Prince and the Throne (Fedosian Wars #2)

4. Tales in the Den

four

Tales in the Den

Shield commanders held more power than Sofia would have imagined. One man in particular, Volg, had much to say about family, honor, and the greatness of the Red Shield, and acted as a mediator between the prince and the duke. The man looked like a grey wolf and the wide grin with pearly rows of perfect teeth didn’t change that. She could sense the hidden fangs.

The night had spiraled out of control after Aleksei took Dragan hostage to cross the draw bridge, and the sides negotiated while standing over a bottomless pit.

Draped in Eugene’s hooded cloak, Niko stood indistinguishable from his sentinels and smirked the whole night, finding the affair amusing. The boy was learning to play with power. But Sofia didn’t see the humor in Aleksei having to bet with real lives including his own to save face, to not give too much ground to the duke though they had nowhere else to go.

Shields lived and died by their own laws, and once the duke guaranteed the safety and the free rein of the prince and his entourage, as witnessed by his commanders and soldiers, the night concluded with them returning to the den. The morning would bring negotiations regarding the throne and the war, but the ill affair which began during dinner had concluded with apologies from the duke’s children—for now.

Afterward, Aleksei came into Sofia’s room while she was unpacking her dresses and putting them into the wardrobe. Since she’d brought Lev’s name into the mess, she had to stay and see through the negotiation.

Aleksei had found a little bowl of food and sat on the stool of the vanity, spooning it.

“How’s the prince?” she asked, folding the ruffle of her Guard white dress with a gold sun, the same one Aleksei ironed earlier.

“Niko’s Niko,” he said. “But Eugene’s grating on my nerves.” He shook his hand, then grimaced. “Feels off,” he muttered under his breath. He’d struck a castleguard in the face, and Sofia had seen he’d hurt his hand. That had been the arm he’d broken in seven places, including three on the hand itself. Also, the shoulder on the same side had been torn.

“You can’t get into any scuffles,” Sofia said.

“Yeah,” was his answer. He set the bowl aside and took off his darksteel gear. “Are you sure you want to stay?”

“No,” she said honestly. “But a few days won’t matter. I don’t want it to look as though the Guard ran off after the altercation.” She continued as she arranged her dresses, “You can’t give Rodion tsar regent. He’ll never give the throne back. Just give assurances that Lev wouldn’t be regent, and I’ll pretend to be offended, I suppose.”

“Why did that come up anyway?” he asked.

“That’s something he would seek. You should know that.” Sofia was exhausted. She left the dresses for the morning, went to sit on her bed, and kicked off her slippers. Sentinels were posted outside the door, and she didn’t worry too much about her throat being slit while she slept. “Claiming the prince sired by the ghost of a Guard isn’t consequence free, as it appears.”

“I’d hoped the duke would be… family,” Aleksei muttered.

“You’re guarding the throne of Fedosia. You have no family, unfortunately.” Sofia considered getting up to change into her nightgown and found it too much effort. She blew out the candles instead and went to bed. “Goodnight, I’ll see you in the morning,” she said in the dark.

Silent a while, then he asked, “Is it all right if I stay here?”

“Why?”

“I hear Rodion’s sons are betting on who could sleep with you first.”

“What?” Sofia sat up.

“There are hundreds of men in this keep alone. I’d like to stay in your room if that’s all right. I’ll just sit here. I won’t bother you.”

“You can stay only if you’re sleeping,” she said. “There’s a settee by the fireplace, and if you could stoke the fire, that’d be… good.”

“Sure.”

As she lay back down and pulled up the cover, she heard him walking about. Then he was by the fire, tending to it. “I’m going to set my lash on the floor,” he said. “It might look like a snake in the dark, but don’t be afraid.”

“I know what your lash looks like. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

“Niko, what’s wrong?” Sofia heard Aleksei say. “I can’t breathe. Niko, get off me.” He sounded asleep.

She opened her eyes, blinking at the dark ceiling.

“I can’t breathe,” he whispered.

The fire was dying and the room was nearly blind but when Sofia turned, she saw Aleksei’s silhouette in the red hue of the ember. At first, she thought he was sitting on the settee, crouched. But that wasn’t him. He was sleeping on the settee and something was sitting on him.

“Aleksei!”

Gasping, he sat up, and the thing on him jumped up onto the ceiling and disappeared into the shadow. Sofia screamed and two sentinels burst in, one of them Ruslan and the other a redheaded boy who liked sunflowers, his name escaping her, while she frantically pointed at the ceiling. “Something there! Get him! Get him!”

