Chapter II

Twist of Fate

The prince woke to sunlight striking his face as he turned in bed. When he rolled his hefty body to the side, he saw a familiar face sleeping peacefully on the other side of the bed. I told her to stay here, he reminded himself. I need to make fewer promises when I'm drunk.

He lay on his back and stared at the ceiling for a while, hearing the girl's breath as if it were his own. He wasn't sure how long he waited in that state or what he thought about while waiting. His thoughts had been so unsteady for some time now.

For a moment, he was a child, watching Aston from the walls of Deepwater with his mother, and the city seemed more beautiful with every look. In another moment, he was in the Wildwood, carrying Ser Hawson Oswyn's quartered shield. In yet another, he was at Joyspring, jousting at seventeen and knocking opponents to the ground one after another. One sunset he was making love to Milah Lormer under a crimson sky, another dawn he was being led to judgment as the randy prince before the king.

"It's nothing serious," Ser Martyn, twirling his long mustache, had said. "You are your father's son; his youth wasn't much different from yours." The prince hadn't paid much attention to the knight's face after the trial. Had Ser Martyn been surprised when King Anrah banished his eldest son and heir to the Marches?

For a moment, Rhael wondered what kind of life awaited him if he had still been at Deepwater. A stubborn father in front of him, whispers behind his back, insincere courtiers and ladies beside him. Life was much simpler now. He glanced at the girl beside him for a moment. I pay her, and she does whatever I want, he thought. No one lies to each other, no one has anything to gain. His eyes were briefly caught by the curtains dancing with the wind over the wide terrace windows. We’re wallowing in a cesspool here, but we’re happier, he insisted.

Still, there were good things at Deepwater too. Edwind was there. Edwind had been five years old, if that, before Rhael was banished to the Marches. Who knows how much the child had whined. There was Lena, his sweet sister, whom he had always loved. Before leaving the castle for his exile, the girl had tied her handkerchief around her brother’s wrist in the castle courtyard. The sapphire-colored handkerchief, a symbol of her vow that he would always remember her. Rhael realized he hadn’t thought of the handkerchief for months. Now, he occasionally heard from visitors from Deepwater how the princess had grown. The girl had blossomed like a beautiful flower. Rhael remembered his sister’s deep blue eyes for a moment, wondering if he could ever look into them again.

One of the things he had to give up was his mother, Queen Alissa. Just over a week ago, a messenger from the capital had said the queen was on her deathbed. Now, the only way to leave this cesspool and see his mother one more time was to wait for some damn soldiers to come to the Old Watch and ride with them to Deepwater. Unfortunately, the days dragged on, and the nights barely met the dawn, with no one in sight on the horizon.

Rhael sat up. He reached for the wine jug on the bedside table, thinking a bit of wine might really wake him up. He poured out the stale wine that had been waiting in the glass since last night onto the wooden floor without hesitation. I’m the lord of the Old Watch, he thought, no one could say anything to him anyway. The sound of the wine hitting the floor startled the girl at the other end of the bed awake.

"Your Majesty," the girl said fearfully. Her red hair was a mess, and her green eyes had not yet shaken off the morning dullness.

"You're a light sleeper," Rhael said, not even thinking of apologizing. "I hope you got enough sleep."

"Not really, Your Majesty. We slept very late, you know."

"Actually, I don't," the prince replied. "I was too drunk when we slept. I don't remember."

"Oh," the girl said, averting her eyes. "You asked me to wake you with a hug in the morning."

"And I woke up on my own," Rhael said. He spun the silver goblet between his fingers, realizing he had never paid much attention to the engravings on it. The three phases of the day; birth, rise, and death. "You can leave if you want, and tell the servants I want chicken with sauce for breakfast, with a bit of cold wine."

He was actually very late for breakfast; the distant symphony of kissing swords was proof that it had been quite some time since dawn. Noon or a bit later, he couldn’t be sure without seeing the sun. "Open the curtains before you go," he said, smiling politely.

