Page 2 of Tethered Thrones
The door flew open, nearly catching me.
“You insufferable child!” he bellowed. “How much did you hear?!”
“Nothing father!” I insisted automatically. “I just–I–I was–”
“I–I,what, you bumbling fool?!” he mocked harshly.
The beaded bracelet slid off my wrist automatically without even trying. I was used to lying on my feet, especially to spy.
“Goodness, father,” I managed, lifting my hand to show him. “I was only looking for my bracelet. I thought it might have fallenoff somewhere around here. Then I heard yelling and looked up.”
Somehow, I managed to keep my voice level and light, even surprising myself.
My father's face froze. Behind him, An approached, sneering at me down his long, straight nose.
“Come highness, we have important business to finish.”
My father hesitated and then sighed and shut the door firmly in my face.
“I'm sure your son couldn't even follow what he heard,” An remarked laughingly from behind the door.
I heard my father chuckle in return.
“No, I suppose not...”
My heart was beating hard, and my hands were trembling a little bit, but I turned on my heel and walked briskly through the palace, ignoring everyone I passed until I reached my bed chambers.
The moment the doors closed behind me, I collapsed against them, breathing hard.
Batu Sun hadbothstones? But that could end the war. He could wipe out all the nocs at once. Unless my father was right and he was with the nocs now, but then surely, he would have taken out us humans...
And what had my father meant that he hadensuredhe would keep the throne over twenty years ago?
Immediately, I thought of the nocs. They had arrived on our land twenty-five years ago now. But how could he have anything to do with their arrival?
None of it was making sense to me but a deep, bone chilling cold filled my body and I felt suddenly ill.
Distrust of my father was not a new thing. He had never loved or cared for me as far as I could remember, but he was still my father. Surely that meant I should stand with him.
But what if he had done something so bad that there was no excusing it? What if this war and bloodshed and darkness that had stretched on for so many years was directly from his hands?
Perhaps Batu Sun knew something that no one else knew. Perhaps that was why my father was so afraid...
Chapter 1
Sun
Clinging to the king of nocs, we set out to slay my emperor in the direction of the rising sun.
Flecks of ice coated the worn sleeves of my uniform, battered and damaged from the long climb up the mountain. I wondered if I’d ever own another clean pair of pants and a robe that would not end up ripped to shreds again.
Each breath we took came out in puffs of frost. It would not be very long before we needed to rest. My nocs were strong, stronger than me, as much as I hated to admit it. But they were not immortal and prone to frostbite like any other creature, even if they refused to complain about it.
It dawned on me, as I squeezed Hadi’s stomach harder, that we were worse off the closer we got to Kari, and the further away we fled from Black Lantern Prison back in the direction of Yewan. We had one more resurrected body to fight with, with the addition of the spider king, sure, but we’d brought more enemies, curses, and devastating revelations along with us on this treacherous journey.
And now this long nightmare is finally going to reach its climax.
I wondered if I had truly made it out alive from that hellhole of a prison, or if I was just living some fantasy inside my mind. That is until the heat of Hadi’s body was ripped away from me, jolting me back to attention. He maneuvered me so I could slide off his back, and I grumbled my dissatisfaction from losing his warmth and silent support.