They brought in more light, searched every inch of the room, didn’t find the man, but Shura—that was the redhead, now Sofia remembered his name—tapped on the wall mounted mirror. “This is two way, Captain.”

Before Sofia could make horrified noises, Aleksei struck the mirror, breaking the glass. No wonder the fireplace didn’t warm the room any, the wall was hollow, Sofia learned as she peered in to inspect for herself, and there was a passageway behind it.

The narrow space was covered in cobwebs, undisturbed for some time, and she didn’t think the man had come through there. Besides, now that she’d calmed, she knew what had been on Aleksei—the stranger.

“Ruslan, take her to the prince. She is to stay at his quarters till I return,” Aleksei said. “Shura, you’re with me.”

“Understood,” both sentinels replied.

“Aleksei, where are you going?” Sofia asked.

“I’m going to find out where this leads.” He stuck his head into the dark space. “Fetch the lantern, Shura.”

“No, Aleksei.” Sofia found herself grabbing his hand. “Take Niko. I’m sure he’s bored, and he can see in the dark far better than you.”

“Yeah, I’m not doing that.” He turned to Sofia. “Go with Ruslan. I’ll be right back.”

The prince occupied an entire wing, and his bedchamber had conjoining rooms full of sentinels. The intricate molding and the parquet floor patterned with different colored wood to look like flowers were very reminiscent of the Guard designs, and some gilded fixtures such as candlestands were piled in the corner. The prince was in his nightgown, elaborate black silk, and jumped out of bed excitedly when Sofia came in.

“What happened here?” Sofia looked at the gold things piled in the corner.

“Oh, gold doesn’t agree with me,” Niko said.

Eugene walked around closing the many doors and leaving only Sofia, the prince, and himself in the chamber, though the sentinels arguing about cards could still be heard from the next room.

“What does that mean?” Sofia asked.

“Blood illness,” Niko said. “Are you staying with me?”

“Sure.” She patted his head because the child had been smiling and swaying his shoulders.

“Come.” He wasn’t wearing gloves, and his hand was warm when he led Sofia across the room. He hopped up on his bed and Eugene settled on the narrow valet’s bed against the wall. The sentinel was smoking, drinking, and yawning. “Ruslan said there were secret tunnels. Is it true?” Niko asked.

“It appears to be so.” Sofia sat down on a red velvet chair bedside, but the prince reached and pulled her to the bed. She could lie down and didn’t mind him. So she lay on the large bed horizontally, while the prince sat leaning his back against the headboard.

“I want to see it. I like secret passageways. How exciting,” Niko said.

“I told Aleksei to take you but he refused,” Sofia said.

“Yeah, Grigori told everyone my blood doesn’t clot. I was sick a lot. So Aleksei thinks if I get injured I’ll bleed a lot.”

“Thinks?” Sofia asked, yawning, catching the thing from Eugene. It was late and she was tired.

“Yeah, yeah. Now I’m looking for a different wife. Do you want to marry me? I like you.”

“Um… I’m old enough to be your mother, Prince. It would be better if you pick a bride closer to your age.”

“Then she’ll be annoying like Zoya.”

The bed smelled of years of dust, though Sofia imagined they would have changed the bedclothes for the prince. Perhaps it was just the room. It had been built grandiose but hadn’t been cared for since.

“Can you pay the Chartorisky for your brother’s horse?” Sofia asked. She didn’t like Aleksei owing anything to Zoya. That probably wasn’t her business anymore but still…

“What horse?” Niko asked.

“Charger,” Sofia said.

“That’s Aleksei’s horse. He had him before Burkhard died.”

“I know. But the queen sold him to an Elfurian baron and Zoya bought it back for him,” Sofia said.

“No.” Niko folded his arms and frowned. “She owes Aleksei a lot anyway. I’m not giving Zoya anything.”

Reminded Zoya had said the Chartorisky owed Aleksei a favor, Sofia asked, “Do you know what he did for them, the Chartorisky?” She was feeling particularly nosy because as soon as Sofia left, Zoya would try to sink her claws into Aleksei.

“Many things!” Niko exclaimed, then looked to Eugene. Sofia could hear the sentinel snoring, so he wasn’t going to object. “Daniil was accused of being a spy,” he said breathlessly, dropped his arms, then crawled to Sofia and whispered, “Daniil is friends with an Elfurian prince, which is fine because the Chartorisky have a port. But he made a silver model of Raven and sent it to the prince as a gift. You can’t do that. You can’t send Elfur any maps, information about Fedosia, or you know, the models of our garrisons, fortresses, or Raven. He got in a lot of trouble with both the church and the throne.

