Chapter 2: : Chapter 1

THE SUN hung high and hot above the whitewashed, red-roofed homes nestled in the kingdom of Vellona’s Cloud Break Bay. Warm winds whipped through the cobblestone streets and canals, and voices called out across the rippling waves. The soft notes of a song, as cheerful as it was distant, drifted through the piers. Eric turned his ear toward the tune and shuffled his feet back in time with it. A sword sliced through the air where he’d stood.

“Too slow!” Eric shouted, sweeping one leg back and bowing.

The crowd hollered. The dock above them rattled, salt peppering down like snow. Eric dunked his stinging hands into the low tide. Across from him, Gabriella, his childhood friend and the only person who regularly outmatched him, paced along the edges of the fighting ring, and her gaze flicked from his hands to his face. She grinned, brown skin gleaming with sweat and seawater. Seaweed clung to her sword.

These weekly bouts had been small at first, an easy way to help train folks who might otherwise never see a sword. They had only started using live blades this week. Eric had gathered his friends into the little nook on the beach beneath the last dock and strung up an old canvas sheet between the posts to hide them away from curious eyes. It hadn’t worked, and these last three months had seen their numbers swell. This little fighting ring beneath the docks was all Eric could do to make up for the ever-present fear of pirates that infused Vellona these days with more towns being raided and razed every week.

“You’re too cocky,” Gabriella said and shoved her damp sleeves up to her elbows. “If I were a pirate, you’d be dead.”

Gabriella was the only one here who’d lived through a pirate raid. The sparring had been fun at first, but now there was too sharp an edge to it.

“If you were a pirate, we’d have bigger problems than—”

She struck out and nicked his arm. He reared back.

“You always give in to the urge to chat,” said Gabriella, lunging for him. “Real fights aren’t fairy tales. No one will stop so you can monologue.”

“Then stop me.” He met her in the middle, both of his knives blocking the thrust, and locked them together at the center of the ring. “And don’t worry about my breaking.”

“Never.” She grinned. “Princeling.”

Eric laughed. This was why he liked the morning fights. These bouts were a good way to relax and find out what people needed help with before heading to work. Would these spars fix all of Vellona’s problems? Never. Would they help a few survive? Maybe. Did they make Eric feel like part of the crowd, just another soul living in the bay instead of a prince always held at arm’s length? Absolutely.

“Every time you call me that,” he said, “I’ll hit harder.”

“I’m quivering,” she said, and fluttered her off hand over her heart. “Come prove it.”

Eric reversed his grip on his knives. He feinted for her left, her sword scraping down his blades with a teeth-shuddering grind. She kicked him back, and they circled each other. He slashed at her, but she angled away. The frantic rush of blood in Eric’s ears drowned out their sloshing steps.

“You going to hit me?” she asked.

Eric thrust one blade at Gabriella, herding her right, and aimed a backhanded slash to where she’d have to step. She pivoted and ducked, the knife catching only her sleeve. The crowd roared.

Someone behind Gabriella shouted, “Trounce him!”

“His right side’s weaker!” yelled Vanni, Eric’s best friend and, in this moment, worst enemy.

Gabriella shifted to attack his right. Eric pretended to stumble, windmilling his right arm back. She lunged, and he swept his knife up. Their blades collided.

His riposte sent her sword flying. It splashed behind her, sinking beneath the murky tide. Eric rushed toward her, expecting Gabriella to chase after her sword, but she crouched down and met his charge. Her shoulder slammed into his stomach and knocked the wind out of him. His arms went limp, the edge of his knife bouncing uselessly off her collar. Gabriella’s hands grasped his ankles.

She tugged at his boots. Eric pressed his shaking knife to her neck. She froze.

“Well,” said Gabriella, her odd crouch muffling her words against his wet shirt, “I’ve lost in more embarrassing ways.”

Eric couldn’t recall any. The raid that had driven Gabriella to move to the bay as a child had killed her sister, Mila, and now Gabriella trained with her aunt almost every day. Once she’d gotten over Eric’s being the prince, she had always had the decency to leave Eric with far more bruises than his tutors did when sparring.

No part of this loss was embarrassing.

“If you insist,” he said, and cleared his throat, moving his knives away from her.

“Princeling!” A pair of arms looped around Eric’s neck and pulled him into a tight hug. “You lost me supper, so I expect some compensation.”

Vanni—far more interested in swords and sailing than his baker of a father would have liked—clapped Eric on the shoulder and spun him around.

“Stop betting against me, then.” Eric bowed to him, glaring the whole way down. “Keeping you and your ego fed is my only goal in life.”