"Of course," the girl said, rolling her eyes, though Rhael didn’t understand why. She got out of bed slowly, her naked body momentarily arousing the prince’s appetite just like last night, but for now, he preferred to quench his hunger with wine. "Come again tonight. Tell the guards I invited you personally."

"Thank you for your kindness, Your Majesty," the girl replied, putting on her undergarment and the cheap, gaudy dress. "Please don't drink too much by evening; I don’t want you to forget you invited me."

"As you wish," the prince said, yet he took a loud, full sip from the goblet in his hand. The wine flowing down his throat relaxed him for a few seconds. When the girl left the room and closed the door, Rhael stayed in bed a bit longer. Until the door swung open and hit the wall violently. For a moment, Rhael regretted not keeping the girl in the room a bit longer. The last face he wanted to see upon waking was Aldrin Aldmont’s.

"It’s quite late, Rhael. We need to show ourselves to the soldiers training outside," Aldmont said confidently.

"For what?" Rhael asked.

"Have you gone senile, prince? Tomorrow is the Day of the Lambs. They’ll cross the border, and you know what happens if you don’t put pressure on the soldiers. The wounds Ruttiger's soldiers inflicted last time still haven’t healed."

"And will the lambs stop bleating and start breathing fire?" Rhael said, smiling. "Calm down, Aldrin. If it comes to disciplining the soldiers, I’ll do it without hesitation. Go to the courtyard and wait for me."

"I have no doubt you will," Aldrin Aldmont said, frowning. "Just as I have no doubt you’ll lock the door behind me and keep lazing here as soon as I leave."

"I’m getting dressed, Aldrin. Damn you, show me some respect, man. I’m the heir prince."

"And?" Aldrin asked, laughing. "If I were ashamed of your cock, I’d have to turn off the light while undressing myself." Aldmont’s laughter at his own joke made even Rhael smile. "As for respect… When I look at you, I don’t see a prince; I see the man I knocked off his horse in Dreamspring before winning the tournament."

Rhael slipped out from under the sable fur blanket, walked to the wardrobe, and pulled out clean undergarments. A horsehair breeches, an undershirt, a blue tunic, and a buttoned blue coat. "We broke six lances, you fool," Rhael complained as he dressed. "You didn’t knock me off; my horse threw me."

"That’s because you could barely hold the reins," Aldrin Aldmont said with smug cheer. "When you fell, I laughed so hard behind my visor! You were lucky no one heard me. I nearly fell off my horse from laughing."

"Fuck your horse and you too," Rhael said, buttoning his coat. "I’d have beaten you with my sword, but it was a friendly match, and you won thanks to my horse."

"Maybe," Aldrin said. "Still, it wasn’t the first time I bested you. When I was squired to Ser Hawson, I knocked you to the ground countless times. I even remember once dunking you in the manure pit behind the stables."

"I was fourteen, you fool," Rhael said, unable to contain his anger.

"So? I was fifteen," Aldrin replied.

"You were eighteen, and at that age, a year is a big difference for a child. There was a four-year gap between us, and you were nearly half my height taller."

"If you were short, that’s not my fault," Aldrin said, smiling. "And my father was knighted at fifteen; fourteen isn’t that young."

"And? Did that save him at Stonyhill?" Rhael said, with a note of reproach.

"Rhael, let’s not cross our borders, please," Aldrin said, suddenly serious. Rhael knew he had rubbed salt in the wound. But before he spoke, he had thought the words would make him feel less guilty.

"You’re right," Rhael said, nodding. "Besides, it wasn’t my horse that unseated me at Dreamspring; I couldn’t balance my shield, and my arm carrying the lance was tired. The championship was yours." He admitted defeat and then looked at his old friend, silently asking for forgiveness.

"Accepting defeat is nice," Aldrin said. "But is it enough? I’m not sure."

"And you won all the fights fairly while you were with Ser Hawson," Rhael said, not believing his own words. But the words seemed to be enough for Aldrin.

