Page 21 of A Kingdom of Lies
I was three half-pints down when the door to the pub slammed open. In strode the very person I’d travelled all this way to see. A small twisting of disappointment flooded through me as the only man who’d entered was James Campbell. He wasn’t followed by his reedy friend, the one who had taken my mother’s bracelet the night they both sold me off to Hunters.
James took two steps into the pub, chest heaving as he searched the crowd. I knew who he was looking for long before his stare settled in my direction.
“I want no trouble tonight, James!” Mable shouted across the now deathly still crowd. “Best that you leave before you upset my patrons.”
James was so angry he could hardly formulate a word. All he could do was raise a finger at me from across the room and shout one word. “Outside.”
I raised my empty glass and tipped it from side to side, calling back. “Fancy something to drink? It’s on me. Mable, another two perhaps?”
The gossip of my arrival had reached James, but I’d hoped it would’ve been sooner. A clearer head would be better for this encounter. But at least I was somewhat prepared, whereas James had woken up this morning believing he wouldn’t see me ever again.
Yet here I was.
And there he stood.
He embodied the very reason I’d become what I was now, the reason why Father had to travel to Wychwood, putting him on the path to his death. In my eyes, James Campbell had caused this all to happen when he sold me out to the Hunters.
I couldn’t punish Doran yet, so I needed someone else to face my wrath.
James was the perfect, and only, option.
It took a moment for James to utter something back to me. Perhaps it was his disbelief muting him, or the rage at seeing me in this place when he believed he had gotten rid of me. When he did speak he only managed one, sharp word. “How?”
I kicked out beneath the table, sending the wooden stool on the other side clattering to the ground. “Why don’t you come and join me? And I will tell you everything. Unless you wish for everyone to listen?”
“You have a death wish coming back here, boy.”
I was getting tired of old, hateful men calling me boy. Actually, thanks to him, I was a king.
“I’ll take that as a no,” I whispered to myself, standing from my seat and letting the dark cloak unravel to the ground. “There’s much I wish for. Perhaps death is one of them. But I can promise you I won’t be the one dying tonight.”
“No, no, no,” Mable said, cheeks redder than normal. “Both of you out. Now.”
James grunted like a wild boar, snatching the dirtied blade from his belt and brandishing it before him. The patrons around him stumbled out of the way, some surging for the door, but the majority stayed for the entertainment. The King’s Head was not impartial to a fight.
James paced towards me, looking down the edge of his blade as he spoke. “I could sell you again, you know. Probably would get more this time around.”
I paid careful attention to the reaction of those around James. People I’d smiled alongside, grown up amongst, to see if they were shocked to hear James’s revelation. People I saved by claiming the Icethorn court and preventing a war that they never expected. But there was not a single wince. Even Mable’s expression stayed stoic.
They all knew. All of them.
They had known what James and his accomplice had done to me. Who they had sold me off to. Which made it easier for my conscience to deal with what was to come.
“Come closer and say that again,” I spat, hands lifting at my sides. “You were lucky the last time, but I can promise you it will be different now. Go on, Iurgeyou to try.”
“Don’t play games with me.”
Pressing fingers to my lips, I stifled a dramatic gasp. “Trust me, James, I’m taking this very seriously. I’d go so far to say I’ve never felt more serious about anything in my life. Look…” I plucked the golden-hilted dagger and threw it with vigour, the blade’s tip sinking into the wood flooring between James’s boots. “No weapons besides the one you hold like a child. Come, let’s dance this out like men.”
“You are no man,” he snarled, lip curling over stained teeth. “Fey–”
“Don’t… excite me.” My shout reverberated through the room in a cloud of rolling mist. Glass shattered as my frozen touch met with tankards upon tables, held in hands, and panes between window frames. The ground was littered with shards, crunched beneath the heavy boots of people who left the pub with haste. “Be careful what you call me, Mr. Campbell. A wrong slip of the tongue could cause you great harm.”
James stood still, hair quivering by my conjured winds. I wondered if any of the other patrons watched with the same fearful gaze that spread across his face. The knife James held shook as his fingers gripped tighter. It was about all the movement he risked as I paced through the parted crowd towards him, my lingering freeze of magic still present in the air around us.
“Lost for words?” I asked quietly, as though he was the only one in the room. “Do you have nothing else to say to me now you see who I am?WhatI am!”
More people scurried from the pub, the door slamming wildly behind them. Those brave enough to watch placed themselves behind tables and black-painted pillars for protection.
