The Shadow Throne (The Ascendance Trilogy, #3)(26)

Despite everything, I smiled a little. Making things worse was one of my few talents.

“I have shown my ability to take whatever I want from you, and I’ll take Carthya as well, if I have to. But I’d much rather we came to an agreement. With your signature on a treaty, there can never be any question of the arrangement between our countries.”

This time when I failed to answer, Vargan leaned forward enough to reach me. I turned my face away, but he pinched my cheeks with his meaty fingers and forced me to look at him. “I’m offering you peace, and a chance to live. This is the only way you’ll leave this camp alive.”

He was close enough now that when I spit, it hit him directly in the eye. I had aimed for his cheek, but this was better.

“If I care nothing for my own life,” I said bitterly, “just imagine how I feel about yours.”

He cursed and backhanded me hard enough to nearly knock me off my chair, but I didn’t care. I had insulted him worse.

“I told you to humble him,” Vargan said to his men. “Does he look humble?”

In all fairness to his soldiers, until the moment I spit on their king, I probably had looked pretty humble. But this also meant I had more punishment coming my way. The spitting was still worth it.

Vargan started to say something else, but Kippenger had been waiting outside the building and burst inside. He gave a hurried bow to Vargan, then said, “Pardon me, Your Excellency, but a diplomat has come from Carthya inquiring about King Jaron’s death. He begs to see you at once.”

My head whipped around. What diplomat?

Terrowic was immediately beside my chair and put a knife to my throat.

“Take him behind the curtain and keep him quiet there,” Vargan ordered. “I want this boy king to understand exactly what’s at stake if he doesn’t cooperate.”

At knifepoint, two other soldiers dragged me to the head of the room and behind the curtain where there was nothing but stacked crates of supplies for the war. Terrowic whispered again what he’d do if I breathed a word, and it didn’t sound very pleasant. But there’d be no trouble from me. More than anyone in this room, I wanted to know who had come.

As it turned out, I’d have recognized the voice from any distance, and I wished it could’ve been almost anyone else.

“King Vargan, I bring you sad greetings from the kingdom of Carthya, where our people are in mourning. As is my duty at this time, I have come to inquire about the body of our monarch, King Jaron.” That was Harlowe’s voice.

I wanted to cry out, to tell him I was this close and a lot more alive than I was being given credit for. But I knew what would happen to both of us if I so much as cleared my throat.

For reasons I couldn’t fathom, Harlowe had willingly walked into Avenian hands. And now, if I didn’t cooperate, Vargan would take him from me too.





Vargan seized on this new opportunity the way a snake might snatch a mouse. He would force me to act, but I didn’t know how to fix this. It would have been hard enough to get both Tobias and myself out of here. Now Harlowe too? How many others from my kingdom would collect in that dungeon? I didn’t want their company, not here, and no matter how hard they tried to help me, it didn’t make anything easier.

The key to my chains was still hidden inside my coat, but I’d have no chance at freedom before one of the many vigils here killed me, and then Harlowe next. So I stood silently and in full cooperation. For now.

“You wish to have Jaron’s body?” Vargan said to Harlowe. “For what purpose?”

“His title is King Jaron,” Harlowe replied calmly. “And naturally, we wish to bury him, according to Carthyan traditions.”

Vargan let a long silence pass, probably in some attempt to intimidate my prime regent. Well, he could stare at Harlowe for as long as he wanted, but I knew Harlowe wouldn’t blink. Eventually, Vargan gave up and said, “It’s a pity Jaron’s dead. Otherwise, I’d have offered you the chance to trade places with him, to give your life for his.”

“And I’d have accepted,” Harlowe said.

“Yes, but would Jaron allow you to do that?” Vargan’s laugh was dark and coarse. He was speaking to Harlowe, but his message was for my ears. “Would he let you die to save himself?”

“I would insist on it,” Harlowe said. “If Jaron were here, I would beg him to find a way to remain alive, even at my expense.”

“And if he were here,” Vargan said, “I would offer him a way to save you both. Bring him out!”

The vigils at my sides shoved me back through the curtain and into the main room. I hadn’t been prepared to move so suddenly, and so although I was in bad shape, stumbling into the room probably made my condition look worse. Harlowe sat up straighter when he saw me, but the expression on his face was one of deep sadness, not surprise. I tried to understand that. Obviously, he must have known all along that I was alive, but how? Harlowe immediately left his chair and bowed at my feet, a move that infuriated Vargan.

“You will bow to me before this is finished!” Vargan growled. “Both of you will.”

Harlowe rose again and in his anger seemed to have grown in size, towering over Vargan. He gestured at me with his hand. “Look at him, the suffering he’s clearly endured here! If you allowed such treatment of a royal, then you are not worthy to demand anything of him!”