The Princess Tied - Cari Silverwood Page 0,1

I cast you to Hell then. I send you to burn there, and I rename you John the Wickerman. Burn and die.

He swallowed the renewed blows those words dealt him. He was heartless. He knew this. He had known it for a very long time.

The flames flickered still, dancing in the glass lenses. Before, his lack of guilt had been invisible, now his eyes showed his damnation. He put a hand to his chest, over where his heart should be, and then he felt for a pulse at his wrist. There was nothing except for, perhaps, a crackle and a flair of heat under his fingers.

He did not dare to unbutton his gray shirt and look.

Many things were unknown to him. The world was vast and full of magics, but to discover that Hell was truly a place? Chalk that up to experience. He didn’t intend to revisit it anytime soon.

John muttered a curse then settled the spectacles into place. After a few breaths, he strode forth into the brighter light and colors, into the busy street and the noise.

People bawled out the price of goods, manned carts, waltzed into shops, kissed their girls, held hands, strolled. Dogs darted through the legs and skirts. Horses and carts and coaches clopped and rolled past. Multi-colored balloons bobbed on long strings above a street-wide banner announcing a coming food festival. Grand Poncifer hustled and bustled, and it did so far more extravagantly than it had a year ago. The new financial advisor was supposedly the reason for this resurgence of fortune.

Though the king was dead, having fallen while mountain climbing, his queen had died in childbirth, so that child was next in line to the throne of Bitzocoin. Princess Pollianna, nicknamed Po, smartest royal ever, would soon be crowned queen. The required year of mourning was over, and someone had grabbed his brother.

Did they wish to stall the coronation? He did not know.

If he did know, he would also know where they had taken him. Wouldn’t he? John rubbed his brow as a headache throbbed into being.

He liked to know.

Not knowing led to bad things. People dying. Various and sundry unwanted side-effects.

The princess would have detectives to do her bidding and other smart people.

First stop, his spectacle maker, whose shop was on the way to the palace. Second stop, the palace.

A seated man rustled a newssheet in his face. He seized the man’s wrist and stared at the dateline below the masthead of the paper.

Monday the third.

“Three bitz!” offered the news seller.

“No thanks. I’m good.”

John weaved through the thickening crowd. He was correct. This was, somehow and strangely, the same day as the ambush. He and his brother had been riding from their estate. They had reached the outskirts of the capital when a band of hooded soldiers poured from the trees lining the road. Though not in uniform, their actions said trained soldiers.

Held at sword and arrow point, he and Xander had watched as a tall man threaded through the ranks of their attackers. He had counted to one hundred, as he always did since puberty, tamping down his natural murderous impulses. That had been a mistake.

“I am the Storyteller,” the stranger said, and the words were stamped with capitals.

After which… John came to a halt, his boot heels grinding on the stone of the street beneath. After that point in the ambush affair, he recalled little more than the words condemning him.

If Xander was gone, the wedding and coronation would be difficult, since he was supposed to marry Princess Po. Their assailants would not be hanging about. They would be fleeing the country.

Clearly, he should not try to thwart the Storyteller by himself, no matter his singularly great skill at killing.

Yes. Spectacle-maker, first, to order a new pair like the glasses on his nose, ones that blocked out the flames. The suspicious and startled looks he was getting from those passing by would otherwise become tiresome. After which, he would visit the princess and tell her of his kidnapped brother.

Organize a rescue party. Pick up his new spectacles. Set out post haste with the armed party arranged by Princess Po, and some detectives, if that was possible to arrange at short notice. Catch and kill said Storyteller. Get back his brother. Watch the wedding. Reap the benefits when his bro took over the kingdom.

Excellent plan.

A round, dirty fluff-ball mutt bounded into view and circled him making growling noises, pausing in its circumnavigation to sniff the knee of his black pants.