“Obviously,” Vanni said, tossing his flaxen hair from his face. He didn’t sweat in the stifling heat beneath the docks so much as gleam, looking far more princely than Eric ever did. “Who’s up next?”

“You,” Gabriella said, and dragged him to the center of the crowd. “I want a real fight.”

Vanni laughed, and Eric let out an uncomfortable chuckle.

“Rude of you to say it wasn’t a real fight,” he muttered, and Gabriella flinched.

Vanni and Gabriella didn’t bow to each other. Vanni fought with a single sword, and Gabriella switched to a dagger. He was limber enough to dodge her strikes, and Eric had assumed she would be too exhausted to match Vanni’s intensity given how she had lost. Each of her strikes was as strong as the last, though, and Vanni was gasping in the humid air after only three minutes. He swung wide, and she dropped to one knee.

Vanni smiled like he’d already won, but an uneasy revelation wormed its way through Eric’s chest. Gabriella wasn’t shaking or out of breath, and when Vanni lunged, she plunged her off hand into the water. Quick as lightning, she yanked his foot out from under him. Vanni collapsed with a splash.

“You’ve got the balance of a fish on land,” said Gabriella, holding up his leg like a trophy.

The crowd applauded, and she dropped him. Vanni coughed up mouthfuls of water and peeled seaweed from his face. Gabriella handed Eric Vanni’s sword, and Eric mumbled in response. All the joy of finally doing something useful and fun with friends condensed onto a single memory.

Gabriella’s hands had been on Eric’s boots, and she could have taken him down. Or up, as it was.

“Eric?” Vanni called, shaking out his sopping shirt with a smile. “Your head’s in the clouds.”

Eric forced himself to smile.

“Bit overcast,” muttered Eric, “but I’m fine.”

Vanni snorted and patted his shoulder. “Least you won and won’t be wearing sand all day.”

He shook some from his hair and onto Eric and Gabriella. Eric jerked away. Gabriella shrugged.

“I work outside,” she said, and checked the knot of the kerchief covering her black curls. “You needed a bath anyway.”

“Gabriella,” Eric said, and leaned down slightly so that Vanni wouldn’t hear. “You let me win.”

Gabriella stilled. “I did.”

“Why?” he asked. “Why let me win now?”

“We’ve been using training swords for months, and the sharp edges drew a crowd. It’s better if they don’t see their prince flipped head over heels,” said Gabriella. “Isn’t that what Grimsby is always going on about—the crown is an idea, not only a person? Seeing you getting dunked would be bad for morale.”

“If Grim keeps giving you ideas like that, I’ll dunk him,” Eric said. Of course Eric’s status was seeping into his one escape from the castle.

The crowd milled around them, people kissing cheeks and comparing bruises while they said goodbye. Sparring was a fine way to pass the morning, but now the day had begun and there was plenty of work to be done in the bay. Vanni wrung out his shirt, muttering under his breath. Eric slapped his shoulder.

“You’re getting better,” said Eric.

“Damper, more like.” Vanni shook out his hair. “I’m going to be squishing about all day.”

“You’re improving, though. You both are.” Gabriella glanced up at Eric and grinned. “Do you know why I always beat you?”

“Because you’re better than me?” Eric asked, and Vanni laughed.

“You lean on your training too much. You never go for a hit or kick when you start the fight with blades,” she said and punched his arm. “You’ve got better form with a sword and stick, and you can disarm me a dozen times. If we were dueling, you’d beat me—I can’t fence to save my life—but we’re not dueling. You fight in the same order you run drills, and one day you’re going to have to make the choice of what to do on your own. Get dirty.”

Eric bit back a grimace. He couldn’t choose anything. That was the problem. Politics and circumstance within the last ten years had made sure that he had no choices that wouldn’t lead either to a battle with the neighboring kingdom Sait, destruction at the sword points of the pirates, or a civil war over his throne. One wrong move, whether it was an impolite look or a strike back at the wrong pirate ship, could get Vellona destroyed.

Once most of the crowd had scattered, the trio emerged from their makeshift meeting place, squinting in the bright morning light as they walked along the beach. Cloud Break Bay was the largest city in the small kingdom of Vellona, and the pale green waters were as much a home to Eric as the castle tucked into the cliffs. Masts listed across the harbor, their ships rolling unevenly as cargo shifted. Summer rose in humid spirals of steam from the decks, and voices called out across the waves as people basked beneath the first warm, clear sky in weeks. Vanni squinted up at the sun.

“We went long today,” he said, and turned to Gabriella. “Won’t get you in trouble with your aunt, will it?”

“No, we’re doing repairs this week before taking off,” she said. “She doesn’t even really need me for those.”

