Chapter 30 Son
There’s a way to shift our weight to push other Prince Eaters away from food. It is hard for them to overcome and gives us an advantage. My father taught me that technique in case there are ever more of us attacking than the prey would be able to sustain. – Prince Easter #34
A dimming had passed since Ava Most Revered had spoken with Gil, and she found herself standing to one side of the king’s dais, shifting her gaze in confusion between her son, Prince Gunnar, proud of his confidence as he ambled into the throne room, and his father, Holy King Harrison slouching as if the weight of the entire world weighed him down rather than a few Prince Eater horns. It was unusual for Harrison to surprise her or to do anything without her knowing about it well ahead of time, yet he had with this summons. She feared that this meeting would come to no good conclusion, but at the same time, she hoped that it meant Harrison was honoring her only child.
A group of Armored Grays was gathered outside the throne room, pacing uneasily and anxiously talking among themselves. Their duty to Prince Gunnar was compromised by the King’s Guard who forbade their entrance. Ava had wondered how long it would be before the Grays broke down the door. Her own Magi Soldiers were accosted at the door, too, but since they answer solely to the Most Revered, Ava had simply laughed. Nell Most Revered had established the mercenary army after King Tiernan openly executed Gráinne Most Revered and Ava continued to find them extremely useful. She took them with her into the throne room despite the objection of the Kings Guard.
Prince Gunnar bowed to the Most Revered, bowed more deeply to the king, and then stood quietly self-possessed while the king collected his thoughts.
“Where is Prince Seán?” Holy King Harrison asked with a meek voice.
Gunnar spread his hands wide in a gesture of ignorance and queried, “Was he to attend to you, also? Shall I go to the nursery to get him?”
“You know as well as you are standing there, that Seán is no longer staying in the nursery. It was completely closed, and the nanny dismissed years ago,” Harrison said in aggravation. “That may have been premature on my part since you seem to still need to be in one.”
“Why are you addressing your inquiries about Seán to me, Your Majesty? If he is missing, that would be characteristic, would it not?” Gunnar asked, adding the title of respect for good measure. He unfolded one arm to reveal King Indulf’s memoir Exiled in Wild Midhe Nuae. Holding it up for Harrison to see, Gunnar added, “Have you read this, sir? It’s a remarkable account of the early days of our country.”
“I don’t care about Indulf’s exploits, real or imaginary,” Harrison responded, “I order you to explain your comments about His Royal Highness, Prince Seán.”
Seeing a storm gathering, the Most Revered stepped forward to intervene but was halted mid-step by the Kings Guards.
“Harrison?” she said in concern as her own soldiers moved to defend her.
The king held up one palm dismissively and repeated, “Explain your comment, Prince Gunnar. I won’t continue repeating myself.”
“Seán was a naïve child who was going down the same path as Jon…full of tears, regrets, and moodiness,” Prince Gunnar commented self-assuredly. He opened the book in his hand and idly flipped pages as if anything it might impart was of greater value than the life of his brother.
Holy King Harrison glared at his son. “Was? What did you do, Gunnar?”
The prince laughed with delight, turned on his heel, and strode toward the exit of the throne room. A party of the Kings Guards blocked his path.
“Why is it, Father,” the prince asked as he turned back to the conversation. “That you care so much about Seán and yet so little about Jon?” He pointed at the Most Revered and continued, “You allowed your dearest Ava and her thugs to beat Jon until he was senseless. They didn’t simply break bones, Your Majesty, they came close to killing him. And what did you do? Did you try to protect or defend him? Did you even ask him to explain what he had been doing? No, you used your enormously precious jewels to carve through his cheek. You permanently disfigured him.”
“He was a traitor,” the Most Revered argued. “He ran to shirk his duty to the Crown. He tried to avoid the Ritual.”
“Well, By the Survivor, I guess I’m not the last one to know about everything. Is that truly what you think he was doing?” Gunnar asked sarcastically. “You poor misguided fool. He was picking moonflowers for his boyfriend.”
“That’s a lie,” Ava retorted. “All the girls loved Jon.”
Harrison shook his head. “They did. The young men, too. But there was only one person Jon loved and I hoped they would marry.”