“Daniil has no friends, but because Zoya is friends with both Lev and Aleksei, she had Lev take the letter from the church aviary so it didn’t get sent to the archmage with the courier pigeons, and Aleksei had to kill the report before it went to the magistrate. I only know because Aleksei asked me to steal a scroll from my mother’s things so she didn’t find out. ‘It’s not a big deal, Danny didn’t know it’s illegal,’ Aleksei said, and I didn’t care because it was a tiny Raven inside a jewelry egg, not a real map or anything.

“Then,” he breathed scandalously, “he killed his wife’s brother.”

“Daniil is married?” Sofia gasped.

“No, but he was betrothed to… I forgot his name, some count, but Daniil was betrothed to his daughter. He went to their home to visit, then killed her brother and ran away. It was a whole thing! I know because Eugene knows. That one, Aleksei wasn’t so happy about because the brother was little, like twelve or thirteen years old.

“The count was making a huge deal, you know, because his son died, and Zoya tried to have my brother kill him, but Aleksei wouldn’t do it. So she hired the city patrol to stab him to death, and that’s what happened.

“Then, the whole thing got brought to the sentinels because a count died in Krakova and Zoya begged and begged and begged Aleksei to let it go. The Chartorisky paid a lot of silver to the widowed countess, and in the end, Aleksei didn’t pursue the murder because Zoya would have been implicated.

“Anyway, so, I’m not paying for the stupid horse.”

“Why did Daniil kill a child?” Sofia was appalled, but also she didn’t know how true it was.

“I don’t know. He’s nearly thirty now and doesn’t have a wife. Eugene says it’s because he has some type of demon in him.”

“Well, most men do,” Sofia said.

Then she lay beside Niko, telling the prince the tale of the firebird, a creature so full of magic that even the feather dropped by one contained enough light to illuminate a village, when the prince said, “Lev is a firebird, then. His light is brighter than the archmage’s and also he doesn’t cast a shadow.”

“Lev?” Sofia petted the prince’s head. “My brother is just a man. He has a shadow. Everyone does.”

“Oh, I meant a different shadow, your reflection on the dver . He doesn’t have one because he’s a source of light. Do you know what shadow alchemy is?”

“Boy,” came Eugene’s voice. “Stop the chattering and go to sleep. Enough fairy tales for the night.”

“He’s grumpy,” Niko whispered.

“He’s right, though. Let’s go to sleep,” Sofia said.

“All right.” Niko bunched up his cover and turned, while Sofia pulled up her wool cloak. “You’re not a Guard, though,” he whispered, his back to her. “I knew that from the first time I saw you.”

“Because I’m not blonde?”

“Because you cast a shadow and Guards don’t.”

“Boy, be quiet and go to sleep,” Eugene grumbled.

“Everyone has a shadow, Niko,” Sofia said.

“All right, I believe you. Goodnight.”

A hand on her back. Sofia opened her eyes—Aleksei, and it was light outside the windows. Niko was fast asleep beside her. She rolled off the bed without disturbing the prince, slipped on her shoes and followed Aleksei into a conjoining room. The ceiling was blue in that one, like an open sky, and sentinels were asleep sharing the bed and on the floor. Four were awake, playing cards, and rose when Aleksei entered after Sofia and closed the door gently.

“Captain,” they murmured and began putting away the cards and coppers splayed on the table.

From the sentinels asleep on the bed, Ignat sat up, squinted with one eye, then got up, yawning and stretching. They were all clothed and had their darksteel gear on.

“Morning, Captain.” Ignat went to the washing table, mumbled about the cold water, took the bucket, and stepped out.

The table was cleared, and a sentinel offered Sofia a chair, while another one made tea.

“Thank you,” she said, sitting down. She accepted the tea and watched as Aleksei drew on the table with chalk. A map, she saw immediately.

The men slowly got up and gathered around Aleksei, looking at the map.

“There’s an undercroft below us,” Aleksei said.

“Like a church?” Sofia asked.

“The den used to be a church,” Aleksei said. “It was built by the Guards some five centuries ago.”

Why didn’t she know that? Sofia frowned. She wasn’t ignorant of her house history, so this bit must have been neglected, and whenever that happened, it was intentional.