Carpentry was one of the few things she didn’t excel at. Still a touch too young to take over her grandfather’s fishing ship and too needed at home to take off and join her aunt’s crew, she had spent more time at sea than Eric and dreamed of captaining her own merchant ship like her aunt.

“I could help with repairs,” said Eric, eager to stay with his friends. That way, he could be Eric, just Eric, for a little while longer. “Does your aunt need the extra hands?”

“Not really,” Gabriella said, and made a face. “That last storm did a number on the ship, and we’d be in the way of the good shipwrights. Hopefully we’ll be able to pay them. We’re getting wrecked by storms every time we leave the docks.”

“Those hurricanes aren’t normal,” said Vanni. “That last one came out of nowhere.”

“It’s magic. Got to be,” Gabriella said.

Magic was uncommon but not unheard of. It was limited to reclusive sorcerers and old tales swapped over pints. Small magics, like tonics and whistling up a wind, were alive and well, and Eric knew there were stories about witches in the old days who could call down lightning or manipulate souls like puppets. Grimsby wouldn’t hear of it, but Eric agreed with Gabriella. Sait, the large kingdom to the north dead set on expanding, had almost certainly found itself a witch.

“Even your mother, bless her, would be struggling these days.” Gabriella nudged Eric. “Especially with Sait in the mix. Can you prove it’s them organizing the pirates?”

The pirate attacks, suspiciously well organized and as regular as the storms, had started up eight years ago once Vellona’s money was nearly drained by the near constant squalls and droughts that had plagued the kingdom for as long as Eric could remember. It was then that Sait, with a navy as flush as its coffers, had started poking at Vellona’s defenses. When Eric’s mother, Queen Eleanora, had died in a shipwreck up north two years ago, Sait had gotten bolder and Vellona had gotten desperate. Eric had been left with a floundering kingdom and dozens of others eager to take his throne.

He shook his head. “Grimsby calls it a long game, weakening us before striking, but accusing them outright would start a war we can’t afford.”

Eric suspected that was exactly what they wanted—justification to conquer Vellona.

“Is there not some rich old widow with a flair for dramatics you could wed to get us out of this mess?” Gabriella asked.

Vellona had exhausted every avenue that led to money save for one, and only Eric could take it.

“Sadly, no,” he said, pulling his flute from his pocket. He always had it on him. He played a quick tune, taking the moment to calm himself. The familiar motion of his fingers eased his worries.

“I thought Grimsby wanted you married before your birthday?” Vanni asked. He glanced around and lowered his voice. “You’ll have to kiss them at the wedding, but how can you when—”

Eric froze, song dying off, and Gabriella grabbed Vanni by the collar.

“Shut it!” she hissed. “Sait finds out about that, it’ll be the easiest assassination in the world.”

A shock of panic shuddered through Eric. Here, on the docks with people working around them, no one was paying attention, but they had never discussed his secret in public before. He pocketed his flute. “Grimsby wants me to marry well and figure it out after. Personal feelings cannot trump convenience and duty, he says, but I refuse to hand over control of Vellona to someone I don’t trust.”

Vanni and Gabriella shared a look.

“Is Grimsby still angry about Glowerhaven?” asked Vanni.

“Incandescent,” Eric said. “The only reason he didn’t force it was because she loathed me as much as I loathed her.”

She hated music and dogs, and he couldn’t stand the scent of the paints she treasured. Looking at art? Fine. Living in a miasma of paint fumes and odd alchemical mixtures? Not for him.

Gabriella laughed. “Wasn’t your fault Max didn’t appreciate her trying to glaze him. When’s your next marriage proposal?”

His next proposal? Never again. His next entrapment? The lunch with—

Eric’s blood rushed in his ears, drowning out Gabriella and Vanni’s chatter, and he wiped suddenly sweaty palms on his trousers. He took a deep breath.

“Grimsby’s going to kill me.” Eric looked around, trying to figure out what time it was, and groaned. It had been ages since he had forgotten a meeting, and he had no excuse today. “Lord Brackenridge arrived this morning, and I’m supposed to have lunch with him and his daughters.”

Gabriella’s eyes widened. “Run.”

“How do I look?” Eric asked. “I won’t have time to bathe.”

“Like you were running late because you were sparring,” said Vanni. “It’s almost like—”

“Don’t you say it,” muttered Gabriella.

Vanni ignored her. “You’re cursed.”

“I’m letting that one slide,” Eric shouted over his shoulder as he started running. “You only get one.”

“A day?”

“A lifetime!”

“Ignore him,” said Gabriella over the sound of Vanni’s laughter. “Enjoy your prince-ing.”

Eric rarely did. He was always Prince Eric first, a citizen second, and—secretly, terribly, through no fault of his own—cursed third.