Penelope and Prince Charming (Nvengaria #1)(23)

Thank heavens, Sasha had shouted at him just in time. Had Sasha planned that? Or was the prophecy working, putting Sasha in the right place at the right time to prevent the child from being sired too soon?

Damien was either growing as mad as Sasha, or Sasha was right. Damien had never had much faith in magic, but his people did. Sasha believed in magic wholeheartedly, even embracing the legends of the logosh—people who were able to take the forms of beasts or demons.

When Damien had arrived home months ago after taking the ring Misk had brought him, at the end of a long and treacherous journey, he’d found chill welcome by the Nvengarians. The old Imperial Prince had been feared and hated, and Nvengaria had suffered under his long reign. What was to say that Damien, who hadn’t been seen in years, would not be the same?

Grand Duke Alexander, head of the Council of Dukes, had ruled from behind the throne the year Damien’s father spent dying. After the man’s death, Alexander had effectively taken over, dissolving the Imperial Prince’s power.

Alexander, of an age with Damien and once his friend, had looked at Damien with cold blue eyes in a dark, handsome face and calmly and ruthlessly blocked every one of Damien’s attempts to step into his father’s shoes. Alexander had declared point blank that he wished Damien to rule as a puppet prince, obedient to Alexander’s dictation—or not to rule at all.

The people of Nvengaria needed a symbol to idolize—very well, Damien could be a symbol. Alexander and the Council would actually run the kingdom.

Damien tried to have Alexander arrested for treason, but the palace guards had refused to obey. Alexander had them well contained. The guards and the military had loathed Damien’s father and were as happy as Alexander to see the end of rule by Imperial Prince.

However, there was the prophecy, Alexander had said. His eyes had remained ice-cold, the ruby he wore in his ear winking like a drop of blood. A test of the Imperial Prince’s true right to rule. Fail that test, and …

The prophecy of the Imperial Prince finding the long-lost princess descended from Prince Augustus of old and reuniting the crown of Nvengaria was a tale every child learned from the cradle. Nvengarians loved legends, the more ancient and ludicrous the better. They’d be ecstatic to learn that Damien would make it come true, Alexander had said in his dry way. Also, Nvengarians were just volatile enough that, if Damien failed, they’d let their disappointment be known—violently.

Nedrak, head of the Council of Mages, agreed that all the signs of the heavens pointed to Damien as the prince born to fulfill the prophecy. All he needed to do was ride off and fulfill it.

Nedrak was firmly under Alexander’s thumb, as were the rest of the Council of Mages, but Nedrak’s eyes had glittered with eagerness. He, like Sasha, believed in the story.

Word that Damien would fulfill the ancient prophecy had quickly spread. An excited crowd had surrounded the castle, encouraging Damien to ride off on the insane quest. Alexander had not smiled—he never did—but he’d managed to look pleased.

Damien could not have refused, and Alexander knew it.

So Damien had made a fair speech to the multitude from the balcony of the Imperial Prince’s castle, packed his bags, and traveled the breadth of Europe to the village of Little Marching, Oxfordshire, on the word of a nervous mage and Damien’s half-mad advisor, Sasha.

Damien remembered the faces of his people when he rode out of Narato with his entourage, how they’d lined up to cheer him with fervor, their eyes shining with hope. Damien, the new Imperial Prince, was following the prophecy and everything would be put right again.

Because of them, Damien would do whatever Sasha told him and observe the rituals, pretending to believe in their power. He would drag Nvengaria out of the dust into which his father had ground it and save his people from Alexander at any cost.

Neither Damien nor Alexander truly believed in the prophecy—and they both knew it—but Damien had to admit that perhaps Sasha and Nedrak were not wrong about everything.

Events that had occurred since Damien had departed Nvengaria were nudging him toward belief. Something out there had pushed Damien unerringly to Penelope’s doorstep and made him tumble immediately into love.

Damien came out of his thoughts to find Petri still grinning at him.

“What are you smiling about?” Damien asked irritably.

Petri set down his glass and jumped to his feet. “I wish to show you something. I am certain you’ll find it interesting.”





Chapter 7





As Damien watched, bemused, Petri dragged the night table away from the wall and swung open a door-sized panel beside the bed. “I found it when I checked the room. It is a passage that leads behind the walls.”

Petri always searched Damien’s chambers from top to bottom, even after the bodyguards had done a thorough combing. Assassins tended to pop up and shoot at Damien, so Petri went over every house in which they stayed carefully himself, not trusting anyone else to do the job properly. It was not a matter of if Alexander’s assassins would strike, but of when.

Damien rose and joined Petri. “Where does it lead?”

“Not far. It runs behind the corridor and opens to a bedchamber at the end.”

Damien raised his brows. “Now, for what reason does a man build a house with a passage that leads secretly from one bedchamber to another?”