"They were," he affirmed. "Now, are you ready to go down?"

"Yes," the prince answered. "By the way, I wanted last night’s whore to come tonight too. Tell the guards to let her in."

"Whore?" Aldrin asked. "You mean the cook’s daughter? The girl from the kitchen, Vanesha?"

"Was she the cook’s daughter?" Rhael asked. Honestly, he wasn’t sure exactly who the girl was; he only remembered her movements on top of him while drunk and with a mouth full of crimson wine.

"I told you not to touch the girl last night, but you didn’t listen," Aldrin noted as they left the room. Walking down the corridor, he complained about how careless, thoughtless, and foolish Rhael had been lately.

"Don’t break my balls," Rhael said, frowning. "If you want, fine, I’ll stay away from the girl. If you want, you can’t have her either."

"I don’t want her for myself," Aldrin said harshly. "Open your ears and listen well. The girl’s father worked here in the kitchen before you were born. He loved my father. He loves me like a son. I don’t want you to stain the honor of the man’s daughter for a one-night amusement again. And even if I wanted her for myself, I couldn’t. Fool, have you forgotten? I’m a member of the Hawks."

The Hawks were an elite order of knights sworn to protect the royal family, the griffin blood at the cost of their lives. These vows meant they could not own property, inherit, marry, or have children.

"Stop reading the tales of the past, Aldmont. Do you think the Hawks are the same as before? The noble arses inside your armor would be clad in velvet trousers again with a single letter from your noble fathers. Your vows last a lifetime only as long as two words from the king's lips." He took a deep breath. "I’m the heir prince. When I become king, you’ll reclaim the castle that once belonged to your father, his father, and his father. It’s your birthright; no law is above birthright."

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

"Don’t say such things among people, Rhael," Aldrin said as they stepped out of the castle gate. "Whispers travel faster than the wind."

"What whispers?" Rhael chuckled.

"If we’re talking about our families’ pasts," Aldrin began, "your father deposed his own father in the Royalgriffin Rebellion and took the crown from him. His father, King Andar, took the crown from his father, King Steffon, and his father, King Steffon, took the crown from his father, King Barroth. You Rosses are a bit too ambitious, I think."

"The Wrath of the Griffin," Rhael brushed off. "We get angry a bit quickly, I suppose."

"Call it what you want. A single whisper the king hears could mean your death, Rhael."

"Even my father, King Anrah, can’t kill me," the prince said. "Even for him, spilling royal blood is a crime."

"Who do you think would pursue this crime?" Aldrin Aldmont asked, with inexplicable anger.

"I was hoping you would," Rhael said with a mocking smile. "Would becoming a kingslayer stain your honor, Aldmont?"

"Fuck off, Rhael," the knight said.

When the prince arrived at the castle courtyard carved into the mountain where the Old Watch was located, he saw the soldiers clashing training swords. Sixteen men were sparring one-on-one. Other soldiers surrounded the central fighters, eagerly waiting for their turn. The eyes of the castle commander at the center of the crowd quickly met Rhael’s. Ser Arving was an old man, but he had the resilience of a rock.

Before Rhael was banished here, Ser Arving had been appointed castle commander during the rule of Ser Flaren Mynel, the Lord of the Old Watch and Warden of the Marches. He was the uncle of Caron Roone, the Ironfist Lord of House Roone. Both noble enough and a good soldier, he was a perfect fit for the title. Still, Ser Arving Roone’s star had never fully aligned with Rhael’s. The prince knew that Ser Arving was the king’s eyes here. The old commander watched Rhael’s every move and reported to the king, from which goblet he drank his wine to which hole he entered his whores.

"His Majesty is here!" Ser Arving said, pointing at the prince. "Are you not ashamed to dance like little girls in his presence, fools? Swing those swords like men."

