Realm of Dragons

Vars could feel the shame rising up in him, slowly bubbling and turning to anger, as he went through the things he was required to do for the day. The wine was keeping it at bay, but only barely. He lifted a goblet to his lips again.

“Please remain perfectly still, your highness,” the tailor with him said, and it was all Vars could do to keep from striking the man. It was so foolish that people like that could talk back to him and expect no punishment in response.

That brought thoughts of the boy in the House of Weapons, the one who had humiliated him. Vars still hadn’t worked out the best way to have vengeance on him, and that was just fueling his bad mood. Why hadn’t Rodry just let him execute the idiot and be done with it?

He drew his attention back to the fitting, the tailor still about his work.

“Are we nearly done?” Vars asked. He took another, very deliberate, sip of his wine.

“Very nearly, your highness, but we want your newest doublet and breeches to be perfect for the wedding.”

The wedding, always the wedding. It seemed as though everything in the castle at the moment was about Lenore’s wedding, when Vars couldn’t see how his half-sister deserved so much fuss.

“Ah, looking wonderful as always,” Lyril said as she came into the chambers unannounced. “More wedding preparations?”

“Do not start about the wedding,” Vars said. “My half-sister sits as far removed from the succession as you could imagine, yet she gets a wedding worthy of a queen.” He remembered the presence of the tailor. “You, out.”

“Your highness…”

“Out!”

The man scurried out, taking his tools with him.

“Well, he’ll be around the castle, telling the story of how the prince is jealous of the attention his sister is getting,” Lyril said.

“Are you criticizing me?” Vars demanded.

She raised an eyebrow in response. If she was afraid, she didn’t show it. “Merely pointing out that usually you are more subtle, my prince. It’s just one of the things I love about you.”

“Love?” Vars said. That always seemed like such a stupid word. Love was a transaction, and the things that came of it definitely were. I give you money and you give me pleasure. I give you myself in marriage and you give me lands or men for my armies, or a secure bloodline. Love didn’t come into it.

“You are a remarkable man, Vars,” Lyril said, moving close to him.

Vars made a grab for her, but Lyril stepped back, just out of his reach.

“Not today, my darling,” she said. “I too have many preparations to make for the wedding.”

“You’re going to use my sister’s wedding as an excuse not to bed me?” Vars demanded. He could feel the anger continuing to rise. “Do you know what I’ve already had to put up with for the sake of this farce? My father is sending me into danger. He’s putting me in charge of escorting my sister’s procession around the kingdom.”

“I take it that it is not the honor he is trying to paint it?” Lyril guessed.

Vars snorted at the thought that anyone could think it so. “My sister goes around the land looking beautiful and receiving gifts, while I’m stuck there as if I’m somehow less important, just riding along like some… some guardsman.”

“That would take you away from Royalsport for a long time,” Lyril said, she looked thoughtful for a moment. “Hmm… I might have to find someone else to keep me company…”

“Do you think I will sit back and stand for that?” Vars demanded. “Remember that there are other noblewomen out there.”

“Ah, but none so lovely, don’t you agree?” Lyril said. She turned slowly, letting him see her, and in that moment Vars wanted nothing more than to tear the dress from her and have her there on the floor, regardless of the consequences.

“None so lovely,” Vars admitted. “And you know it.”

“Yes, I know it,” Lyril agreed. “And I use it, along with anything else that I can. You see that in me, and I think there is a part of you that desires that more than anything to do with my body.”

Vars smiled at that. “Perhaps. Well then, what do you see in me? Is it just that I am a handsome prince for you to try to snare?”

“I think you are a man who takes what he wants,” Lyril said. “A cunning man and a clever one. And I think that if you were to think, there would be an easy solution for all of the ways your sister’s wedding is overshadowing you. One that will make sure that I’m in your bed and your bed only.”

Vars thought he could see where this was going. “Lyril, I’ve told you—”

“Marry me, Vars. Marry me, and it will be the second in line to the throne getting married, not a girl who’s back behind all the men of the family in the succession. Marry me.”

Vars didn’t like it when people put pressure on him. He would never have used the word coward, because that was a word that the likes of Rodry used to make him feel small, but he knew he couldn’t stand up to someone truly forceful head on.

“All right,” he said. “All right, I’ll marry you!”

Lyril threw her arms around him, kissing him. “That’s wonderful! Vars, you just made me the happiest woman in Royalsport.”

Vars was glad that one of them was so happy. He could feel his anger almost bursting at being pressured like this, and he knew he was going to have to do something to relieve it. Thankfully, he knew just the thing.

***

The House of Sighs was a discreet establishment in one of the wealthier areas of the city, gilded and painted so that it looked like something between a theater and an inn. The women who could be glimpsed there told its true purpose, though.

A servant took Prince Vars’s cloak and sword at the door, while a discreetly placed man who had once been a mercenary sized him up to make sure he was a suitable patron and unlikely to cause trouble; at least of the kind he didn’t pay for. The man was large enough that for a moment Prince Vars flinched, and that just fed into everything else he was feeling.

Madam Meredith was there, as she always was, overseeing the parlor where soft music played and conversation flowed between men and women, some nobles, some there for their entertainment. For a few who came here, the music, the wine, the conversation were all they wanted. Vars thought he caught glimpses of several faces he knew, although many wore masks here. There was even one far too handsome male face that Vars definitely knew, but he shrugged. That was the balance in this place: in revealing another’s secrets, one revealed one’s own.

Meredith herself was as beautiful as any of the men or women who worked for her, probably no older than thirty, with raven hair and rings on each finger of one hand, supposedly denoting the husbands she had outlived.

“Your highness,” she said. “What can I get for you today? Wine? Some company?”

Vars looked around until he saw a suitable-looking woman, slender and blonde-haired, blue-eyed and innocent looking in spite of her profession. He pointed.

“Her.”

“Your highness, Yasmine is not really suitable for your tastes.”

“Her,” Vars said, in a dangerous tone. He took out a money pouch, heavy enough that when he put it in Meredith’s hand, her hand moved slightly. “Or I could suggest to my father that now is the time to reconsider the way the House of Sighs works.”

Meredith hesitated for a minute, then nodded. “Yasmine, come here. The prince has taken a liking to you. The top room.”

The woman looked a little frightened, but held out her hand and Vars took it, delicately for now. He went with her up to the room that he normally took when he was here, and he could feel the excitement he usually felt building within him, alongside the anger, one fueling the other.

They reached the space, which was opulent with silks and tapestries, until it seemed like a world of red and gold gossamer. Prince Vars shoved her toward the bed, hard. The young woman turned to him.

“Your highness, please be gentle…”

Vars struck her, hard, with the flat of his hand, sending her tumbling to her knees. “You do not speak to me without being told.”