Josie snorted before she whirled, bringing her sword down hard. Aidon blocked the blow, but she moved again, her foot hooking behind his and sending him stumbling through the sand. She had him disarmed a moment later, her blade directed at his heart.
‘Distracted, brother?’ She tilted her head to the side, the sunlight casting hues of red into the dark brown of her mid-length, curly hair. Aidon rolled his eyes as he held up his hands in surrender.
‘Uncle wants me to mark her,’ he said by way of explanation as he walked to the large rock where he’d discarded his shirt. He used the tan linen fabric to dust sand from his brown skin, a shade lighter than his sister’s. He took a swig from the water-skin he’d tossed there before handing it to Josie. ‘You know how much I loathe politics.’
Crown Prince he may be, but Aidon was better suited to the barracks and battlefields. He wanted to be training with his forces, or checking the city patrol, or doing anything, gods,anythingother than listening to merchants squabble, or nobles preen, or whatever political posturing spying on Gianna’s Third would entail.
‘I don’t trust them,’ Dominic had murmured as he paced his office, Aidon sitting straight-backed in the chair across the desk. ‘Who is to say they haven’t framed our men fortheir own benefit? To use as an advantage in the Enforcer’s negotiations? Do not think for one moment, nephew, that they’re not here to further their own interests.’
‘Doyouthink our men were trading with Kakos?’ Josie asked, drawing his attention back to the present as she took a seat on the rock, her gaze fixed on the choppy blue water. Aidon followed her stare, studying the small sailboats that dotted the horizon.
‘Father seems to think not,’ he mused. ‘Though he’s been reluctant to share much on the matter.’ As the head of the Trahir Merchant Council, Enzo would be the one to know. And, according to Dominic,shouldhave known that they had two traitors in their midst. The argument between the two brothers regarding the rogue tradesmen had lasted for what seemed like hours. There were accusations of irresponsibility, and callousness, and a whole host of other heated words that Aidon could hear echoing out of Dominic’s chamber.
It came to a head when Enzo seemed reluctant to alter the upcoming trade terms in retribution.
‘You refuse your king, brother?’
That had been the end of the discussion.
Aidon’s mother always said that something had shifted drastically in Dominic when he lost his wife, Madelyn, ten years ago. That when Madelyn died of her illness, Dominic’s dreams died with her – dreams of a family. An heir of his own.
But Aidon hardly remembered a time when his unclewasn’tthis way.
Stubborn. Arrogant. Cold. The antithesis to everything Madelyn had been.
Yet the tension between the brothers did seem to be getting worse of late.
‘I asked whatyouthink,’ Josie pushed.
‘I don’t think Will is one to make mistakes when it comes to securing the truth,’ he confessed quietly.
‘Don’tstart. You two could stand to be civil. Especially if he’s going to be here for a prolonged stay.’
Aidon’s mouth dropped in mock outrage. ‘Iamalwayscivil. Besides, it was a compliment.’
It wasn’t, and Josie knew it. She, for whatever reason, could stand the Enforcer. Aidon didn’t necessarily dislike him. He just found Will to be … grating.
‘Civil,’ his sister scoffed. ‘You’re a rogue disguised as a charmer.’
Aidon dropped onto the rock next to her with a sigh. ‘Is that what they say about me in town?’
‘I try not to listen.’ She grinned at Aidon’s frown and dusted sand from her leathers. ‘It must beso hardto be the trusted and favored one,’ she teased as she nudged him with her shoulder, her golden-brown eyes twinkling with amusement.
Aidon forced a laugh.
He’d petitioned his uncle on more than one occasion to allow Josie to fight but the king refused, keeping her cloistered away in state affairs. They were but chess pieces, moving across the board under their uncle’s calculated hand in the name of duty and responsibility to their Crown.
Aidon knew what it was to be duty-bound. The rules of the realm were clear: only the eldest sibling could rule before the crown passed on to the next generation. It was how it moved through generations rather than staying stagnant – how it passed tohimrather than his father.
Josie, who was two years younger, would never inherit the crown and never wanted to, but still suffered in her own way, with her own stifling responsibilities that she was forced to adhere to, wants be damned. He wondered if his father felt the same – if there was something more he’d rather do thanlead Council meetings. Or what his mother would be doing, if she weren’t the King’s Advisor.
A peacemaker between two quarreling brothers, more like it.
But that was beside the point.
Aidon, trusted and favored? He wasn’t so sure his uncle would agree. For all of his arrogance and stubbornness, Dominic was the paragon of a king: cold and proper. Aidon was warm and bucked tradition. He loathed any marker of royalty, including the golden crown he used as a paperweight on the desk in his room. Needless to say, it infuriated his uncle, and made the lectures from his father ever-present.
Duty.
