The Emerald Prince (11 page)

But that wasn’t what disturbed Elliot the most about this scene. He lived in a city; he knew about crime and rape. He knew there were evil people in the world that did horrible things. After all, wasn’t that why they needed to defend the borders in the first place? What he found unbearable was the way no one seemed to hear the woman’s cries.

There were three tables full of men who ate and talked as if she wasn’t even there. The only people even looking at her were the ones staring lustfully at her debasement. Elliot turned to Blaine who seemed to be doing everything in his power not to notice what was happening a few feet away from him.

Elliot imagined the expression on his face had to be one of complete horror, because one glimpse of him and Blaine went from pretending not to see the woman to taking action. He walked over to the knight and shook him by the shoulder. “Take this somewhere else.”

Blaine nodded in Elliot’s direction so the noble would realize his actions were upsetting the Crown Prince. As if Elliot’s delicate nature was the problem. The prince strode towards them. “He’s not taking her anywhere.” Elliot thrust a finger at the nobleman. “You leave. She stays.”

Rage flared in the man’s eyes, but he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut. With a short bow, he pulled up his pants and stormed out the mess hall.

Elliot turned his attentions to the woman, still sobbing against the table. When he came near her, she yelped and backed away.

The prince scanned the room for something to cover her with. Purple drapes covered the walls of the hall. Elliot tore one down and went back to the woman, covering her with it. “What’s your name?”

She grabbed hold of the cloth, wrapping it tightly around her body. She shook her head, mumbling something Elliot didn’t understand.

“She’s begging you not to hurt her too,” Blaine explained.

Elliot remembered that Blaine was fluent in several languages. “Tell her that I won’t hurt her, and I won’t allow anyone else to hurt her either.” The prince’s voice rose as he looked around the room. The officers who had been disinterested as she was being assaulted now all watched him. Sir Charles had turned pale, as if the prince would have his head for allowing such behavior. And Elliot honestly wasn’t sure he wouldn’t ask for the commander to be replaced.

Blaine spoke to her in Ghas, and at first she seemed as though she didn’t believe him, as if Blaine and Elliot were somehow trying to trick her. But then she fell to her knees; she grabbed hold of Elliot’s legs and said the same foreign phrase again and again, as if it was the most important thing she’d ever said. Elliot turned to Blaine.

“She asks that you kill her,” Blaine explained in a tone too detached for Elliot’s comfort.

Elliot reached down and pulled her up from off her knees. “No. I won’t kill you. No one will hurt you.”

One of the officers spoke, a red-headed nobleman from Yasi. Elliot recognized him from court. His family produced half the grain in the kingdom. They were good people, universally respected, and slow to take sides in the conflicts that arose at court. “Don’t let her pretty face fool you. She managed to climb over the wall during the storm and killed thirty-eight soldiers in their beds before we managed to catch her. She’s a murderer and should die for her crimes.”

Elliot looked down at the woman before him. Even standing up her head didn’t reach his chin, and she was so thin he was sure he could carry her around with one arm. He knew some women were trained fighters and could take down most men. Marla had proven to be quite the challenge whenever she sparred with Elliot, but the prince couldn’t imagine the woman before him managing to slaughter thirty-eight sheep, let alone thirty-eight soldiers.

Elliot was at a loss, completely out of his element. “What I just saw was
not
the lawful execution of a war criminal.”

The Yasi noble stood up. “No. What you saw was her being punished for what she did to us. The lawful execution would have come after we were finished.”

Men began cheering and slamming their cups on the table. Their rage was being stoked, and Elliot had no idea how to deal with it.

Blaine turned to Sir Charles. “We should probably take evening meal in your chambers.”

“Yes…yes, I do believe that would be best.” Sir Charles led them from the mess hall, which rang with righteous anger of a few dozen rape-sympathizers. This wasn’t how Elliot imagined war at all. He always thought there was some sort of nobility to fighting to protect the kingdom.

When the Ghas girl saw the bed, she began to panic. She tried to run from the room, but Blaine grabbed her by the waist, lifting her from the ground. He held onto her, speaking softly in her tongue until she calmed down and stopped struggling. Blaine sat her on the ground then asked Elliot, “What do you plan on doing with her?”

