The refugees were exactly where Caius had been told he would find them on Avalon’s grounds. He watched the small cluster from beneath an archway leading to the ruined courtyard, hidden enough in the shadows that he would not be noticed.
The refugees were mostly servants from the keep. Caius recognized one of the cooks who had worked in the kitchens for as long as he could remember. She was a portly woman who used to sneak him treats whenever he sought solace in the warmth of the kitchen, hiding from his tutors or his weapons instructor, or even the father he barely remembered but whose lectures on the soaring expectations he had for Caius and his sister had left an indelible imprint on his memory. The cook – Helena, that was her name – had never chided Caius for hiding behind the oak barrels or for stealing the spice cakes that had been his favorite. She had been one of the few people to treat him like a child, to direct indulgent smiles his way when he showed up covered in mud, his fine clothes a fright, looking as much a mess as any boy would at that age. She had been kind to him, but after he had grown into the role for which he had been bred – despite the fact that no Dragon Prince’s ascension to the throne was a certainty – he had barely spared her a thought. But to see her now, alive and well, made the ever-present worry in his chest decrease, if only by a few degrees. His people were not lost, not entirely. And now he was in a position to help them.
Caius hung back, unsure of his welcome. What would they see when they looked at him? A disgraced prince who had failed them once before? Or someone worth putting their faith in again, after he had proven so undeserving of it the first time? He hadn’t protected them from Tanith. He should have. It was his most solemn duty to protect them, and he had not done so. His role, his purpose, was not to lead the Drakharin to an “age of glory,” words that were often bandied about among nobles deep in their cups at great feasts. The Dragon Prince was a guardian. A guide. And he had led his people, through his own willful ignorance, to ruin.
Helena looked up just then and caught Caius’s eye. Never one to quail before nobility, she raised a hand to beckon him over. He hesitated for a moment, and her expression resolved into the fierce stare that had haunted his childhood. No one questioned that glare, not even a prince.
Cautious steps led Caius to the small group huddled around the fire. Helena’s eyes lingered on the limp he couldn’t hide, try as he might. He stood – rather awkwardly – off to the side. Every set of eyes save Helena’s dropped respectfully. It was a gesture that marked the difference between them. They were all of the common class, even the soldiers who had guided them during their long and arduous flight from the keep. Caius was not one of them and never had been. Self-consciousness struck him as he realized he had no idea how to act. He was not their prince any longer, but their habits – and his – were harder to shake than he cared to admit.
“Hello,” he said, for lack of anything better.
“Sit down, boy,” Helena said gruffly, shifting to make room for him.
Boy. She hadn’t called him that in centuries, literally. Caius realized then that he had no idea how old she was. She had been the same for as long as he could remember. Old, cranky, kindhearted Helena. As eternal as the rising and setting of the sun.
With as much grace as he could muster, Caius sank into the seat she had vacated for him.
“Leg bothering you?” Helena asked. A cast-iron pan of something fragrant was cooking over the open flames.
“My leg and everything else,” Caius admitted. There seemed little reason to keep up appearances around Helena. Doing so would have been disingenuous, and she would see through him anyway. Perhaps it was time for his people to see him as he truly was, flaws and all. Caius sniffed at the scent of sizzling meat. Chunks of meat had been cut up and sautéed with root vegetables. Whatever the creature had been while alive was difficult to ascertain. “Please tell me you didn’t cook a bird,” Caius said. “The Avicen might kick us off the island for insulting their feathered friends.”
Helena barked out a sharp laugh. “I won’t say it didn’t cross my mind, but rest easy, my boy. This here is scraps of rabbit and squirrel and whatever else we could get our hands on. The Avicen may have provided a roof over our heads, but I don’t fancy they’d take too kindly to us depleting their stores of food.” She glanced at the guards who were lounging stiffly at the edges of the courtyard designated for Drakharin use. They were looking more than a little gaunt. “Doesn’t look like they’ve got much to spare.”
Caius nodded. It was no easy task, feeding a small island full of people without arousing suspicion. The Avicen had emergency stores, but they were burning through them fast.
“How have you settled in?” Caius asked Helena. It was a vague enough question, but from the slight sigh that escaped her, he thought she grasped the nuance. She heard the things he didn’t ask.
“As well as can be expected,” she said. After a moment of grudging consideration, she amended her statement. “Better than we expected. The Avicen … they have not been unkind to us. They offered us shelter when we had none and they had no reason to give it. The young one, the boy who brought us here … he spoke for us. Made our case to the others. Persuaded them to let us stay.”
