Rise of Fire (Reign of Shadows #2)(11)

“Don’t touch him,” I growled.

“It’s what I’d want,” Jabon chimed in. “Sure it’s not what he wants?”

“Fowler’s a fighter,” I insisted, lowering my hands that held the stringy meat, debating picking my knife back up. Would I need to defend Fowler?

“Fight don’t matter.” Kurk snorted, his big body scraping over the ground again as he shifted.

“Fowler?” At the soft query, a ripple of unease traveled down my spine. It wasn’t such an uncommon name, but I regretted having said it aloud. It had just slipped out, but how could I know that it would strike a chord with this soldier . . . emissary. Whatever he was. Breslen was no friend to me. I supposed I should have known that the less said the better. “Is that his name, then?”

I fixed my expression into something that hopefully didn’t reveal panic. He couldn’t know Fowler. The names of kings and princes were notoriously popular.

“Is he from Relhok City, by chance?” He lifted up from where he sat, sliding his slight frame closer to where Fowler shivered through his fever.

“No,” I said. “We’ve never even been there.”

“Interesting. Your accent says otherwise.”

Of course I would sound like I was from there. I was raised and surrounded by two people who were born and bred there.

He did not respond to my lie, but I felt his stare.

“You lie,” he finally pronounced, that gentle voice flaying me like the cruelest whip.

I flinched.

“He’s been to Relhok City before.” He spoke quickly, clearly thrilled by his discovery. “In fact, that’s where he is from.”

The other two soldiers adjusted their weight, clothes rustling as they leaned forward as though they required a look at Fowler, too.

I tried for an air of bewilderment, shaking my head. Truthfully, bewilderment wasn’t far off. How could he know Fowler? “What do you mean?” Even if he’d ever glimpsed Fowler from afar, it had been years. In the time since, Fowler had been living a hard life on the Outside. He couldn’t resemble the well-fed, undoubtedly pampered aristocrat from years ago. No, this hard-edged Fowler couldn’t look the same at all.

“I know him. This is the prince of Relhok, the king of Relhok’s son and only heir.”

Jabon to my left made a whistling sound with his teeth while Kurk demanded, “What? I thought he was away on some diplomatic trip to Cydon.”

I absorbed that. Obviously this was the story Cullan had spread to explain his son’s absence. Never mind how unlikely it was that Cullan would permit his one son to go anywhere outside the safety of Relhok City’s walls. Whatever story Cullan put forth was taken as truth. No one opposed the bastard.

“Lies, apparently,” Breslen answered smoothly. “King Cullan wants no one to know that his one heir is missing. Interesting. What is he doing so far from home?”

I moistened my lips, my heart thumping so hard I was certain every single one of them heard it. Breslen leaned forward over Fowler. I held my breath, listening, braced and ready to spring should he touch Fowler.

“What are you doing here with him?” Kurk directed the question to me, and his tone was decidedly less friendly than earlier. Suspicion hugged every word.

I shook my head. “I don’t know anything about him being . . . royalty. You must be mistaken. He’s just someone I met out here . . .” I waved a hand, gesturing to the world that I couldn’t see but felt like a throbbing heartbeat in my chest.

That’s what I thought about Fowler in the beginning, at least. He was just someone exceptionally good with a bow. Someone who knew how to survive in darkness . . . as though this world belonged to him and he to it. That’s what I had thought. That’s what I wished were true now more than ever.

A slight rustling of fabric alerted me to the fact that Breslen was now touching Fowler. I jerked forward, the tiny hairs on my arms prickling. “Don’t touch him!”

“Easy, boy. Just checking his injuries. Assuming you want us to save him.”

I froze. “Save him? You can do that?”

“It’s not impossible.”

The tension ebbed from my shoulders. I hadn’t realized how close I had come to giving up, on ceasing to think Fowler had any hope, until I heard the desperation in my voice.

“It’s possible. If he is King Cullan’s son, I am certain King Tebald would go to great lengths to see that he lived. If . . .”

He let the word hang there, a clear bribe for the truth. I felt their stares then, fixed on me, waiting for an answer—waiting for me to confirm that he was in fact Cullan’s son. I swallowed against the thick lump in my throat. It was tempting. And yet I knew Fowler would have me deny it. Even if it meant his death. He wanted no connection with his father. He’d forged his way, risking death every day without claiming Cullan as his father. It had wrecked him to admit the truth to me. I couldn’t admit it to them.

In the stretch of silence, as though sensing my indecision, Breslen volunteered in his encouraging voice, “Perhaps you did not know the true identity of our companion. But you do now. Your friend here is the prince of Relhok.”

I blew out a breath, clinging to denial by a thread. “This is madness—”

“Indeed. It is most unusual to find a prince stuck in a cave, dying. Most unexpected.” He chuckled lightly. “I’ve been to Relhok City two other times as King Tebald’s emissary. I’ve seen your companion there before. Of course, he was dressed far more grandly at the time. And I seem to recall there were many rumors surrounding him.”