“What do you mean? I don’t plan on doing anything with her.”

“Well, I have just assured this woman a dozen times over that we don’t plan on hurting her. So what are you going to do with her?”

Elliot had never felt so stupid in his life. He acted so boldly, but didn’t really have anything resembling a plan. “I don’t know. We could let her go.”

“Let her go where? There is an army of Ghas trying to kill us on the other side of that gate. If we did find a way of letting her out, she’d just join them and continue trying to kill us. You would decimate troop morale if you did that.”

“I can’t just kill her. I promised her my protection. And why is everyone here perfectly fine with abusing her? I know some of the men in that room; they’d never do something like that in Tys.”

Blaine leaned his head back, pinching the bridge of his nose as if he had a headache. “First off, not everyone finds that sort of behavior acceptable. I would have never allowed it in the mess hall when I was commanding here. But this isn’t court. The only women around are enemies, people we’re expected to kill at all cost. You can’t look at someone like they’re a person and be expected to slaughter them like an animal. People just don’t work that way.”

Elliot looked down at the woman curled up in the corner, clutching the drapes to her chest like her life depended on it. He just couldn’t imagine a situation where protecting her was the wrong thing to do. He had come ready to fight a vicious, savage enemy, and all he found was a brutalized girl. “I’ll take her back with me, back to Tys.”

Blaine’s eyes narrowed. “What for?”

It took Elliot a few seconds to understand Blaine’s meaning, to understand his expression. “No! Not for that. She’s had enough of that. There are Ghani families in Tys that I’m sure will take her in. That way no one has to die.”

“This is war. Plenty of people have died and plenty more will die. The men won’t be happy about you taking her. Not after what she’s done. And who’s to say she won’t slit our throats on the way back?”

“Well, if they assume the same thing you did, that I just plan to use her for sex, then they probably won’t care that I took her. As for our safety, we can keep her tied up until you’re sure she won’t try anything.”

Blaine laid across the bed as if he were simply too tired to keep standing.

Elliot took a seat down next to him. “You know, this is nothing like I expected.”

“I doubted it would be,” Blaine said, with his eyes closed.

“Why is that?”

“You were too eager. Anyone who has ever seen battle doesn’t hurry to see it again.”

“I was hoping for glory and honor.”

“Sorry, none of that here. We have plenty of death and disease.”

“And rape.” Elliot had never heard mention of that in the epic poems.

“And rape,” Blaine mimicked.

“When the reinforcements get here, I want to head back to Tys.”

“As you wish, Your Highness.”

Elliot stared down at Blaine. He felt as though the knight was cursing him. Maybe he was. Elliot had, after all, in one simple action, made himself the enemy to his own troops, his own nobles. He had yet to see a single arrow fired, and he was already ready to run home to his opal palace.

And yet, when he looked at her, he couldn’t convince himself his choice was wrong. “Ask her what her name is.”

Blaine sat up and looked at the girl. “Des le nunas?”

The woman peeked from behind the drapes and whispered, “Nan.”

The door opened, and Nan trembled in response. Sir Charles came in with two servants carrying trays of food. He motioned for them to set the food down on the table and said to Blaine, “I hope you don’t mind. But there is something I want to discuss with you.”

The servants left, and Sir Charles unrolled a map across his desk. Blaine and Elliot both walked over to look at it. It was a map of the keep and surrounding area. Sir Charles looked to each of the men. “You said reinforcements were a couple days away. I don’t think I have enough men left to hold for that long.”

Elliot offered Nan a piece of bread while Blaine and Sir Charles bounced ideas back and forth, each telling the other why their idea wouldn’t work.

Blaine had at one point commanded at Storm’s Edge, so he was already familiar with the terrain. “Can the mountain passes still be crossed?” he asked Sir Charles.

“Yes, but we can’t get down from there. Little good it would do.”

“It would allow us to pour oil at the mouth of the pass.”