The boy. Rowan. The tiniest flame of jealousy licked at Caius, but he doused it as soon as he recognized the emotion. Rowan was a good person. After all, Echo was an excellent judge of character. She wouldn’t waste time on anyone unworthy.
“The world is changing,” Caius said. “And we must change with it.”
Nodding, Helena scooped up a heaping mound of stew with a wooden spoon and began distributing it into chipped porcelain bowls that had seen far better days. “Are you hungry?” She studied Caius with her piercing brown eyes. “You look like you could use a good meal or ten.”
“That bad?” he asked.
“Worse.”
That earned a small laugh from Caius. “You were never one to mince words, Helena.”
“Well, I won’t have no prince of mine going hungry.” Helena shoved a bowl into his hands, her expression daring him to argue with her.
Shaking his head, Caius accepted the bowl. He reached for a spoon and stirred the stew a bit. It smelled divine. “I have no claim to that title. Not anymore.”
Helena dropped a hunk of hard bread in his lap. “You know what else I won’t have? Self-pity.”
Caius blinked at her. “Excuse me?”
“Oh, I know you nobles like to think you’re bound by the rules you lot made up, but frankly, anyone who’s done what that tyrant has doesn’t deserve my obedience or my respect.” She brandished the wooden spoon at Caius when he failed to eat with the alacrity she expected. “Those things are earned. And she hasn’t earned them from me.” A somber look passed over her face. “Shame, that. She was always such a bright child.”
“That she was,” Caius said softly.
One of the young Drakharin inched closer to Helena, wide blue eyes fixed on Caius, as if unsure whether approaching was a wise strategy. He winked at the child and tossed her his bread. She caught it with dirt-smudged hands and smiled, two dimples forming in her cheeks. She buried her face in Helena’s skirt as she chewed, her eyes never leaving Caius.
“You weren’t perfect,” Helena said. “No prince is. I’ve lived long enough to see more than one rise and fall, but you” – she poked him with her spoon – “you cared. About us. About all the people who didn’t matter.”
“Of course you matter,” Caius said with a frown.
“That attitude is what sets you apart,” Helena said, pleased that Caius had seen fit to prove her point immediately after she’d made it. “That’s what we need. Not some tyrant who grabs at power for the sake of having it.”
Caius looked around at the group of weary Drakharin. They had given up the pretense of polite disinterest and were now staring at him openly, waiting to hear what he would say. A great deal hung on his next words. Their anticipation coiled around him, an insistent pressure that would not be relieved until he found just the right assortment of words to reassure them.
The little girl noisily chewed the hunk of bread, blinking up at Caius with wide eyes. When he caught her gaze, she pulled at Helena’s skirt to hide her face. They had traveled so far from their homes. His people were an insular lot. For them to have sacrificed so much, to have wandered away from the only safety they had ever experienced into the unknown, was nothing short of astonishing. It spoke to their need for change.
“I lost my title,” Caius said. He would not lie to them or pretend to be anything other than what he was, no matter how badly they wanted him to be their savior. “It was not taken from me. I let it go because I was not strong enough to keep it.”
Helena hummed in consideration. “I suppose that is the way of it,” she said with a tired sigh. There was defeat in her voice and, even worse, disappointment. That, Caius could not stand. These people had been through much, but they were not broken. And neither was he.
“I was not strong enough to keep it,” Caius repeated. He met each of their gazes in turn and saw the steel in his own eyes reflected in theirs. “But I can promise you that I will be strong enough to take it back.”
Caius left the Drakharin to their meal. He was still exhausted, and he could practically feel the softness of a bed beneath him, so powerful was his desire for sleep. As he was walking back to his quarters, he spotted the familiar head of silver hair, half hidden by a column near the courtyard entrance.
Dorian was leaning against the column, waiting for him. His hair had grown longer than he normally kept it, and stray strands fluttered against his cheeks in the breeze. He had a long, cloth-wrapped parcel tucked under one arm. “The Ala is confident we can finish the map by dawn,” he said. “We leave for the first seal tomorrow.”
Caius nodded. His head felt heavy, as if it weighed too much for his neck to support. The thought that they would be departing come morning was enough to make him weep. He wouldn’t. But he wanted to. “No rest for the wicked, I suppose.”
