James
“I’m excited to see whatyou’ll try tonight, my old friend.” Carlo sat next to James, sipping from a bottle of wine and eyeing him as if James were a particularly delightful display of entertainment. “Though do try not to get yourself killed. Mother would be furious at me.”
Several excruciating days had passed of James being dragged down the mountains by Dippy, and despite his every effort, James had not been able to win himself free. He’d killed six guards in separate attempts, and several others were nursing near-fatal injuries from him hurling rocks and beating them with sticks he picked up on the trail, all in an attempt to whittle down their numbers. He’d spooked and tripped up their horses, lit tents on fire, and set off a small avalanche, but while the soldiers all glared at him with wary hatred, Carlo relished his efforts with ever-rising fervor. Not even James enticing Dippy to kick the prince seemed to diminish the Beast’s enthusiasm for James’s desperate attempts at freedom.
James had pushed himself to the brink, his body battered and exhausted, but for all his efforts they had nearly reached the western foothills of the Blackreaches. Once they did, all chances of escape would be lost.
He couldn’t help but wonder if Ahnna even cared.
Carlo had lost interest in her entirely since he’d broken her spirit, but that was little mercy, because even without his cruel attentions, she was withering away. While they traveled, she sat slumped and listless on her mountain pony, and when they camped each night, she made no protest as the soldiers ordered her about like a kitchen drudge. Only wordlessly obeyed, scarcely recognizable as the woman he’d fallen in love with. At night, James heard her softly crying, ceasing only when one of the soldiers would kick her and shout at her to be quiet.
James hunched over the stake binding him to the ground and watched Ahnna across the camp. A bored soldier held her restraints, but there seemed no need for them as she lifelessly stirred the large pot of stew that would be dinner. Her eyes were on the trees, but her expression was blank in a way that suggested she saw her own demons rather than the forest around her. It made James sick to see Ahnna this way, especially knowing that it was his actions that Carlo had used to break her.
James might as well have broken Ahnna himself.
“Don’t look at her!”
Carlo’s snarl pulled his attention back to the prince, whose gray gaze was filled with rage.
“She is nothing,” the Beast hissed. “A broken thing unworthy of your attention. If I could kill her, I would, because that woman does not deserve the air she breathes. Rotting to death in the Furnace is a worthy fate for her.”
James had always known that Carlo was not right in the head. But spending days in the man’s company had given James a whole new understanding of the depths of Carlo’s depravity. He was not unique in his proclivities, but men like him typically were tempered by consequence or were put down by the law. For the Beast of Amarid, there was no temperance. No consequence. No law.
Which meant Carlo was uniquely able to be wholly himself.
A monster.
“Her noise irritates me,” Carlo muttered. “I ought to cut out her tongue to keep her silent.”
He started to rise, and James hurled himself at the prince. In a flash, he had the rope stretched between the stake and his wrists around Carlo’s neck, cutting off his air. He pulled it tight even as he forced Carlo to the ground, knee pressing against his back as the other man struggled to get up.
The soldiers flung themselves at James, trying to get him off their prince, but the very ropes they’d used to bind him held him tight to Carlo. Fists and feet flew, but James barely felt the pain.
Hold on,he ordered himself.Hold on until he’s dead. That’s all you have to do.
He strained, pulling the rope tighter—
Only to have it go slack.
The old Amaridian soldier had cut his restraints, and the man now turned on him, the long knife Amaridians favored held at the ready. “I’ve had enough of you, bastard. Time to die.”
James tried to get free of the others holding him, but there were too many.
“No!” Carlo rasped the word and then lunged at the older man, wrenching the knife from his grip.
He stabbed the man. Once. Twice. Three times, and then James lost count as blood sprayed, the old Amaridian screaming as his torso was filled with holes.
The soldiers holding James’s arms let go. He fell on his ass, watching as Carlo slaughtered the soldier who had saved his life, blade sinking into flesh again and again, despite the man having ceased to draw breath.
“He’s mine!” the Beast screamed. “You cannot have him!”
It seemed to go on forever, and James was struck with the thought thatthiswas how his father had died. Only once the man was so much meat did Carlo lift his blood-splattered face to meet James’s gaze. “I won’t let any of them hurt you.”
The perverse protectiveness on Carlo’s face turned James’s stomach, but he bit his tongue.
With one gore-stained hand, the Beast gestured to the fire. “Let us sit and eat.”
The visibly shaken soldiers found new ropes to tie James to the stake and carefully draped blankets around his shoulders before filling up his cup with water. He could smell their fear, and it made James wonder if this was the worst they’d ever seen their prince. If, for reasons that no sane individual could understand, James’s presence brought out the worst of the monster within Carlo.