“But if we do that, they won’t be able to escape. They’ll burn. All of them.”

“You said you can’t hold. You have little option if they’re going to get through.”

Elliot pictured hundreds, if not thousands of beaded haired Nans surrounded on all sides by rock and fire. No, nothing noble at all. “What is it that they want?”

“Entian territory,” Blaine answered.

“Yes, but why do they want our territory?” What did Entia have worth being burned alive over? Elliot was ready to give it to them. Maybe his sister was right, maybe he would make a terrible king.

“Food. They live in a valley, surrounded on all sides by mountain. The land is harsh; they don’t have enough to feed their people.”

Elliot knew history well enough to know how they ended up there. When his people first arrived on what was now Entia, the continent was populated by Ghas. His ancestors enslaved the native populace, sometimes slaughtered them, and those that were left were forced to live here, out of the way. And now they were starving. Elliot understood why they were so desperate. They had to win or die. “We can’t burn them.”

“I don’t like it either,” Blaine said. “But if we don’t. We’ll lose the keep.”

“There has to be another way,” Elliot said.

“I’m open to suggestions.”

“I have a plan. But I’m going to need Nan’s help.”

Chapter Twenty Three

Victoria jumped at the tapping sound coming from the other side of her bedroom wall. Lorr rushed over to let Marla in. The princess had sent Marla through the secret tunnels because she didn’t want anyone to know she’d left the castle.

“Do you have it?” Victoria asked.

Marla pulled a small leather pouch from under her cloak and handed it to Victoria. “I beg you not to do this.”

“What choice do I have? She admitted to me she’s a witch.” The tea had given Victoria the idea. She had been so afraid Zariya had been trying to poison her, she decided to do the same.

Marla took a seat on the bed next to her. “Please. Go to your father. Tell him what she said. If you try to kill her, you’ll never be able to take that back.”

Victoria was tired of arguing. She’d made her decision and was going to do what was necessary to protect her father and her people. “My father is under her spell. He won’t believe me even if I do tell him. This is the only way.”

Lorr chimed in. “Maybe it would be best if Marla or I did it. If you were to be caught...”

“No. It has to be me. If either of you do it, you could be executed. But my father won’t hurt me. Once the spell is broken, he’ll be grateful that I saved him. Evening meal will be served soon. I must go.”

Victoria fled from the room before either Lorr or Marla could offer up any more objections. She had two protectors instead of one now, which was twice as annoying.

When Victoria entered the kitchen, the servants were hard at work preparing the evening meal. They often added a Fezami dish to each meal in order to make Zariya feel more at home, and that day was no exception. A small pot of pungent stew hung over an open fire.

Issi glanced up and blushed. She quickly returned her focus to her chopping, pretending she wasn’t aware of the princess’s presence.

The head cook, a plump older lady, gave Victoria a warm smile as she wiped her flour covered hands on her apron. “Greetings, Your Highness, what can I do for you?”

“You know those brandy-filled truffles you served for dessert a few days ago? I’ve really…”

The cook raised a hand. “Say no more.” She waddled out the door, presumably to get more truffles.

With Issi’s head still down, Victoria slipped over to the stew and emptied the pouch into it. The crushed green leaves quickly sank into the broth.

“Tell the cook to have the truffles served with evening meal or right after, depending on how long it takes for her to get them.”

“Of course, Your Highness,” stammered Issi.

With the first step of her plan done, Victoria moved on to the next step. She needed to keep her father as far away from Zariya as possible until the spell was broken.

She headed to his chambers and, for once, waited to be invited in. She pouted as far as her bottom lip could take her and said in her most whiny voice, “Since you started seeing Zariya, you don’t spend enough time with me anymore.”

She was laying it on pretty thick, but she needed her father to choose her over Zariya, even if he was bewitched. Just for one night, one meal. If Zariya realized she was dying and somehow struck out at him, she would never forgive herself.

The king held Victoria against his chest. “Sweetheart. I’m so sorry you feel like I haven’t been paying you enough attention. Have dinner with me and Zariya tonight. I know she’ll be thrilled to have you. She wants to spend more time with you.”