“He was picking seedlings for the archer,” Gunnar commented.
“What archer?” Ava hissed.
“Mulrian. You know, the archer the late Sergeant MacDonald abused. She’d have had him in the dungeons starving to death before much longer. I’m certain of it.”
“She wasn’t supposed to find him so quickly,” Holy King Harrison muttered. “I meant for Mulrian to find him first and take him someplace safe, someplace they could live together happily.”
“SnakeIn?” Gunnar questioned.
“If need be,” the king said. He held out his arms to the servants surrounding his throne chair and they hurried forward to help him gain his feet. He moaned, twisted, and stretched his horn-covered back, and then walked to the edge of the dais. “That sergeant got there too figgict soon. Now they’re dead. I simply wanted Jon to be happy. If it weren’t for your potions, Ava, I would not have harmed him at all. I can’t apologize to him. Not even in my dreams at night. He’s dead, and I’m to blame.” The king moved to the dais steps and held out his arms again. The servants hurried forward, steadied him using his arms, and assisted him down the steps. Harrison continued, “I will never forgive myself and I will never forgive you, Ava. At least he killed that damn sergeant before he died.”
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Gunnar guffawed, slapped his own legs, wiped the moisture from his mouth, and then whooped gleefully again. The Most Revered and Holy King Harrison gawked at him. When he finally caught his breath, the prince declared, “I’m still not the last one to know everything.” Still holding the book, Gunnar folded his arms across his chest nonchalantly. “Mulrian did find Jon first. I saw it for myself. Funny, how easily things change from one moment to the next. Suddenly now everyone cares about Jon, and everyone cares about Seán, but no one cared about Reggie, no one cared about Ethan, and no one thought to wonder about unimportant Gunnar. I rode out, too. I saw everything that happened that day and since then. Jon and Mulrian are living in SnakeIn. They had a lovely wedding that the entire neighborhood came out to see. Their waltz was simply divine! Mulrian lifted the son you butchered and cradled him in his arms as he spun elegantly around the entire dance floor. Far more gracefully than I would have given him credit for. Can you even imagine? Mulrian gave up his entire future for an exiled prince so mangled he will never walk again, never be able to care for himself in the slightest way, and yet, there they were, deeply in love and newly married. It almost brought tears to my eyes. As for Sergeant MacDonald, it turns out that Mulrian did get a good shot at her. There’s nothing as honorable as a solid crossbow bolt through the back. Well, maybe not honorable, but certainly efficacious. The Commander of SnakeIn’s Armed Watch killed her. Mulrian tried to keep the SnakeIn’s finest from killing any of the archers, but they didn’t listen. The commander didn’t listen to MacDonald, either. The sergeant tried to tell him something and his response was to slam that heavy war axe straight into her skull.” He paused as if savoring the memory and then added in admiration, “That truly was beautiful.”
“Jon is alive!” Harrison gasped.
“No, that can’t be,” the Most Revered said, pretending to be shocked as if she was hearing it for the first time.
“Be quiet, Ava, and stop acting as if you care,” Harrison bellowed at her. Her eyes flew open wide at the king’s audacity to speak to her in that tone, but she quickly complied. He added in a more normal voice, “The only thing you want is unlimited power. I wonder why you haven’t eliminated the entire royal family and crowned yourself.”
“I might.”
“Arrest her,” the king commanded. The Kings Guards marched directly to the Most Revered, but they were met halfway there by the Magi Soldiers.
“Stand aside,” the Commander of the Kings Guards demanded fiercely.
“Stand down,” the Commander of the Magi Soldiers demanded with equal ferocity.
“This is too rich,” Gunnar said, laughing again. “You’re going to kill each other trying to prove who’s strongest and who’s right. Well, go ahead. When the dust settles, I’ll be the only one who survives the cull.”
Harrison spun on his heels and tread angrily to within centimeters of his son. His eyes narrowed. The muscles in his face, neck, and shoulders bulged out like a beast’s. The horns on his back sprang out straighter. “Where is Seán?”