Rhael paused on the steps leading to the courtyard. The first thing that caught his attention was the soldiers’ swords. Flat-edged, blunted metal swords. Noticing this, the prince called the commander over with his finger while watching the kissing swords. All the way, the commander avoided meeting Rhael’s gaze, seemingly unwilling to acknowledge he was coming to the prince. This almost made the prince laugh.

The man approached the prince slowly and saluted, "Your Majesty."

"Ser Arving," Rhael replied. "Why are the soldiers training with swords?" he asked, frowning.

"For the Day of the Lambs, Your Majesty," the castle commander replied.

"Will knights herd the lambs, Ser?" Rhael said sharply. "Instead of making the soldiers train with swords, you should remind them of the consequences of acting out of line in the chain of command."

The man reluctantly acknowledged the prince’s words. "You’re right, Your Majesty. Still, the lambs bared their teeth the last time they were herded."

"And? Will they suddenly turn into wolves and maul us?" The prince smiled mockingly. "When was the last time you witnessed a lamb kill someone, Ser Arving?"

"I haven’t, Your Majesty."

"Good." Rhael gestured to the soldiers in the courtyard. "Then stop the sword training and explain to them everything they need to do in the finest details, including what not to do."

"Yes, Your Majesty," the man said, turning back to the soldiers. He began to scold them with a mouthful of insults. Aldrin Aldmont leaned towards Rhael.

"I hope there’s no trouble on the Day of the Lambs. The soldiers are trained harshly. They might hold a grudge, Rhael."

The names Lambs and Day of the Lambs had always seemed amusing to Rhael. Too mocking for the traditions of a people thousands of years old. The Lambs were an ancient people living in the Lazywood to the east, entirely peaceful, and killing was a great sin for them. For over three and a half centuries, the Shahash people had the right to visit the sacred obelisk named Snake of the Sky on the inner side of the border every three years, and during this visit, the marcher soldiers were only responsible for accompanying them.

Still, an incident three years ago had cast a dark shadow over this peaceful tradition. Morras Ruttiger, the youngest son of Lord Ronnald Ruttiger from the Longpass to the east, had tried to forcibly take a woman from the Lambs they were accompanying along the border into his bed. The Shahash people resisted Morras with stones and sticks, refusing to give up the girl. The growing turmoil had been barely quelled with the intervention of Lord Olmar Ashwick from the New Watch to the south.

The Lambs had been accompanied to the Snake of the Sky to perform their worship, and Morras Ruttiger had been brought to Rhael at the Old Watch with shackles on his wrists. Rhael had personally sent a report and request to his kingly father regarding him, stating that Morras should be definitively exiled. The king hadn’t refused this request. Rhael had heard that Morras Ruttiger was last seen wielding a sword as a mercenary in the Silver Blades in Riverlands.

Despite this, Aldric Aldmont and Rhael were not worried about the Lambs being herded under the blue griffin banner of House Ross. The Shahash people had been plundered, enslaved, and killed for thousands of years by barbarians from the Da’qa Mountains beyond the Lazywood. Yet, they had never thought of retaliating. During the first Day of the Lambs inspection he oversaw, Rhael had asked an old woman the reason for this.

"Forgive me," the woman had said. "Why would we want to kill them? Who would dare risk the wrath of gods who fear the sword?" The old woman’s words and gaze had caused him to feel a ghostly hand around his throat for a moment, no matter how foolish it seemed. The prince had coughed, shaking off the fingers that clutched his throat and prevented him from breathing.

Until the day gave birth to night, Rhael and Aldrin watched as the soldiers took position at each command, accompanied by Ser Arving’s angry shouts. Bend, salute, kneel, salute, left stance, right stance, march, halt, circle. Even Rhael’s squire Owen had voluntarily joined the practice. Maybe he’ll come to his senses if he’s afraid of Ser Arving, Aldrin Aldmont had thought for him. Rhael hoped he was right. If Rhael had been distracted lately, then Owen Huffle was born a fool. Two days ago, during a drill, he had dropped his mace while carrying it to Ser Worran, a distant cousin of House Barren, and the mace had crushed Ser Worran’s foot into a grotesque flat shape.

