IT WAS FINISHED.
The FaSaa’il’s hired team of assassins had killed Javan, and no one was the wiser. In the chaos of moving day at Milisatria, no one had looked closely at Rahim as he stayed inside the Akramian carriage and waited for the coachman to pack Javan’s belongings in his dorm room and haul them outside. One boy had tried to hail him, but his guards, ordered to protect the prince’s wish for solitary prayer, had immediately blocked the way. Soon, Rahim would leave the misty, craggy land of Loch Talam—and most of the people who knew what the real Prince Javan looked like—far behind him. The Akramian aristocrats whose children had attended Milisatria with Javan would be dealt with in Akram.
Rahim allowed himself a small, satisfied smile as the last of Javan’s belongings—the last of his belongings—were loaded atop the sturdy carriage and tied into place. Soon the coachman and the quartet of royal guards the king had sent to collect the prince from Milisatria would finish securing the load, and it would be time to leave for the long stretch of desert road that would eventually bring Rahim back to Makan Almalik.
He’d left the city as the bastard son of a poor seamstress. He was returning as the heir to Akram’s crown of fire. And there was no one left who could stop him. Not even the FaSaa’il who thought Akram’s new prince was their puppet.
“We’re ready, Your Highness.” The coachman stood outside the carriage door, awaiting instructions.
“Then let’s be off,” Rahim said, careful to put an aristocratic polish on his words. “I’d like to cross the Sakhra bridge and be on the desert road by nightfall.”
He took a deep breath and forced himself to relax against the seat again as the coachman hoisted himself into the driver’s box. Soon, he’d be in the desert staying at inns where no one would dare question the occupant of Akram’s royal coach. He’d eat as much as he wanted. Wear Javan’s fine robes and plan what he’d say when he finally saw the king face-to-face for the first time. And what he’d do once the king either died or abdicated the crown, and every citizen of Akram was at Rahim’s mercy.
He’d had seventeen long years of living in a seamstress’s tent to dream about how it would feel to be a god among men, but nothing he’d imagined came close to the blazing heat of triumph that warmed his blood now.
“Wait!” A man’s commanding voice cut through the air, and the coachman pulled the horses to a stop.
Rahim rapped sharply on the carriage’s ceiling. “Continue!”
“Prince Javan, I’d like a word before you leave.” The man sounded close to the carriage door. Rahim stiffened, but then relaxed as two of his guards stepped down from their perches on the side of the vehicle and blocked the way. “I’m the headmaster here, and this is a matter of urgent security for the prince.”
Unease curled in Rahim’s stomach. Did the headmaster know something was wrong? What other security issue could he be talking about? If he didn’t suspect anything, he would surely anticipate Javan gladly opening the door and receiving him. If he did suspect, refusing to talk to him would simply confirm his suspicions. Rahim had seen the dark elves stationed at the academy’s entrance. If the headmaster raised the alarm, Rahim wouldn’t make it off the school’s grounds before those monsters destroyed him with their magic.
There was only one solution.
The unease settled into cold determination as Rahim made the only choice he could.
Plenty of rulers began their reign with blood on their hands. His would be no different.
“Allow him to enter,” he said quietly, lest his voice give him away to the headmaster before he’d had a chance to put his hastily constructed plan into action.
The guards stepped aside. The carriage door opened. Rahim turned his face into his shoulder as the headmaster, a sturdily built man with gray hair and creased skin, climbed into the vehicle. Reaching past him, Rahim grabbed the carriage door and pulled it closed.
“Kellan told me you were already in your carriage by the time he returned to the room early this morning, and that your guards wouldn’t allow him close enough to say good-bye. I understand your eagerness to return home after so long, but do you really think ignoring your friend is the best way to leave?”
Rahim remained silent, and the headmaster sighed.
“I’m uneasy about that Draconi attack during the final exam,” the man said. “While I have no proof that the creature was after you specifically, I’d like to send a small contingent of extra guards—”
He broke off abruptly as Rahim lifted his face to look him in the eyes.
“Who are you? Where is Javan?” The man glanced around the carriage’s lush red interior as if Javan might be hiding in a corner.
Rahim crossed his arms over his chest and slid his hands into the pockets he’d sewn into his tunic beneath his armpits. The metal throwing stars concealed in their depths were a solid weight in his hands. “I am Prince Javan.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “You most certainly are not.”
Rahim smiled coldly. “I am Prince Javan Samad Najafai of the house of Kadar. Anyone who says otherwise must die.”
Something flashed in the man’s face, and he reached for the short sword that was strapped to his waist.
Rahim whipped the throwing stars out of their pockets and let them fly, thankful now for the hours spent practicing with the weapons while he was a boy stuck in a desert town with little else to do besides sew garments with his mother and dream of the life that should’ve been his. The weapons’ razor-sharp tips buried themselves in the old man’s chest. He gasped—a strangled, wet sound—and reached for them as if to pull them out.
It was too late. Blood was gushing over his chest, pooling in his lap, and dripping onto the floor.
It was fortunate the carriage’s interior was already red. That stain was never coming out.
Rahim didn’t understand what the headmaster meant by a Draconi attack—a pity he hadn’t been able to keep up the deception long enough to get more details—but if there was a threat from the Eldrians against Loch Talam, that was all the more reason to leave this damp, craggy kingdom far behind.
Rahim’s hands shook as he reached past the headmaster and rapped on the front wall of the carriage. “The headmaster has decided to accompany us to our stop tonight as he has business there. Let’s go.”
The coachmen called out to the horses, and the carriage lurched into motion again.
Clenching his hands into fists to stop the shaking, Rahim lifted the purple sash he wore across his shoulders and wrapped it around the lower half of his face.
He hadn’t known blood would smell like sweetly decaying metal. Hadn’t imagined the awful way a body sagged when the spirit that once inhabited it was gone.
And he would never have guessed that killing someone would be so unsettling.
The future king of Akram couldn’t afford to be unsettled by the taking of a life.
Slowly lowering the sash from his face, Rahim forced himself to breathe in the scent of blood. Forced himself to stare at the awkwardly slumped body with its glassy stare until it was no longer unsettling. No longer upsetting.
Until it was nothing at all.
The path to a king’s throne was often paved with the bodies of his enemies.
Rahim had only just begun.