The Black Prince: Part I Read Free Page B

Lissa’s room, merely the one Hart had rented. And her along with it. Wherever she slept, on her own time, he didn’t know.
    He’d been careful not to wake her when he rose. She deserved her sleep, and not just because he’d ridden her hard the night before. Which he had. He’d been astonished at himself.
    Now, he felt like he had the worst hangover of his life.
    A hundred evil imps were banging gongs inside his skull while a hundred more danced a chain on his stomach. He drank from the earthenware pitcher on the nightstand, not bothering to use a cup. The water tasted stale, but helped to alleviate the old parchment feeling in his throat. What he needed was a bath—a sentiment he’d never thought he’d hear himself express, even to himself—and another eight hours in his own bed.
    He blinked. Even the grayscale of the false dawn was an affront to his eyes. So profoundly did he wish himself elsewhere. Preferably a cave, where no one could find him.
    He glanced again toward the bed.
    Slipping a hand into an inside pocket, he removed a purse and placed it, without a sound, on the dresser. Inside was more coin than, before he’d come north, he’d seen in his entire life. He was careful not to let them jingle. Enough to keep his father in wine and his stepmother in shoes for the next year.
    Some men had women. Hart didn’t want a woman, not yet, but this was a lovely one and he wanted her to remember him. He thought again of her lips on his, and how eager she’d been once she’d forgotten her fear, and thought of a line from the oath he’d taken:
the living light, the seed within
. Well, he decided, let her make of the purse what she would.
    He turned on his heel and left.
    He was in the stableyard when he heard the crunch of a heel on the frost.
    Straightening, he turned. Callas. He’d heard the other man because Callas wanted him to.
    He waited. A thin, wan light that seemed to suck the color out of everything was only just now bathing the world. A world that seemed devoid of people, save them alone. Even the stable hands were still asleep, snuggled up in their blankets before the kitchen fire. It was too cold to sleep in the stable.
    “There’s word of unrest in the mountains.”
    “When?” Hart meant, when did they leave.
    “As soon as we’ve been back to the castle. Tristan wants to brief us in person.”
    Sensitive information, then. Hart wondered if this meant that the trouble was related to goings-on in the South. Piers had a tenuous grasp on the throne at the best of times. He wondered what idiot would support the man’s rivals, led now by Brandon Terrowin’s philandering widow. Any fool could look at the boy, Asher, and see that he belonged to Tristan and not the dead heir. And a terrible heir he’d been. The kingdom was better off with Piers.
    Maeve and her cronies talked of destiny, and the divine right of kings. Well, the Gods helped those who helped themselves. Piers was only able to take power, because House Terrowin had made such a right balls up of things beforehand.
    Callas went to retrieve his own horse. Hart was somewhat relieved to see that his friend, too, looked a little under the weather. Dark smudges marked the hollows under his eyes, making him look corpse-like.
    Hart gave his horse a pat. A new horse, a gift from Tristan after he’d put down an insurrection resulting from one of the lakeside hamlets declaring for Maeve. He’d named the horse Cedric, after the leader he’d killed.
    Swinging into the saddle, he wheeled around and quit the place, passing through the gate and into the street beyond. The stableyard walls, like the inn itself, were built from dressed stone. Sturdy. Resistant to fire. Everything in the North was built for defense.
    Callas followed along a moment later, and they rode home through a city only just beginning to come alive.
    They found Tristan in his office.
    This was the man his sister bedded, Hart thought. Entirely without meaning to; he simply