“I sold him,” Gunnar said, equally loud but without fury. “Afterward I learned that Mulrian rescued him. I followed the only buyer who survived that rescue, prepared to beat Seán’s whereabouts out of him, but somehow he threw himself headfirst out a third-story window right in front of SnakeIn’s Armed Watch.” Gunnar shook his head in feigned bewilderment. “I suppose, a tender thing like Seán could be anywhere, pleasing anyone by now. He's probably dead. That means I really am the Last Prince.”
“You’re not even a prince,” Harrison yelled as his hard diamond rings came across Gunnar’s face violently.
Ava screamed.
The Grays in the hallway crashed through the door, their swords and weapons ready.
Gunnar’s head snapped sideways, blood poured from the slice on the prince’s cheek, and then the king swiveled his hand and brought it back the other way, slicing Gunnar’s opposite cheek. The late King Indulf’s memoirs thudded to the floor as the injured prince groaned and bent forward holding his ruined face.
“Arrest Gunnar, immediately!” the king yelled hotly. “I want him executed by First Sunset today.”
“You can’t,” the Most Revered shouted in desperation. “He’s all we’ve got.”
“I’m king, Ava, not you,” Harrison snapped. “You’ve threatened treason. He committed it. I will never let either of you have the Crown. I’ll let the entire dynasty fall rather than allow worms to take control of Midhe Nuae.”
The Kings Guards scrambled toward Prince Gunnar, who looked around desperately, drew the short sword of Jon’s that he had pilfered from MacDonald’s body, and hurled himself at his father. Harrison’s eyes narrowed, his lips curled up and deep, menacing growls rattled from his throat. His leg and arm muscles expanded. His shoulders curled forward as he dropped his head to aim the horns on his back directly at the prince. Two of the Grays dove toward the prince to stop him, but Gunnar leaped over their hands and landed on King Harrison’s poisonous rack of horns.
The prince tried to shriek but his jaw flapped uselessly where the king had all but severed it from the muscles in his face. Froth bubbled up and mixed with the blood. Gunnar swung Jon’s short sword over his head, down over Holy King Harrison’s shoulder, and into the king’s upper chest. With his final ounce of strength, he twisted Jon’s sword, enlarging the wound.
The king dropped to his knees. His hands crossed over the hilt of the sword. His body shrank to its normal size. His son sagged, lifeless, bayoneted onto his back. The king pitched forward, letting go of the hilt of the sword so he could stop his fall. Servants raced forward, and once the king was secure in their grasp, the Grays pried Gunnar from the horns.
Holy King Harrison stood and shuffled forward painfully. Servants appointed to help him moved along with him until he was face to face with Ava: his former lover, Gunnar’s mother, and the Most Revered. She stood stricken by the sight of her dead son and the man who killed him. The man she had always said was his father. Harrison stopped directly in front of her, removed his right arm from the servant’s hands, and grasped Ava’s hand. He jerked it sideways onto the point of one of the lethal horns springing from his shoulder. The sharp pain of the horn’s tip brought her back to reality.
“I’ve been immune to the poison longer than you’ve been on the throne,” she hissed. “I started paying the cost of becoming the Most Revered the morning after our first time in the garden.”
Holy King Harrison dropped her hand, clenched the hand of the arm unimpeded by the sword in his shoulder, and plowed his fist into Ava’s jaw. A Magi Soldier grabbed the Most Revered and pulled her back as the blow hit, lessening the damage to Ava’s face. Two other Magi Soldiers stepped toward the king but thought better of their actions when the Kings Guard mobilized toward them. They moved back to where they were standing and remained still.
The king stepped back in defeat and shuffled toward the exit behind the throne chair.
“Harrison,” she called after him. “Harry, don’t overreact here. We need to sit down and decide what we’re going to do next. Find Seán and reclaim him? Or invest our time in recovering Jon?”
The king cringed and leaned over the sword hilt in his chest. With great effort, he straightened regally. To the servants, he said, “I need a healer.” To the Commander of the Kings Guards, “And now I am ruling that she be executed today before Second Sun sets.”
He started toward the door again, stumbled, and then said over his shoulder, “Tell Gil to come get his son. I won’t allow a royal funeral for his unclaimed.”
©2022 Vera S. Scott