The Promised Queen (Forgotten Empires #3)- Jeffe Kennedy Page 0,115

for her betrayal.” He slid his gaze to me. “Did I mention my father’s family tended to be intolerant and unforgiving?”

“I gathered,” I replied drily.

“Anure … He was devastated. He’d been close to his mother. Losing her that way ripped his heart out—and sent him into a black rage. He wanted his father dead for it, and mine, too, for disinheriting him. He lost everything that mattered to him in the space of a few days, the one person in our horrible family who’d loved him and his one ambition in life. He became someone I hardly recognized.”

“Do you feel sorry for him?” The old, dull hatred roiled in me, ready to flare into fury.

“Down, boy,” Percy said. “Not now—but I did then. I’d already been disinherited—and I flatly refused to cooperate when they nattered about making me lord again. Anure was so … full of grief and anger that I wanted to help him. I wanted my friend back, so I did help him.”

“With vurgsten,” I guessed.

Percy nodded unhappily, staring into the middle distance of regret. “I was clever, too, in my way. I helped Anure take my family’s land despite our fathers. I’d been fond of my late aunt, also—and frankly didn’t blame her for seeking affection from a man less brutal than my uncle. In the arrogance of my youth, I saw our conniving as an act of revolution, dealing justice to my father, who greatly deserved to be deposed, and my uncle, who deserved much worse. I helped Anure murder his father and mine, created vurgsten devices for him to use. What did I care? Naturally, we didn’t believe in magic or the blood connection to the land. Or rather, I didn’t.”

“But Anure did.”

“Have you heard this tale before?” Percy laughed, a shrill edge to it. “Anure took over the family lands and eventually, through the diligent application of treachery and devious cunning, we put Anure on the throne of the kingdom of Aekis itself. We lived well, too, and he rewarded me lavishly. I congratulated myself on our victory over our oppressors,” he finished bitterly. “I was young, gorgeous, wealthy, powerful—everything a stupid, selfish boy could want.”

“For a while,” I put in.

“Yes. Not a long while, because the source of our ill-gotten wealth, the land … it began to fail again. All over Aekis, the crops didn’t flourish, lambs were born dead or twisted, horses and cattle failed to quicken. I put it down to a few bad seasons, but the failures enraged Anure. He found a wizard to help him. Or the wizard found him. I don’t know, as Anure kept him secret until they seized me for their experiments. The wizard taught Anure how to use me to control the land.” His lips trembled and he pressed them flat, his face going hard. “They kept me prisoner in a tower in Valencia and milked me for my blood, using it to coax the land into obedience.”

I nodded, understanding. If I hadn’t gone through all I had with Lia, I’d have been confused, but not now. “I’m sorry, Percy,” I said gruffly, putting a hand on his shoulder.

He looked at me, eyes bright with tears. “Sympathy, wolf? I expected teeth.”

“I need you to get to Anure,” I replied, baring those teeth.

Laughing a little, he wiped his eyes. “Fair enough.”

“How’d you escape?”

“What makes you think I did?”

“You’re here, with a fancy lifeboat, not chained in a tower in Valencia bleeding royal blood.”

He huffed a bitter laugh. “It’s ignominious. They forgot about me. I’d been Anure’s first experiment, but once he had a captive to control Aekis overall, he didn’t need me for poor Valencia—which he hated anyway and let rot. One day I filled my pockets with what treasure I could—I had been wise enough to squirrel some things away over the years—and simply wandered away. When no one came after me, I kept going.”

“And came to Calanthe.”

“Yes. To while my days away in lavish entertainment, as is my greatest talent.”

I considered that. “Why tell me all this?”

“So you’ll know why Anure will accept an audience with me. He won’t be able to resist. He’ll be shocked to hear from me—and concerned. I know his secrets.”

“I see.” I stroked Vesno’s ears, wondering what else.

“Also.” Percy took a deep breath. “I’ll crawl into my cousin’s lap and set off the bomb if it comes to that. Call it a last attempt at redemption.”

I understood how Lia felt, listening to someone else offer suicide to solve a