Rhael had scolded Owen until he cried. It wasn’t very hard, though; the boy always had teary eyes over his plump, freckled cheeks.

Rhael didn’t want to be too hard on the boy. Every time he shouted at, scolded, or got angry at him, the prince remembered where they were. The Marches were not the right place for a foolish boy; everyone here was always angry and impatient. Here, even the common folk were born soldiers; there were no ladies prancing about, and even the knights didn’t walk around with capes trailing to their wrists. Except for Aldrin Aldmont, of course; he was a member of the Hawks, after all.

The Marches were not the best place to live, yes. But they were far from the lies and intrigues of the royalty, according to the prince. Here, there were only clashing swords, whores, and wind-carved rocks. And the Ashur raiders coming from the east on horseback. In the seven years since the Young Griffin had taken his place on the walls of the Old Watch as Warden of the Marches, the raiders had only come from beyond the border three times. None had managed to get past the Old Watch. They might have been invincible warriors on open ground on horseback, but the Marches were a land of narrow passes, cliffs, and rocks where riding was hardly feasible.

Before sunset, Rhael turned for a moment and began to examine the Old Watch once more. The disappointment he felt when he first saw the supposedly impenetrable structure he had often heard of as a child couldn’t be put into words. The castle was situated near the top of the mostly foggy Bronze Mountains, surrounded by cliffs, consisting of a single tall tower at the center of four intertwined towers and the low walls surrounding it.

The castle’s foundations, built thousands of years ago by the ancestors of the Aldmonts, were made of eternally cold and gloomy night stone. Over generations, the ancient house of the Old Watch had continued this tradition, shaping every part of the expanding castle with night stone. It was sturdy, undoubtedly. But it could easily be said to lack the aesthetics that could be the subject of tales. The highest tower, also known as the Lord’s Tower, was the Bronze Spear. To the east, there was the nearly long rectangular-shaped Fieldshield, and to the west, the Brokenfinger Tower. Adjacent to Brokenfinger Tower was the older Howling Tower and the relatively younger Star Tower, almost half its height. Rhael often heard soldiers calling these two towers the Stars.

The only tower outside the main structure, separated from the others, was the Horn. The Horn was once connected to the Bronze Spear by a long stone bridge, but the stone bridge connecting the two towers had collapsed over two centuries ago. Between the low walls outside the main structure were the blacksmith’s forge, the temple, the stables, and the granary, and Rhael’s favorite part of the castle: the crypts. Most of the crypts of the Old Watch were no longer in use. In old records, the prince had read that many tunnels from the castle’s crypts connected to caves around the mountain. Still, now these tunnels had all collapsed, and the inner parts of the crypt were used only as storage for water and wine.

"It’s getting dark," Aldrin said, frowning. "My feet are swollen, I swear. We’ve been here for hours." Rhael nodded.

"Go and rest," he said to Ser Aldrin. "I’ll go drink a bit."

His room had been aired by the servants, his bed straightened, and the dinner that had been waiting for him for some time was laid out on the table in his room. When Rhael saw the table, he realized he hadn’t eaten all day. "If His Majesty desires, we can prepare the meal he wants immediately," said the servant girl as the prince sat at the head of the table. "No need," Rhael said.

Without waiting, he devoured the dried and cooled steak on the table, accompanied by the wild blueberries beside it. The fat from the juicy ham coated his mouth, and the wine filled his stomach. After finishing his meal, Rhael didn’t know what to do for a while. He thought about calling the cook’s daughter again tonight, but for some reason, he didn’t want someone bouncing on his manhood tonight.

