Ambrose hadn’t slept all night. Instead, he’d walked the halls; counted the stones in the floor; ran his hand over the carved throne; dragged his finger across the edicts he’d passed, the paintings he had enjoyed pondering in a kingly manner…if even for a short while.
If there was anything his father had taught him over the years, it was that things could always be taken from you. A throne was different, though. There might be the odd challenger or furious dragon, but for the most part, a kingdom was inseparable from its king.
Ambrose felt a dull ache behind his ribs. For a year and a day, he’d had a place where he belonged, a place where he could be someone anddosomething.
For once, he was not just the lowly prince sandwiched between his kingly brothers, but a ruler in his own right, with people who looked up to him. Now he would be flung out into the wild, and all because a witch had forced him to sacrifice the one thing that would have ensured his rule.
Perhaps it would have always ended this way. A kingdom sustained onlove? He couldn’t remember the feeling, but the very idea struck him as shaky from the start. After all, love could be forever snipped out of one’s heart with just a snap of a witch’s fingers.
In the courtyard, a gnarled, white skeleton of a tree shot out from the stones, its dead branches twisting high enough to scrape a cloud straight out of the sky. If Love’s Keep were prospering, the tree would bear jeweled fruit.
Ulrich approached him, delivered a mocking bow, and swept back his iridescent cloak.
“Little brother,” he said in a poisonously sweet voice.
“I’m a king.”
He’d intended to sound regal, but he suspected he’d instead sounded like a child wearing a paper crown.
Ulrich shrugged. “For what, seven more minutes?”
Ambrose narrowed his eyes. It was still seven minutes he refused to part with.
Ulrich swished about in his new cloak. “Do you like my new cloak? Dragon scales repel flames. Very handy.”
“Are you afraid someone will try to set you on fire?” asked Ambrose.
“Well,no, but as a king, one can’t be too cautious. I had another one made for dearest Octavius.”
Octavius, the youngest brother, was somewhere in the southern isles, drinking out of crystal goblets and making eyes at his lovely wife. Ambrose wasn’t so sure that she would appreciate her husband’s cloak, considering that she’d once been a dragon herself. Albeit quite briefly.
“I would’ve had one made for you, but we all knew this would only last a year and a day, and these cloaks take a good six months to make.”
“Your words of comfort are, as always, a balm for the soul.”
“I did bring you something for your exile, though. Kings in exile must have protection from the elements as they”—Ulrich waved a hand, searching for the right phrase—“do whatever it is they do while wandering through the woods.”
Languish and slowly wither into obscurity, thought Ambrose darkly.
Ulrich withdrew a small parcel wrapped in brown paper and handed it to his brother.
“I must be off now, but perhaps we’ll run into each other someday in the forest. I do like hunting.” Ulrich clapped him on the shoulder. “I wish you well, brother.”
Alone, Ambrose stood in the empty stables and opened the parcel. It was a rough-looking, brown pilgrim’s cloak. Unfortunately, he hadn’t thought about a cloak, so he realized he might as well take it with him. He threw it around his shoulders and frowned.
“Dear God, what prickly creature was this thing made from anyway?”
He was about to shrug off the immensely itchy garment when the cloak tightened around his neck.
I am a horse! Observe!came a cheerful voice.
It made an attempt at neighing. But all it succeeded in doing was losing a couple of its hairs and shaking out some dust.
“Youwerea horse.”
The enchanted cloak loosened around his shoulders.
I am quite certain I am a horse still, it said.