Dorian responded with a noncommittal noise. After a moment, he said, “I was watching you just now. You were good with them.”
“Was I?” Caius leaned against the column next to Dorian. It wasn’t quite wide enough for both of them, but Caius found a certain comfort in the feel of Dorian’s shoulder pressed against his. Dorian was a constant in his life. A welcome reprieve after the brutal solitude of Tanith’s care. Dorian was home.
“You were,” said Dorian. “But what’s all this about taking back the throne? I thought you were done with that.”
Caius let his head fall back against the cool stone. His eyes drifted shut. “I thought I was. No Dragon Prince has ever lost his crown and lived to win it back. But I cannot leave them at my sister’s mercy. I owe them to at least try.”
He felt Dorian shift his weight from one foot to the other. Dorian sometimes fidgeted when he was nervous or treading into territory of which he felt unsure. Caius wasn’t sure his friend even realized he did it. Everyone had their tells, even his stalwart guard.
“Do you think you can?” Dorian asked.
It was a good question, and not one to which Caius had a satisfactory answer. Helena might have put her faith in him, but there were others who would not look so kindly on a lost prince’s return. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “But I have to try.”
Somewhere in the distance, a bird sang a warbling lullaby. The sun continued its westward dip below the horizon. A voice called out, beckoning the children to come in for their supper. Life went on for all these people, no matter how many disasters befell them.
Dorian was silent, giving Caius the space he needed to form his thoughts into something resembling coherence.
“We have always been ruled by the will of the people,” he said. “We have forgotten that, especially among the noble classes. But it wasn’t always the nobility that elected the Dragon Prince. Once, the leader of our people was chosen by the people, not an insular sect that deemed themselves superior to the common man. One had to earn the respect, the love, and even the fear, of the people he was to rule before he was allowed to call himself the ruler.”
Dorian inclined his head in the direction of the small group of refugees. They seemed less huddled on themselves now than they had moments ago. “Is that what happened just now?”
“I suppose so.” The weight of that responsibility was settling gradually on Caius’s shoulders, but it was not an unwelcome weight. It was one he would bear gladly. And hopefully he would do so with more wisdom this time than he had displayed during his reign.
A furrow formed between Dorian’s brows as he considered the implications of what he had witnessed. Abruptly he asked, “Did you just start a civil war?”
“Yes.”
Dorian seemed to consider this information, then shrugged. “All right, then. I just thought I’d check before I gave you this.” He hefted the package in his arms and presented it to Caius.
“What’s this?” Caius asked. The bundle was heavier than it looked.
“Just open it.”
Caius unwrapped the parcel, revealing the loveliest set of long knives he had ever seen. The hilts were wrapped in soft leather, easily molded to the hands, and the pommels studded with jade. The bronze wrist guards gleamed in the light of the setting sun. The blades shone so brightly that Caius was sure he’d be able to see his reflection in them.
“Jasper helped me acquire them,” Dorian said. “Can’t have you heading into battle unarmed.”
“No, we cannot.” Caius reverently examined the knives in his hands. They were perfectly balanced. “They’re incredible.”
Dorian flushed. “Stop fondling them. This is getting obscene.”
Caius met Dorian’s gaze. “Thank you. I shall try to be worthy of such a gift.” He bumped his shoulder against Dorian’s. “You know, you’re taking the idea of a coup rather well.”
Dorian shrugged. “Whatever your play,” he said, “I’ll back it. As I’ve always said, you are my prince, and I will follow you anywhere.” He pushed away from the column, pivoting so he was walking toward the castle backward. “Besides, I plan on taking great delight in watching Tanith get her just deserts. I never liked her.”
Caius laughed, and it felt as though a great weight had been lifted. With Dorian at his side, the impossible seemed merely improbable.
When Dorian reached the archway leading to the kitchens, he gestured for Caius to follow him. “In other news, a little birdie told me there was pie.”
Caius’s stomach growled at the thought of pie, loud enough for Dorian to hear. Caius looped an arm around Dorian’s shoulders, tugging him toward the delicious smell. “Was this little birdie named Echo, by chance?”
“Possibly.” Dorian’s lips quirked into a small smile. “But you know what they say: a revolution without pie is a revolution not worth having.”
Caius chuckled. “I don’t think anyone says that.”
“Well, they should,” Dorian replied. “Because it’s true.” He angled his head to scan Caius with his one good eye. “Now let’s get some food into you. Helena was right – you look absolutely terrible.”