"Does His Majesty desire anything else?" asked another servant girl. Her long brown hair fluttered like silk in the breeze coming through the terrace door. Rhael watched her ample bosom and plump hips for a while, feeling she was a replica of Milah Lormer. It was only a fleeting feeling. The girl lacked Lady Milah’s nobility and the chamomile and laurel scent that enveloped her body. "I’ll be late returning to my room," the prince said. "I intend to read something, and when I return, I want a hot wine waiting for me. Preferably apple wine."

"We’re out of apple wine, Your Majesty," the girl said, embarrassed.

"Then let it be grape, with a bit of laurel leaf added."

The library of the Old Watch was actually quite small, consisting of only a few bookshelves. Due to the dampness that had engulfed the walls, more than half of the books were unreadable. Rhael knew that the castle once had a much larger library. When the Aldmonts still ruled the Marches as Kings of the Marches after the collapse of the empire. Still, when the House Aldmont knelt to House Ross, the Kings of Aston at Deepwater, the Wynters of Silverspine accused Lash Aldmont of treason and besieged the Old Watch. Despite the siege lasting more than a month, Gord Wynter had achieved nothing and tried to rain fire on the castle from the sky with hot oil on catapults. This rain of fire had continued until Rhael’s ancestor, King Andron I, came to break the siege. Eventually, one of the fiery rain from the sky had been enough to burn the old library to ashes.

Time had evidently passed quickly. The House Wynter line had entirely died out, and the last generation of the House Aldmont had been deprived of their birthright inheritance because their fathers had sided with the wrong side in the Royalgriffin Rebellion. As a child, Rhael had sworn to the Aldmonts he had grown up with under King Anrah’s protection at Deepwater that he would return these lands to them one day. Ser Aldrin’s younger brother, Seth, who was the same age as Rhael, had told the prince that if the king heard this, he would bear a mark on his cheek in the same shades as his red hair. Even after all these years, Rhael couldn’t forget how the three Aldmonts had laughed.

Back then, I was everyone’s favorite, Rhael mused. As a child, the nobles of Deepwater saw him as his father’s reborn image. They would always talk about how he had his dark blue eyes and red hair. Now the prince wasn’t even sure if he was remembered at Deepwater.

He examined the books in the library with weary curiosity. A book on dragons by a historian from Mhaz, a collection of songs and tales by a moonpriest from Souder, a book on naval warfare by a captain from the Seabright, and the Teachings of Daias. The young prince found nothing worth reading. He spent some time wearily drifting among the bookshelves like a breeze, insisting on finding a book that would interest him. Eventually, he gave up his insistence.

He returned to his room and drank the hot wine, hastily prepared by the servants, deeply falling into a deep sleep.

In his sleep, Rhael was a griffin with magnificent wings tonight, the most beautiful dream he had had recently. He flapped his wings among the high towers of Deepwater, perched on the high glass dome of the Great Temple of Daias. Deciding he wanted to fly a bit more, he ascended to the sky again. He wanted to see Joyspring, but somehow, the side where the sun birds farewell took him to the Marsh where his mother was born and raised, to the northeast. For a moment that felt like an eternity but lasted only a few heartbeats, the young prince flew over the marsh.

Then he cut through the wind, heading north. He flapped his wings over Adura Bay. He got close to the water, so close that the splashing drops wetted his body as he flapped his wings. Then Rhael heard a sound, felt a sharp pain in his shoulder before he even realized what it was, saw the hot blood flowing from his chest, and the dark blue sea, almost black, drinking his blood.

He suddenly sat up in bed, breathless. The prince was sweating as if he had come close enough to touch the sun. He involuntarily took his face in his hands, listening to his own breath behind tightly closed eyelids until his trembling fingers stopped. Then Rhael heard the sound of the metal door opening between the walls like a mouth, and the sound of the chain beginning to rust reached even this high. Without thinking, he got out of bed and stepped onto the terrace, letting the wind bless his body. When he looked down, he saw a host of cavalry waiting at the foot of the Old Watch.

The wind blessing his body also blessed the blue griffin banners the soldiers held up to the sky. Time to leave, Rhael thought, still breathless. Time to leave this cesspool.