“The tunnels vein out like this,” he illustrated on the map, “and run through the entire mountain. The exits appeared sealed off but there isn’t a way for me to map it in a single night. So, this is what we’re doing,” and he began assigning positions for his men to scout. As he talked, he took out a piece of chainmail from his cloak pouch and handed it to Sofia.

Holding the piece of armor in her palm, surprisingly light for metal, she studied it. She didn’t know what kind of armor Durnov puppeteers wore, but Shields wore leather armor. Guards wore Apraksin steel cuirass. Skuratov wore full armor but forged of their own iron. The eastern houses, Apraksin, Pulyazin, and Menshikov didn’t wear metal armor because it got so cold there that the steel stuck with frost. The two houses whose retainers wore chainmail, Chartorisky and Vietinghoff, were both wealthy and the piece of metal Sofia was holding was incredibly cheap, almost like tin, and the links felt flimsy and not Fedosian made. She didn’t imagine the Durnov, the house who could animate steel, would dress like this.

Also, it was perfect. Every single link was exactly the same. It must be machine made, like the printing press, she realized, and said, “It’s Elfurian.”

“Are you sure?” Aleksei asked. “This metal, the only time I’ve seen it was from Lev. He shoes his racehorses with it. I thought it might be something Guard, no?”

Ignat had returned and wanted to see the chainmail so Sofia handed it to him, and the sentinels passed it along to each other.

“Makes sense. It’s very light,” Sofia said. “But I haven’t seen it before. Where did you find it?”

“Undercroft,” Aleksei said. “It’s full of bones.”

“Human?” Shura the redhead asked.

“Yes, and not centuries old either,” Aleksei said.

“Do you suppose the duke is eating people?” Ignat asked. “Lord Fedir reeks foul.”

“Why would Elfurians wear chainmail?” Dominik asked. “They use black powder weapons, I thought. Chainmail won’t stop that.”

“They might wear different gear at the border,” Aleksei said. “To protect them from us, not from each other. That won’t stop a darksteel bolt but it might protect from a blade, somewhat.”

“What is the old fool doing, then?” Ignat asked. “Why are there dead Eflurians in the undercroft?”

“He’s instigating war,” Sophia said as it occurred to her. “He’s exiled to the border with nothing to do, but if Elfur attacked, that would make him very powerful.”

“Assuming he can win…” A sentinel voiced his concern. He’d been cleaning his gear in the corner and shrugged when all eyes turned to him. “We’re in no shape for war. The truth is the truth whether it’s patriotic or not. The Boyar Duma is split. His Highness is very young. Four failed harvests, and if our trade with Elfur stops, Fedosia will starve this winter.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, Captain, but I thought the prince was being betrothed to the Chartorisky because we were going to buy grain with their silver.” He sheathed his sword and got up. “But I suppose that’s fucked now thanks to old man Eugene.”

Sofia had come to see from living at Raven among the sentinels that her impression they were lowborn soldiers had been wrong. Some were of common birth, but many were bastard children of lords, like Ignat, or impoverished highborns like Dominik, and were educated and freely spoken, at least among themselves and with their captain.

“How is the engagement failing Eugene’s fault?” Sofia asked.

“He hates the Chartorisky and has the prince’s ear,” said Ignat. “Without a doubt it was him talking shit about Zoya that changed the prince’s mind. He’s a liar, a coward, a drunk, and doesn’t belong with the imperial sentinels but for through the grace of His Highness.”

“He can probably hear you,” Sofia whispered.

“I’m sure he can. I bet his ear is pressed to the door,” Ignat said. “He knows I loathe him. It’s not news.”

“That’s enough, Ignat,” Aleksei said.

A sentinel came in to announce they were being called for breakfast. Aleksei nodded and dismissed him.

“It’s probably that oat porridge goo,” one said.

“Better than nothing,” said another.

“I wouldn’t eat stew here, anyway,” said Ignat. “The meat on those bones went somewhere.”

“Doma.” Aleksei gestured Dominik over. “Find me a name. Someone who doesn’t like Rodion but has power here in the den.”

“Got it,” Dominik said.

“Do you want to eat with us?” Aleksei asked Sofia.

“You just don’t want me to sit at the duke’s table because you heard the young lords fancy me,” Sofia teased.

“Better you stay away from them, Lady Sofia. Should they touch you wrong, I will kill them.” Aleksei wasn’t joking. So, Sofia’s petty jealousy of Zoya hadn’t been unreasonable. At least she hadn’t threatened the girl’s life.