They should not have come here.
Vreis momentarily cringed, but then he threw back his broad shoulders, lifted his chin, and stepped forward. Lorcan quickly shook his head and held out a hand to stop him. It was customary to announce the prince when he arrived, but Lorcan did not believe the ice fae would respond favorably to that.
For a moment, Vreis merely stood in the entrance of the inn. And then with a sigh, he turned and opened the door. Prince Thane strode in from the cold night, shining in his golden armor. Lorcan and his fellow guards might blend in, but Thane surely did not. The drumbeat stopped. The buzzing conversation transformed into silence.
Lorcan tensed.
A muscular fae, whose hoarfrost cloak had been tossed onto the bench beside him, slammed his hands onto the table and stood. The contents of his tankard sloshed. “I know who you are. You’re that prince.” He spat the last word like a curse.
“You’re right,” Thane said easily. “Prince Thane of the Air Court. I’ve come to wed one of your princesses so that we may finally end the bloodshed between our two realms.”
“Our princesses are too good for someone like you,” the male said in a low growl. “You’re not welcome here.”
Lorcan cast an uneasy glance at Vreis. As much as Thane hoped for the alliance to solve their woes, there was far too much bad blood between the two kingdoms. In time, the ice fae might thaw to the prince, but it would take more than a day. Perhaps even decades.
But Lorcan also knew that Thane could not back down now that he had stepped foot inside the inn. He was a prince, the future High King. To leave would be to show weakness. And weakness in Tir Na Nog nobility was a death sentence.
Thane ignored the male glowering at him from his table and strode toward the bar maid, a slight female whose cheeks had gone white with fear. Her hands trembled as she reached for a tankard, but another loud slam stopped her short.
“I said you’re not welcome here.”
Thane turned to regard the fae behind him, face impassive. There were two of them now, both burly males who looked as though they could punch a hole through the very walls of the inn. One had drawn his sword, a glinting silver blade with a hilt carved into a pair of flared wings.
Lorcan ripped his sword from his back, and his fellow guards followed suit. And, as his stomach twisted, he watched as Thane pulled his own sword from its scabbard, twisting it sideways so that the sharp edge faced the argumentative fae.
The two ice warriors charged toward Thane who stayed rooted to the spot, waiting for the attack.
Lorcan cursed the prince beneath his breath. Thane was going to get himself killed. A flash of pain went through his mark, but he ignored it. He had to protect Thane, even if it went against his true liege’s orders.
As the ice fae’s glinting sword whistled through the air, Lorcan ground his teeth and charged. He got between the attacker and the prince a mere breath before the sword sliced right through Thane’s head. He held up his own sword, blocking the blow. The steel rang in the dead silence of the pub, a clash that forced Lorcan to take a step back.
Instantly, his shoulder ached and pain lanced through his head. Gritting his teeth, Lorcan forced himself to fight through it, but the power of his mark was almost too much to bear.
He wanted to rip off his armor and dig the mark out of his skin. With his nails or his sword, he did not care, so long as it no longer plagued him. Stumbling to the side, he slashed again. He managed to knock the fae back, but a dozen more ice fae had joined the fight. Lorcan and his fellow guards were sorely outnumbered. Still, they fought on, throwing themselves in front of the prince to protect him from harm.
From behind Thane, a youthful fae wearing a cook’s apron suddenly appeared with a small dagger in his hands.
“Thane, watch out!” Lorcan shouted.
Thane whirled. He stabbed blindly at the approaching boy, whipping his blade around just in time. Thane made contact, and his sword slid deep into the ice fae’s body, blood blooming on the white apron.
Everything stopped.
Lorcan’s heartbeat thundered loudly in his ears. Prince Thane of the Air Court, the supposed new ally of the ice fae, had just killed an innocent cook, even if the boy had been wielding a blade.
And all of these warriors loyal to their kingdom had witnessed it.
“Vreis,” Lorcan grunted. The warrior gave a solemn nod. He shoved his sword into the chest of the nearest ice fae, downing him even as the fight had come to a terrible stop. Lorcan whirled to the next, and the fighting began anew. He sliced and parried, killing fae after fae until blood painted the walls of the inn.
After what felt like hours, the slaughter was over. They had lost two of their guards, but the Ice Court had lost dozens. Lorcan shuddered and wiped red spatter off his face as he strapped his sword onto his back, grimacing at the stench of blood and guts that hung in the once-cheery air.
“We will have to destroy the evidence of this fight,” Vreis said quietly as the two of them watched the prince stumble out of the inn and into the night, his face full of shock and regret. “If the Ice Court discovers what happened here this night...”
“They will never ally with the Air Court,” Lorcan murmured. “How will we hide it? It isn’t as though Thane can lie.”
“Their Ruin,” Vreis said. “Tales say it looks as though it burns buildings to the ground. We will set fire to this inn. That will destroy all signs of battle. And then we will never again speak of this night.”
Lorcan grimaced and turned away, his mark pulsing with pain. He followed Thane out of the inn and explained the plan. The prince looked dumbstruck, his eyes wide, his cheeks as white as clouds.
“This is not what I wanted, Lorcan. How did it come to this?”
“A century of war, my old friend,” he muttered. “Death is far more familiar now than peace.”
As the flames engulfed the pub, Lorcan stumbled away, insisting he needed to relieve himself in the forest. He stomped through the snow, holding tight to his shoulder. The mark’s pain was so intense that he almost fell to his knees.
When he was out of earshot of the prince and his fellow guards, he pushed aside his tunic and hissed, “Begone. I am following orders. Nothing good will come out of my letting the prince get murdered on my watch. There were plenty of others to witness my actions. I would be banished from the Air Court, and your work is not finished as of yet.”
He always felt strange speaking to his mark. It was not as though the maker of it could hear him or even see what Lorcan was doing. The mark had a mind of its own, and it decided when it thought he wasn’t following orders. And, somehow, it could understand him.
Immediately, the sharp pain transformed into a dull ache. Satisfied, Lorcan shoved the sleeve of his tunic over his shoulder to hide the mark, crunching through the snow to rejoin Prince Thane, Vreis, and the others beside the burning pub. Orange light filled the night sky, great plumes of smoke joining the falling snow.
That had been far too close. If the fight had not been so chaotic, Thane would have noticed the sluggishness of Lorcan’s swordplay. It could easily happen again. The further he got into his mission, the more his mark doubted his intentions. The more Lorcan doubted them himself. He would have to be more careful.
Otherwise, Thane would soon realize that Lorcan was not who he said he was. Or worse...the mark would finally make him do something he would forever regret.