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“He is foolish in the extreme. I’m the bastard son of a dead whore. It’s not as if I trouble his birthright.”
“I have heard people say you ought to be made Prince Rafus’s heir. After all you have done for the glory of Azuria.”
Damon raises his cup. “Oh, the glory of Azuria,” he says, deadpan.
3
DAMON
The next morning Damon wakes with a sore head. He climbs from his bed, memories of the night before hazy.
He finds Lyr on the other side of the curtain, sleeping in the corner, still wrapped in the cloak. Damon watches him. His elegant, fine-boned face. The only other part of him that’s visible outside the furry mass of the cloak is a single hand. Damon looks at Lyr’s wrist. It’s slender. He’s so fragile, Damon thinks. How has a creature like this survived seven years in King Ramel’s harem? He would have been eighteen if he really was brought here seven years ago. A few years older than Damon had been when he’d begun his sentence of indentured service, but Damon had been strong then and already almost a head taller than Atticul and his bastard brother, Lukas.
How delicate and fragile had Lyr been at eighteen? And what had Ramel wanted with him when all his other pleasure slaves were beautiful women?
Damon remembers Trysta joking the night before, as she stood up from the table on wobbly legs, asking Damon if he planned to take his slave to bed. “Sins of the body are forgiven during war,” she reminded him.
“And fall into Atticul’s trap?” Damon had replied. “Never.”
Damon pulls on his breeches and the shirt he’d worn the night before. He heads out of the tent. It’s early but the sun is already strong. Damon enjoys the feel of it warming his skin. Jur-Mattan is too cold at night for his liking, but the climate during the day is his idea of perfect, starting warm and climbing to a skin-blistering heat in the middle of the day.
Around him, the camp is packing up. He remembers what Trysta had said, only a few companies staying back to hold Pellex, the rest pushing on to the Ik-Sundal border. But is the advance really happening so soon?
He should speak to Atticul about this. The men need to rest first. Ik-Sundal is a desert land and much larger than Jur-Mattan. Their warriors are notoriously brutal.
Desert campaigns need careful planning.
“Good morning, Sire,” says Renrel, coming around the side of the tent. “Should I start striking your camp? You are returning to Attar this morning on the Azuria Ascendant, I believe.”
“The Azuria Ascendant ?” Damon shakes his head. The Azuria Ascendant is Atticul’s flagship. “No. I will be returning on my own ship, on the White Watch.” Why would Renrel not think Damon would be taking his own ship home?
“Oh,” says Renrel. “I apologise, Sire, but General Paramount Atticul has informed me this morning that you have resigned from the Imperial Army. The White Watch has already sailed along the coast to establish a second front in Ik-Sundal.”
Damon swallows. “I see.”
“Prince Atticul assured me that you would have safe passage home on the Azuria Ascendant. He is travelling back to Azuria himself for a time, while Prince Endrew leads the campaign.”
Damon nods. “Strike the camp, Renrel. I need to speak to Atticul.”
“Very good, Sire. I understand he’s at the docks”
Damon turns. He is about to race to the docks to explain to Atticul that he will not be setting foot on the Azuria Ascendant while he has breath in his body, when Renrel says, “Sire, one thing.”
Damon turns back. “What?”
“Your, uh, companion. Is he still inside? Would you like me to dispose of him, Sire?”
Clearly, Renrel thinks Lyr is just a whore who needs paying off and told to get out of camp.
“No,” Damon says. “I will deal with him myself.”
“Yes, Sire,” says Renrel as Damon stamps back into the tent.
He finds Lyr sitting up, still swathed in the cloak.
“Good morning,” Lyr says in Artemian.
“Get up. We need to go to the docks.”
