrible influence.” He turned back to Tybalt and with all his strength, shoved.

My love was unprepared, and in an instant, he was pushed free of the stone crenelation, and I could only watch in horror as he plummeted toward the ground far below.