Page 7 of Sworn to the Shadow Throne

The commonplace displays shouldn’t have made me jealous, but they did all the way down to my bones. A woman pressing her forehead to her husband’s chest. Another gripping a captain’s arm as if she could hold him here by sheer will. Things so ordinary they were invisible to most men. Things I’d quietly stopped letting myself want.

I had always had Larethia, but some foolish part of me still wanted something that belonged only to the man beneath the crown. Someone who would look past the title, rumors, and darkness in my blood, and not recoil.

Few remembered that the royal line had pointed ears only a few generations back. They didn’t know how much Fae blood my mother and father had passed onto me, or how careful I’d been to let everyone believe that dark magic was all that made me different.

Keeping that secret, and the impulsive, violent part of me under wraps meant the line between Owain and duty were so indistinct that I could barely tell them apart on most days.

I adjusted a buckle for a boy too green to hide his nerves. He couldn’t have been more than seventeen. The kind of young that still had hope in it.

He whispered a thank you and looked up at me as though I’d just given him military honors. I marked him for my sergeants to keep an eye on. If Assembly backed raiders attacked us in the borderlands, boys like him would be the first to die. They never dirtied their own hands. They sent hungry, frightened, desperate men to stir up trouble and arrived later with clean robes and merciful smiles.

Border raiding had been a reality between our three kingdoms for centuries, but the Assembly had weaponized it. They used their own troops disguised as bandits to escalate the violence tenfold. Now, this supposedly neutral group was exploiting the shaky royal succession in Gelida, fomenting a civil war so they could step in as saviors and tighten their grip until every crown bent to their will.

A marriage alliance with Princess Anwen would bind Larethia and Gelida into one front before the Assembly could wedge us apart and arrive as saviors. And I’d do just about anything to stop them from returning to power like the old days of mage hegemony when they ruled without challenge or consequence. Their secret abuses of the vulnerable—especially women and children—were unforgivable.

Berian cared little about the politics; getting rid of me and securing favorable northern trade prices was reason enough for him. But the stakes had just risen. Vaustin hadn’t been at the execution by chance. Men like him didn’t travel for spectacles. It meant the Assembly already knew about our collective defiance.

The question wasn’t whether they would try to stop this alliance—the only chance all three kingdoms had of standing against them. It was how, and how soon.

Preventing that disaster meant I had to play my part. Dying gloriously in battle had always been one way to serve your kingdom. Being traded like a breeding stallion to a kingdom that was more enemy than ally was another. I knew which one I preferred, and it wasn’t the one that required me to smile for hostile courtiers who would’ve sooner burned me alive for my blood than welcomed me as their king consort. At least in battle, my enemies had the decency to be honest about wanting me dead.

But if my misery bought my kingdom safety, then so be it. I tightened another strap and moved down the line.

Camrick Allard followed me with a soldier’s easy swagger that concealed his sharp mind, his usual half-grin in place. He was broader, paler-skinned than I, his dark hair cropped close, jaw perpetually shadowed. He was second-in-command of the army, though his tongue hadn’t remembered restraint since we were boys.

“You’d make a fine stable master, Prince Owain,” he said as I tugged at a girth strap.

“Perhaps I should leave you the command and take up mucking stalls.” I straightened, brushing horsehair from my hands.

As was his way, Camrick switched topics without offering a single hint that he was about to land a blow. “I heard that the queen of Darreth sent you another missive. Owain, I’m sorry, but if you’re having an illicit affair with Stormdân’s wife, I won’t be sending our army to defend you. Not after what happened with Gelida’s men.”

My frozen hands itched to conjure a spear and pin him to the castle wall. Camrick needed to be careful. Talk like that might actually get me killed by the beast of Darreth. My restraint was the only reason he was still grinning.

Yet Camrick, predictably, escalated the situation by waggling his eyebrows like an imbecile.

“Don’t be crude about our ally!” I indulged myself and whacked him in the flank with a conjured baton. “Isca is the diplomacy, Emrys the sword. Hence the missives.”

Cam nodded, holding his side gingerly. But then the sly smirk that always spelled trouble for me crept across his face as he fell into step beside me again. He lowered his voice while scanning the convoy with what looked like genuine attention. “Going back to the subject of fucking. Cut your hair. You look like a lordling’s secret plaything.”

“Delightful change of subject,” I grumbled. Coming from him, that was a compliment. He did a poor job of keeping his playmates secret.

“Careful, lads!” The loudmouth was putting on a performance of egging me on as we continued inspecting the convoy. “His Highness has been without a warm bedmate for so long he’s liable to declare war on the weather itself.”

The soldiers who could overhear us laughed. Because Cam’s insult was uncomfortably on point, it achieved its goal of riling me up—again.

Since serving my kingdom didn’t do anything for me in the bedroom, I was truly turning into a bit of a mess. My face morphed into a mask promising nothing less than bloody murder.

Cam only snorted in response. If my embarrassment steadied the men’s nerves, I’d let them laugh at my expense.

When we were at the end of the line, I swore I could feel the emotions of my men change. The clang of dozens of sabatons on flagstone caused all chatter to cease at once. The men drew themselves up tall, spines straight.

The king had finally deigned to come say goodbye.

Berian’s crown gleamed, catching the weak dawn light. Over his shoulders, he wore a cloak of seska fur to keep the chill away instead of the green cape of our house.

Brothers, they called us. But the word never seemed to fit quite right. I didn’t truly hate him—really, I envied him. He was charming, and duty never seemed to weigh him down the way it did me. He was broad-shouldered like me, though age had softened his edges. His showman’s smile, polished and rehearsed, stretched across his face.

Too damn happy to see me go.