“You already ruled over Eislandia, and you had the fortress in Parsuss. Wasn’t that enough?”
He chuckled. “Fortress is a generous word for a drafty, crumbling twelve-room citadel. You’ve never been to Parsuss, have you?”
“No.”
He said that his father split his time between three farms the Montegues had owned for generations, the one in Parsuss and two in the highlands not far from Hell’s Mouth that raised sheep and grew summer crops. The three together barely kept food on the table and paid the few laborers they employed. The meager taxes his father collected paid his small stable of officials who kept the kingdom running, the coffers always bleeding into red. I asked about his mother, and he said he had never known her—she died when he was a baby. It was always just him and his father, and the few laborers who came and went. It was a lonely life.
“And then, when I was twelve, I visited the Ballenger arena with my father. It was much smaller back then, mostly farmers, but it still looked enormous to me. I was a wide-eyed rube.” His nostrils flared as if his own naïveté repulsed him. He took another drink. Had he parodied himself? The green rube who played the bumbling king? “I’d never seen so many traders and so much merchandise in one place. Every corner was filled with noise and food, and possibility. It crackled through the air as alive as a whip. I was transfixed. The world was at everyone’s fingertips—except, that is, for the king and his son.
“Karsen Ballenger was giving my father a tour. I trailed behind, along with half the Ballenger brood. Jase was maybe seven or eight at the time, a runny-nosed little brat who didn’t even know how much he had. Karsen was orating on and on about the Ballenger history, trying to convince my father that they were the first family of Eislandia, here long before the Montegues. My father asked to see this vault with all the history written in it, and you know what Karsen said to my father?”
Montegue paused, his lip twisted at the memory. “No. He told him no. He said it was only for family. He told the ruling monarch of Eislandia no, without so much as an apology or blink.”
He repeated the word no quietly, but I still heard all the anger it held. “And then you know what my father did?”
I knew I didn’t need to reply. This was a story he had lived over and over again. The answer was ready on his tongue waiting to be spit out. “Nothing,” he finally said. “My father did absolutely nothing. He bought the seed and stock we had come for and we left, two cows trailing behind us. I burned with shame the whole way home, and I decided on that ride back that I would not be a farmer like my father. I would not blister my hands on a hoe or break my back behind a plow, and most of all, I would not suffer the disrespect of underlings.
“By the time we got home, my shame bubbled over, and I screamed at him and called him a stupid farmer. And you know what he did?”
I shook my head.
“What he always did. Nothing.” He winced and swigged back the last of his liqueur, then grabbed the carafe and poured himself more. “I decided that day I wasn’t going to be the man my father was, the man who was the sniveling butt of all the kingdom’s jokes, the king no one listened to. Do you have any idea how hard it was to hear subjects say they had to check with the Patrei first when I gave them orders? My own magistrates in Hell’s Mouth deferred to Karsen Ballenger, and then to Jase. I will not be a nothing ruler.”
“Farming is an honorable profession. The Ballengers have farms.”
“The Ballengers had farms,” he corrected. “The Ballengers had everything, but now it’s mine, as it should have been all along. A mistake was made three generations ago. The border should have included the arena and Tor’s Watch. Then maybe my father would have been a proper king I could have been proud of. Now I will be that king. The greatest ruler the world has ever known. When I have a son, he will be proud of his father, and I will get respect the Montegues always deserved—from all the kingdoms.”
My breath pooled in my chest. The way he said all, the way his jaw clenched, the way the haze from a night of drinking vanished and his eyes turned to hard glass—it reminded me of someone else.
I recalled standing on the edge of Blackstone Square, hidden in the shadows listening to the Komizar speak as he rallied forces for his growing army. All of them, he had shouted. His voice was strong and seemed to reach to the mountains. All the kingdoms will bend a knee to Venda—or be slaughtered. I was ten and immune to swaggering talk by then—except from the Komizar. His words always contained a chilling promise in them, unlike anyone else’s. Some had thought he was a god. I had thought him a demon. I remembered slipping deeper into the shadows as if he might spot me from afar, as if he had some special power, and maybe even now I still wondered if he did.
All. That’s what I heard in Montegue’s voice now.
His hunger ran deep. Eleven years deep. So deep he was willing to use children as a shield and hang innocent people from trees to ensure obedience. Willing to pay labor hunters to steal away his own citizens. Willing to murder the rightful ruler of Hell’s Mouth and confiscate his holdings. How many things was he willing to do that I didn’t even know about yet?
Imagine the possibilities.
I was afraid to.
His feet dropped from the table to the floor, and he rose abruptly. “It’s getting late,” he said. “You should turn in. We’ll be leaving early.”
I was caught off guard by his sudden dismissal and was surprised by how deliberately he stood, no sway or stumble to his stance. He didn’t seem drunk at all. “Of course, Your Maj—”
And then he took hold of my wrist and slowly pulled me close, firm and sure.
“Do you want to kiss me? Compare a Patrei to a king? See if it could be more than passable?” he asked.
I gaped at him, searching for an answer. I had thought his mind would be more consumed with the missing papers and my supposed premonition than on the small matter of a kiss, but after hearing how long he’d been planning this invasion, I guessed that maybe there was no such thing as a small matter when it came to the Ballengers, especially the Patrei. I weighed my answer carefully, knowing a no could send him into a sullen rage, but a too-eager yes could spike his suspicions and make him think I was using him the way I had used Jase. And he very much wanted me to judge him differently than I had Jase because he was a king and was different, better, smarter. He had to best the Patrei I had rejected, the Patrei who had wanted me. My pause made his fingers tighten on my wrist.
I blinked, as if embarrassed. “I admit, I am curious.”
“Of course you are.”
His other hand slipped behind my back, and he pulled me closer, lowering his face to mine, but before our lips met, I twisted free and stepped back.
“Curious,” I said firmly, “but cautious.” I wrung my hands and tripped over my words. “I will not deny there’s a strong attraction, but—” I shook my head. “I’m not sure exactly what I’m trying to say. But I’ve seen the women circling around you. I don’t want to be one of them. I don’t want—” I gasped and looked at him as if horrified. “It’s not that I—What I’m trying to say is I’m certain your kisses are more than passable, and I admit I’ve wondered about them, but I want more than—” I sucked in a long, shaky breath. “I need to stop. I’m afraid nothing is coming out quite the way I intended. May I sleep on this?”
He regarded me for a long while, his black eyes fixed on mine. “You want something more than what you had with the Patrei. Something true.”