Page 29 of Claimed
“And you think Ari could be in this—in an asylum, um, guarded by monsters?”
“I don’t think anything at this point. But if he was clearly disoriented and a vagabond, he’d fit the description of the men they were rounding up. And if they use them for unpaid manual labor, essentially, Ari was tall and strong. He’d be a good candidate for a work detail if he didn’t know any better. If hethought he was some kind of criminal, he would do the time. That was how he was brought up.”
Nicki tilted her head. “How well did you know him?”
“Ari?” Stefan’s lips twisted. “In some ways, not well, for all that we’ve been forced together for most of his life. My father and the king of Oûros were brothers, all those years ago, so I’m still considered something of a royal cousin. My aunt and uncle took me in when my parents died—though not as an adopted son, by my request. More as a lodger, for lack of a better word. Nevertheless, they ensured my schooling was top-notch, and when I showed an interest in politics, they moved me into the domain of their royal advisor—a man similar to Cyril in temperament. He mentored me from age fourteen on, even after my connection to Hermes became apparent and I pledged myself to him at age twenty.”
Nicki stared at him. “I—” she managed. There was so much in that brief statement she wanted to unpack, but she started with the most personal. “I didn’t know your parents died when you were young. I thought you…” she waved a hand, clearly at a loss. “I didn’t know.”
He frowned. “There was no reason for you to know. It was a long time ago. I was eight. They were on a yacht and got caught in a storm.”
“And you’re still willing tosail?” she protested. “You didn’t even blink at taking a yacht here.”
Now it was Stefan’s turn to stare. “Why would I hold the sea at fault for doing what the sea does? My parents took a chance being out on the sea that night, much as Ari did when he flew off in his plane. It wasn’t the fault of all yachts, everywhere, that their boat was unable to withstand the pounding it took. It wasn’t the crew’s fault that they did not survive despite their best efforts.”
He delivered this with an icy calm, but not a robotic one. Nicki got the impression he really did believe what he was saying.
“Do you miss them?” she asked, her voice small.
Then a soft, sad smile creased his lips. “Every day. But the pain has changed, over time. It doesn’t go away. But it becomes…different.”
Twenty
Stefan kept his manner relaxed, but inside he was berating himself. There was no purpose in confiding in Nicki, no matter how easy it was to say what he honestly felt. She would be leaving shortly after their return to Oûros, and he knew that information shared was power lost. Somehow, he had lost power with Nicki, in telling her about his past. He should probably care more about that than he did, but in this case, he didn’t mind so much. Empowering Nicki Clark had its advantages.
Not that Nicki realized it yet. She chattered on as their food arrived and turned the talk quickly to the images she’d captured on her video blog. In fact, her manner was overly lively, almost agitated, and he glanced at her hands as she reached for her sparkling water.
They trembled. Was she really that nervous around him?
His own heart gave a strange, sideways thud—then Nicki’s bright words pulled him out of his reverie. “Out of curiosity, what happens if we do find Ari and he’s legitimately some sort of criminal?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, let’s face it. He showed up on a foreign shore with no passport, no identity, possibly out of his mind. He gotarrested, let’s say, and put in this work camp place, with or without monster guards. The crown prince of Oûros, mind you, cooped up by Turkish officials like a common vagrant, despite a countries-wide search for any scrap of information about him…”
Stefan quirked a smile. “It would pose an interesting political challenge.”
“Beyond that,” she waved her spoon. “What do we do, point and shout, ‘Oh, by Zeus’s lightning bolt, it’s the prince!’? I don’t think so.”
“If we have positive visual identification, we’ll try to extract him immediately. If that task is beyond the abilities of the men we’ve brought, then it will become an escalated effort. Obviously, if we can avoid such an escalation, that would be ideal.”
“Obviously,” Nicki said wryly.
“If we don’t have positive visual identification, or if the identification isn’t of Ari proper, but his remains, or more fragments of his clothing or the airplane, then it becomes more difficult. The burden of proof will be on us, and we can’t act with speed or any sort of stealth. The Turkish government will be made aware of our efforts, and it could become an international incident.”
“None of that sounds ideal, either.”
He grimaced. “It most definitely does not.”
“So, let’s consider it from the other direction. Ari is alive and relatively healthy, simply imprisoned. Maybe he knows who he is, maybe he’s afraid of sharing that information, for fear he’ll be killed. After all, he’s been rotting in there a long time.”
Stefan pursed his lips. “You might want to avoid the term ‘rotting’ as you consider relaying this story to the queen.”
Nicki winced. “Fair enough,” she said. “He’s been a guest of the Turkish officials in Alaçati for nearly a year. He’s been biding his time, hoping for an out, and if he sees any friendly faces fromOûros, he can shout out, draw attention somehow. Then it could all be explained away as a misunderstanding.”
“True, if he’s lucid enough to engage in such a subterfuge. But it still relies on us getting close enough for him to see us. Which is a more challenging issue.”
“Not so challenging.” Nicki swiveled her head to peer at the mountainside. “There are new ruins up there, and ruins mean dollars, once they’re cleared enough for tourists to pay to go gawk at them. You can bet they’re moving heaven and more importantly, earth to get that to happen, especially with the windsurfing competition coming up. We’re in high season, and that’s potentially thousands of tourist dollars a week that could be going to the city’s coffers. If the thing isn’t open already, it will be soon. And that’s exactly where you’d think they might be keeping the imprisoned vagrants.”