Terrowic nearly hit me again, but Kippenger grabbed his arm first. “You’re nothing but stinkrot to us. Put that on.”
With a sigh, I slipped the coat over my shoulders. I didn’t bother with belting it closed, but Kippenger cinched it tight for me, then ordered my wrists to be chained again. I held them together without fighting. Once I was bound, Terrowic ordered me to follow him.
“I can’t walk,” I said. “You should know that. You beat me the worst.”
If they hadn’t liked me when I was unresponsive, I certainly wasn’t gaining any friends now. Kippenger huffed and ordered his soldier to carry me to Vargan.
“I’ll do no such thing. He can walk just fine.”
“I watched how you treated him yesterday. Even if he can walk, with those bruises it’ll take an hour to get him there. Pick him up.”
With the gentle manners one might expect from a rabid bulldog, Terrowic threw me over his shoulder. That’s when I finally saw my opportunity. We weren’t even out of the prison before I had the keys from around his waist slipped down the sleeve of my coat.
The king was housed in a hastily assembled but elegantly decorated brick building with three steps leading to the entrance. The soldier dropped me on the ground in front of them and told me I’d walk from here or get dragged in by my feet. I got up, but immediately collapsed forward onto the middle step. That was my moment to let the keys fall inside the coat, held up by the tight belt. Before he had the chance to kick me properly, I stood again and limped to the top. That part was not an act. Walking was genuinely painful.
Vargan was seated beside a simple wood table that looked completely out of place for someone dressed in so much royal finery. The spectacles were gone this time, but he had two red marks on either side of his nose, indicating he had recently been wearing them. And he wore his gray hair straight down today, which made him look even older than usual. A good decade past death, at least.
The entire back of the room was masked by a heavy embroidered curtain that draped onto the floor. I briefly wondered what was behind it, and then decided I didn’t much care. Vargan was surrounded by at least twenty highly decorated soldiers, each of them a human armory. I wanted to believe so many men were needed as protection from my tricks, but I had no tricks left. Both my strength and will to fight were failing. A kitten could’ve guarded Vargan from me.
When I entered, he motioned to a chair across the table, inviting me to join him. I stood in place until the soldiers at my heels pushed me forward. I shuffled to the table and, without looking at him, dropped heavily onto the chair.
Vargan studied me with an expression of disgust and finally offered me a plate of bread and sliced cheese that had been set between us. He waited for me to look at him, and I gave him the finest acknowledgment I could, which mostly consisted of me gathering spit in my mouth in case he happened to lean in closer.
Instead, Vargan sat back in his chair. “Tonight, Avenia will begin a march into Carthya. Thanks to the information you provided my commander yesterday, I know exactly where to attack, and how. I have a hundred men for each of yours. Everyone who stands against me will die.”
My eyes darted up to him, then back to the table. Nothing more.
That angered him, and he got louder. “Don’t you care what’s happening out there? To your country, your people?”
Of course I cared. If he looked at me and saw only the scars of my flesh and callous tone of my words, then he knew nothing of who I really was. Who I’d always been.
“You made a bargain with my commander, and you owe me some information. However, we both know that once you give it to me, there won’t be any reason to keep you alive.” Vargan did lean forward then, but it was too late. I had swallowed the spit. “So I’m making you an offer instead. Work with me to end this war. Together, we’ll save thousands of lives, including your own.”
He paused so I could give him some response. I declined to so much as blink.
So he continued, “Carthya will become a tributary to Avenia. I will become emperor of these lands. You will still be a king, although subject to my rule. We can negotiate terms for the tributes, in exchange for peace between us.” Another pause, then he said, “I know you don’t want to hear any of this, but I warned you on the night of your family’s funeral. You could’ve had peace from me then — I wasn’t asking for much. But you ignored my warnings, you played games with the loyalty of my pirates. You had to make it worse.”
Despite everything, I smiled a little. Making things worse was one of my few talents.
“I have shown my ability to take whatever I want from you, and I’ll take Carthya as well, if I have to. But I’d much rather we came to an agreement. With your signature on a treaty, there can never be any question of the arrangement between our countries.”
This time when I failed to answer, Vargan leaned forward enough to reach me. I turned my face away, but he pinched my cheeks with his meaty fingers and forced me to look at him. “I’m offering you peace, and a chance to live. This is the only way you’ll leave this camp alive.”
He was close enough now that when I spit, it hit him directly in the eye. I had aimed for his cheek, but this was better.
“If I care nothing for my own life,” I said bitterly, “just imagine how I feel about yours.”
He cursed and backhanded me hard enough to nearly knock me off my chair, but I didn’t care. I had insulted him worse.
“I told you to humble him,” Vargan said to his men. “Does he look humble?”
In all fairness to his soldiers, until the moment I spit on their king, I probably had looked pretty humble. But this also meant I had more punishment coming my way. The spitting was still worth it.
Vargan started to say something else, but Kippenger had been waiting outside the building and burst inside. He gave a hurried bow to Vargan, then said, “Pardon me, Your Excellency, but a diplomat has come from Carthya inquiring about King Jaron’s death. He begs to see you at once.”
My head whipped around. What diplomat?
Terrowic was immediately beside my chair and put a knife to my throat.
“Take him behind the curtain and keep him quiet there,” Vargan ordered. “I want this boy king to understand exactly what’s at stake if he doesn’t cooperate.”
At knifepoint, two other soldiers dragged me to the head of the room and behind the curtain where there was nothing but stacked crates of supplies for the war. Terrowic whispered again what he’d do if I breathed a word, and it didn’t sound very pleasant. But there’d be no trouble from me. More than anyone in this room, I wanted to know who had come.
As it turned out, I’d have recognized the voice from any distance, and I wished it could’ve been almost anyone else.
“King Vargan, I bring you sad greetings from the kingdom of Carthya, where our people are in mourning. As is my duty at this time, I have come to inquire about the body of our monarch, King Jaron.” That was Harlowe’s voice.
I wanted to cry out, to tell him I was this close and a lot more alive than I was being given credit for. But I knew what would happen to both of us if I so much as cleared my throat.
For reasons I couldn’t fathom, Harlowe had willingly walked into Avenian hands. And now, if I didn’t cooperate, Vargan would take him from me too.
