The Sinuous Bargain of a Cowardly Prince (book one, The Shadowed Throne Chronicles)

Lavender.

Its pungent stench scorches the inner walls of my nose.

Am I dead?

I open my eyes, but everything is dark.

Starting slow, I think about where my limbs are. Locating my right hand: okay, it’s lying flat next to me. My left hand is, too. My legs twitch from side to side. An ache shoots through my back, which is flat against a hard table.

I don’t seem to be strapped down. So I wasn’t abducted, or if I had been, I’m not being detained.

Am I still in Arioch?

Groaning, I press my hands to the side of the hard table-like surface and prop myself up. My left arm feels somehow stronger than the right: fuzzy, almost like it’s asleep.

A voice grumbles something from in front of me, a little distance away. I feel like they’re saying words, but I can’t make out what they are.

“What?” My voice crackles as I speak. Even rolling my tongue over doesn’t bring moisture back.

“Shameful,” the voice booms, loud and clear, and dare I say, a little aggravated.

My body flinches back at the sound of the king’s disdain, and my posture crumples like an old document—soft and malleable.

We’re still in Arioch, and my father is standing a yard or so beyond my feet.

I blink my eyes, hard. I definitely feel my lids come together, my eyelashes press to the skin underneath. Yet, I see nothing. My heart’s speed hikes up in panic.

My father scoffs. “Did you blind the boy?”

My body stiffens when I realize he wasn’t referring to me as shameful, but to someone else in the room. But still, blind? As in, I’m the only one who thinks the world has been made into an impenetrable abyss?

“I did not, sir,” a slightly higher voice replies, firm. It sounds familiar, until I feel a strange, warm, nonvisible pulse undulating from him like a beacon, reaching out in vibrations and sifting through me like I’m not really here. A strange, visceral embodiment of... magic?

A pressure cracks into my memories, suppressing anything I try to remember. The last thing I recall is my spar with Ether. What could’ve possibly happened to get me here, now?

“Then find out who did. He shall be drawn and quartered.” Anger seethes through the king’s tone, like a river breaking into a dammed lake, crashing across an even surface and flooding into the surrounding forest.

“It was your court mages, Your Majesty,” the familiar voice says steadily.

A high-pitched sound thwacks through the air, and I know my father has hit whoever he is talking to. Somehow, though, the assaulted makes no sound, no moan or groan or grumble as he takes the hit.

“Speak no more. Ill will toward my court is equivalent to treason against your king,” King Azriel seethes.

A beat of silence hangs heavy in the air, but then the familiar voice speaks again, this time more careful, and impossibly more steady.

“I mean no ill will, Your Majesty. However, Prince Ramiel’s maid and I were outside of this room during his procedure, and the last ones we saw enter were mages.”

“Silence,” the king grumbles, this time less angry and more annoyed. “Leave now.”

The sound of air whooshing around a door breaks the stagnant heat of the room, and the magical being leaves.

“Ramiel,” my father says.

I sit upright again, and my head pounds. My arm feels strong. Both strange sensations return to me, now that I’ve nothing else to concentrate on.

“Yes, Your Highness?” My throat is still very dry, and filled with fatigue.

“Tell me what you see.”

I “look” around, and see nothing but black. No spots of light anywhere, as though the windows have been boarded with slabs of rock, blocking all brightness from entering.

But do I want him to know I’m incapacitated? If I’m blind, will he ever see me as worthy?

“We’re in the castle, but I’ve never been in this room before,” I guess, steadying my head in the direction I think he’s standing. I even move my eyes up, hoping that I’m looking at his face.

For a second, I feel confident that I’ve successfully feigned my sight, but then a cold slap cuts across my cheek, heavy and rough like sandpaper, and my body tumbles from the table.

Hard ground greets me like a vengeful enemy, my limbs sticking to the cold and damp.

“You’re a fool to lie to me, boy,” the king scorns. A blend of disappointment and rage bellows in his low voice.

My chest heaves for air, then I feel an intense and very emotional plume of nerves intrude my face, causing me to cry. My breathing is no longer measured, no longer confident.

I’m blind. Vulnerable. Pathetic. Worthless.

The list builds on and on as my tears seem to get thicker, weightier.

What a child I am, crying as though my father’s strike had been truly painful. I almost can’t tell which is worse: crying because he’s hit me, or crying because I know I’ll never be able to measure up when I don’t have my sight.

I’ll never be Xavelor.

“My condition still stands, though the outcome appears bleak,” his voice is tight, still fleshed with that obvious disappointment. “You have two months before the Feast of Undying. Will you forfeit your birthright?”

His words come rushing into my brain, crashing into one another. The only words I really hear are “forfeit” and “birthright” and a bitter laugh gurgles in my throat.

“Since when have you considered me your son?” I spit, scrambling to my feet. Though I can’t see the king, he isn’t the smallest person in the kingdom, so his movements are audible.

“Ramiel—”

I put my hands out, signaling for him to stay away. “No,” I say, “don’t say that you ever did, because then you’d be lying to me.”

The king is silent.

