Prince of Traitors

Kieran

Jasper asks me to spar with him one night as we make camp in the foothills of the northern mountains. The girls sit at the campfire, roasting a couple rabbits for our dinner, supplementing the meal with some of the dried fruits that we got in Oxgarde. They watch us spar in the evening light, our blades winking in the orange firelight.

I don't have a sword, so we spar using our daggers instead. They knock against each other as we strike and lunge, dodge and parry.

Jasper is breathing hard when he asks, "What's it like, living up in the mountains?" Sweat beads on his brow, his breaths floating up from his mouth in white puffs.

I stab my knife forward and he spins out of my reach. "Uh, cold, usually," I reply. "But we hunt and farm and we get by. Owin's parents take good care of all of us."

"They're the shaman and chieftain, right?"

"Yeah."

"What are they like?" he asks.

I have to think for a moment, and Jasper almost taps me with the flat of his blade. "Well, Aroll is kind and wise," I say. "She's always got good advice to give, like she knows what's going through your head."

Jasper raises an eyebrow. "Sounds strange."

I chuckle, a little breathlessly. "It can be."

"And Owin's father?"

I nod. "Emlyn. He's strict and stoic, but always fair," I say. "He does what needs to be done, keeps us all safe and fed no matter what."

The prince gives me a small smile as our daggers strike each other. "He sounds a lot like my father," he says.

"I imagine your life in Highcaster was always very different than ours," I say. "Growing up in a palace, and all."

He shrugs one shoulder, and ducks out of my reach as I try to swipe my knife at him. "I suppose," he says. "As a kid I took everything for granted. Hot meals, a big bed to sleep in every night, entertainment when I was bored, a servant to clean up after me.

"I never knew anything else until my father died." He huffs a small, dry laugh. "I was going to be king, if you can imagine."

"Really?"

Jasper nods, and I dodge his blow. "I was supposed to be," he says. "I was going to marry a princess from another country, and live in the same palace I grew up in for the rest of my life, and my children and grandchildren would have the same life, on and on for generations."

"Doesn't sound like much of a life to me, to be honest," I say as he parries me. "I'll take living in the wilderness over a palace any day."

"Ha! Fair enough." He spins out of my reach and taps the flat of his blade against my side. But he pauses when he feels the cold metal of my dagger against the back of his neck. We trade wide grins. The prince straightens and we sheathe our daggers, breathing hard. He curls his hand into a fist and holds it out to me. I mimic his fist, and he smiles as I bump my knuckles against his.

"It's strange, isn't it?" he asks.

"What is?"

He shrugs. "How people can live such different lives and somehow end up in the same place," he says. "I mean, I never would have imagined meeting any of you, let alone traveling to your home."

I laugh and grin at him. "I suppose it is a bit strange."

"Come and eat!" Owin calls to us. She shreds the cooked rabbits into equal portions of meat for all of us with her dagger. The meat steams, charred on the outside and pink and tender on the inside. Jasper and I sit with Owin and Nimia by the campfire and eat, our sweat drying and chilling our skin.

Now that I've gotten to know the prince some more, I find I don't mind his presence. I think back to his outburst in the woods outside Oxgarde. His curled fists, his face contorted in rage, the tears threatening to spill from his eyes. He had stood up for himself. He didn't let someone like me intimidate him. And in a strange way, his anger won my respect. He's showed me he isn't weak, that he gives a shit about what happens to the girls I love so dearly.

And for the first time since meeting him, I think the prince is worth keeping around.