“I need to send you back up to your room, Omak,”he told me. “My father and I will be interrogating these Royal Guards, but I don’t need you and my consort here for any of that. I’ve asked Stefan and Vannos to go up too, and to make sure their children are safe.”
“Is all that really necessary?”
“Yes, I believe it is. We’re trapped here in this palace until this storm is over, or else I’d have sent you both back to the ships already. It was one of those Laltanan guards who attacked both Larz and his son.”
“And you’re sure of that?” Blake asked.
He gave me an irritated shrug. “Not exactly, but who else could it have been? Our guards were all accounted for on the other side of the room. The lights were only out for a matter of seconds, and they were the only ones that could have done it, except for the family.”
“His Majesty is right,” General Vargarra said, speaking up from just behind me, proving, I guess, that my situational awareness could be improved on. I had seen him there in the group as I arrived, of course, but had no idea he had come to stand behind me. His deep voice startled me, and I laid a hand on Mikos’s arm to steady myself.
“Please continue, sir,” Blake said, “So you also think it was one of the Laltanan guards? That seems far-fetched to me.”
“When you take away all the other possible options,” Ryan said, “the option remaining, no matter how far-fetched, as you say, Blake, must be the correct one.”
“Ah,” I said, smiling at him. “Deductive reasoning.”
Davos gave me a blank look. “What?”
“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’That’s Sherlock Holmes.”
Mikos looked over at Davos for help and Davos shrugged, like my mind was unfathomable at the best of times, so don’t even try. He’d given up a long time ago.
I just shook my head at both of them. “Never mind.” I turned back to the general.
“But please explain, sir,” Blake said. “My son is extremely popular on Laltana. His people love him.”
“That may be true, Your Highness. But he was the ruler only of the Herkon people. There are at least four different nationalities on the planet, including that of his son Taran, who is from Brytal, as he recently informed me[BW1]. His Highness once fought in a war against the Athelonians, and there have been many small uprisings since then. The politics on the planet are chaotic, from what I understand.”
“Yes, I see what you mean,” Blake said. “Of course, I’d love for Larz to return home for a visit. It’s long past time that we reconcile with him and Janos.”
“Larz is a stubborn ass,” Prince Mikos said. “The only way to get him to board one of our ships is to take him by force.”
General Vargarra shook his head. “No necessarily, Your Royal Highness. For example, if your consort were to be taken somewhere, against his will, and you couldn’t stop it, would you not insist on going with him at the very least?”
Mikos glanced over at Ryan possessively. “I’d kill anyone who tried to stop me.”
General Vargarra nodded. “And you and your brother Larz are alike in many ways, sir.”
“Wait a minute,” Blake interrupted. “Are you suggesting we take Janos? On what grounds could we force Janos to come with us? That doesn’t seem right to me at all.”
“I’m sorry to disagree, Your Highness,” the general replied. “But interest in finding the missing boys, the ones who were kidnapped and sold into slavery from that vessel, has neverfaded on Tygeria. The parents of the missing boys still need answers and have been demanding it for years. They need closure. Janos has always maintained that he had nothing to do with the initiating event, but we need to settle that once and for all and declare his innocence in the kidnapping in front of the king’s council. The people need to see that you, Your Majesty, and your Consort both believe your son and his mate and believe in Janos’s innocence. Prince Mikos too. That might go a long way toward mitigating some of the anger against Laltana. And against Prince Larz, as well.”
“The general makes a good point,” Mikos said. “You’ve been insulated against it, Omak, for years now, but there’s still resentment around the idea that Larz could be with a man who was responsible for the deaths of those boys.”
“But Janoswasn’tresponsible. His brother was punished for that.”
“Maybe we need to make that clear,” Davos said. “The people need to see that we believe Janos and Larz, and that the entire family is united in this. And while we wish Janos had told us where to find Larz or returned him once he knew what his brother had done, but that man was punished. Anything else is being treated as a family matter.”
Mikos sighed and finally nodded. “I hope you realize that Larz is going to be furious if we take Janos in custody to go back with us. He’ll say we tricked him into meeting us here on Moravia just to get a chance at Janos.”
“Larz is short tempered. Like Blake,” Davos said. I rolled my eyes so hard I thought I’d do myself an injury but managed to stay quiet. For now.
“He seems to look for any excuse to be upset over everything we do or say these days,” King Davos said. “It’s time to put an end to this once and for all. Make the arrangements, GeneralVargarra. As soon as their son is able to travel, we’ll go back to Tygeria and straighten all of this out.”
“But what if Larz doesn’t take the bait?” I asked. “What if he won’t go after Janos?”
“He’ll go, nobyo. Nothing could keep me from going with you in a similar situation, and as with Mikos, Larz and I are very much alike.”