My dream resurfaces, my mother’s face fresh in my mind. Finally, something I can remember. Perhaps the dream had been her way of comforting me. Or maybe it had been my last resort, a coping response to whatever trauma afflicted me to blindness. Regardless, her soft words toward the king sparked a heat within me that wouldn’t quell easy.

“Leave me, and bring my maid,” I say, still holding my arms out straight.

The king moves, his feet scraping along the stone floor. Not toward me, but away, to where the door is.

“Two months,” he repeated, voice gruff. The door sweeps open and then closes.

Relieved, I drop my hands to my sides, then step carefully to the side until my hip reaches the table. I grab the surface, hoist myself up, and sit.

Not a moment later, the door swings open.

I sense no magical energy, nothing like the previous guest.

Light taps against the floor grow louder as the entrant moves to my side. Soft, medium-sized hands take one of mine, cupping it like a precious, rare prize.

“Rami,” Bernadette wails, stroking my hand in mourning. “You—what happened to you?”

I can hear her struggle to release words, and my heart constricts in horror. “What, do I look terrible?” I feel my arms and legs. My left is wrapped in a thin cloth, and is damp. But it’s still there. Perhaps I’d been injured.

She breathes in a shaky breath, then pats my hand. “Oh no, of course not dear. I just...”

The door swings open again, and even though no footsteps accompany the rush of wind that filters through the humidity, I know it’s Ether. Her energy somehow feels light and free and bright and pure.

Bernadette moves away, her warmth leaving my grasp, and new, slender hands fold around mine, though they’re smaller than my dear maid’s.

My breath stops.

“How are you feeling?” she murmurs, stroking my hand.

The door opens again and I’m sure Bernadette has left.

I can’t bring myself to answer her. My mind is absent of all coherent thought.

The elf lifts her hand from mine, then touches the cloth on my arm. When I twitch in surprise, she flinches back, but then her hand is suddenly grazing my face in a caress.

Cold, soft fingers brush gently across my forehead, then make their way down my cheek to my chin. She goes over this area, up and down, down and up, a few times. I find the coolness of her touch soothing rather than strange.

“Is something the matter?” I ask, and her fingers disappear.

Her hand returns to cup around mine, and I hear her inhale deeply. “Ramiel, you were attacked by a magical being called a klopse. And the only way to remove its poisoning bite was to... Allow the mages to intervene.”

She clearly doesn’t like admitting this to me, but I appreciate her honesty, even if it’s forced.

“Can you tell me what this has to do with my loss of sight?”

Ether’s hands tighten around mine.

“They used dark magic on you.”

“Dark magic...”

Ether releases my hand, then gently holds my face in her palms. Her thumbs stroke over my cheek, and strangely, I now feel like there is some resistance there. Not on my right side, but certainly on my left; the same side as my wrapped and seemingly stronger arm.

“When one uses dark magic, they sacrifice a part of themselves,” she says in a quiet voice. “Though you weren’t the one to use it, the mages imposed it on you to heal your wound. Do you... happen to remember anything that happened?”

I shake my head and she sucks in a deep breath. Her hands drop from my face, but I catch them mid-air.

“Dark magic does that,” she mumbles. “It ruins your face, your body, your brain, your memories...”

The low-burning rage sparks again at her words. At the idea that my own sanity isn’t even in my own control.

“Can I get my sight back?” I ask, but it’s more like a statement, an order.

Ether flinches at my tone, but she doesn’t pull her hands from mine.

“I’m not sure,” she says. “But I don’t think sight is the most important thing right now, if I’m being honest.”

My eyebrows tighten inward. “What do you mean that’s not important?”

“Ah, don’t worry. I said it’s not most important.” Her fingers twitch and I let go. “Ronan gave me a tip about the Feast of Undying.”

“Oh yeah?” I groan.

A quiet laugh billows from the elf. Soft and light, it almost makes me forget that we’re talking about my deadline.

“As you know, at the feast you’ll be battling one of the five wondrous beasts. You previously said it was a dragon, but that may not be the case,” she says. The brief pause between her speech makes her stutter slightly. “You... do know what the five wondrous beasts are, do you not?”

I laugh bitterly. “Who do you take me for?”

“Okay, then list them off for me. Let’s call this a non-battle teaching moment.”

I roll my eyes, and it feels weird that I’m not looking at anything as they bounce from one corner to the other. My hand keeps a tally of the beasts as I list them.

“Dragon, Griffin, Binifet, Devkapla, and Yaratik.” When I’m finished, I cross my arms firmly over my chest.

“Okay, good, at least you remember something,” she says meekly.

I don’t respond. How does one respond to that?

“Let us get you cleaned and fed,” she coos, her voice like a mellow harp. “Then,” her voice twangs, “you will learn how to fight.”

“But I can’t see,” I protest. “I can’t fight a mouse let alone a wondrous beast!”

Her fingers slide through my hair, springing the curls back to life. One falls over my forehead.

“I told you. That’s not the most important thing right now. Besides, you can sense me, er, my magic. Can’t you?”

I nod.

“Then that’s all you need. Now come! There’s no time to lose.”