Chapter One: Abduction
The arson of the capital was still at a white-hot blaze when the marriage proposal arrived at Duke Marseir’s door. It battered its way right through that sturdy oaken barrier, awaiting no answering of the bell and no proper reception. Prince Carnen had come in person to deliver the offer, and that man waited for no one. With his white blond hair and that snow leopard cape swept back over ghoulishly gothic black armor, he looked just like his barbarian father, the usurper king. Though Carnen at least maintained a clean-shaven face and a more civilized presentation. “What poorly plotted discontent is sweeping through our city this day.” Carnen’s eyes weighed into the duke with patronizing rebuke, as he banged through the doors of his study flanked by a dozen of the consciousless killers his country termed soldiers. “Someone’s been filling the peasants’ heads with most dangerous rhetoric it seems, saying my father has no legitimate claim to his most rightfully seized throne.”
“Alas, the common people are so very slow to change, and butchering the royal family and holding captive her majesty the queen is simply not a traditional tactic of winning a country’s confidence, at least not down here in civilized lands.”
“Your cousin the queen is most comfortable in care of my father, Marseir, and the fact that she could be made so very much less comfortable should really have persuaded you from seeding this conspiracy of poorly backed rebellion.”
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, lord prince,” the Duke shrugged aside with wide-eyed innocence. “I have been holed up here in my manor these past hours, trying to quiet the panic of my family and staff after your black-armored brutes were seen marching into the merchants’ quarter and torching every storefront downtown. And here I had assumed you had made this most courteous visit to my estate in order to explain yourself, so I may spread assurance to all my fellow lords and colleagues in the trading guilds that this was in fact a reasonable response on part of your government. Instead, you barge in here and throw around allusions to treachery and conspiracy, yet you have still not at all explained what has occurred within the capital tonight.”
Carnen drew a knife and drove it right through the duke’s sleeve, dangerously close to the wrist as it thudded to a stop in the wood of his desk. “Do not play dumb with me. You know very well those merchants were stock piling gun powder and illegal imports of weapons. You commissioned them to do it.”
“I did no such thing. I would never betray our so very tenuously positioned new monarch, even if I am indeed the only one of us in this room possessing of true royal blood with an actual claim to that throne.” He ripped free his sleeve, rising calmly to his feet and staring down the cocky boy before him with eyes steady and dark. “So go ahead and silence the threat, you impudent savage. Cut down the last of the beloved royal family, right here within his own home, and watch just how quickly my peers and all our ‘peasants’ as you term them flock to support the armies of our allies when they come from overseas to take back this kingdom from raiders and ruffians.”
“Oh my dear old Duke,” Prince Carnen smiled. “if I’d come here to kill you, you’d already be dead. No, I come to settle this most pernicious spirit of unrest within our city once and for all.”
Charlotte’s screams came echoing down the corridor, and Marseir knew this young savage was savoring the glimmer of fear in the eyes of the old noble across from him. They dragged his daughter sobbing into the study, and the old man’s defiance seemingly folded right along with his stance.
“I am most generously accepting your offer of months previous to unite our houses,” the sadistic prince continued on airily. “I will wed your daughter and allow our heir to sit the throne once my father passes. And if those foolish other nations do send their armies from overseas to try and seize our most rightfully earned throne, you had best use all your influence, and that of your peers, to turn them aside and protect your dear daughter and soon to be seeded grandchild. Now dearest,” He turned to Charlotte, laying hand upon her cheek. “will your father give his blessing? Or will I be forced to kill the pair of you right here and now and burn this lovely manor just like I did our city square.”
“I give my permission,” Marseir grated through a voice hoarse and quavering, “so long as you give your swear that she will be treated as a proper wife and royal.”
“So long as she is not daughter to a conniving traitor, I’m sure she will be fine,” the prince most pointedly threatened. Then they loaded up a trunk of the lady’s possessions into the waiting carriage outside, before the prince dragged in Charlotte himself, or at least, the young woman he thought to be Charlotte Marseir. The arrogant savage was not nearly so intelligent a schemer as the two-faced archduke.