Rebel Prince (The Coalition Rebellion Novels Book 3) Read online

  “Wrong. I’m the one who doesn’t need it. I blend in here.”

  She had a point, he thought. With her dark hair and pale skin, she looked as much Arellian as both their mothers. It was he who stood out. His father’s genes threw true.

  “Unless, of course,” she added, “you’d rather keep walking around as a target.”

  “It’s not as if anyone knows who I am,” he said, grimacing as he put the cap on, shoving long strands of Triotian gold hair out of sight under the heavy blue cloth, taking care not to touch the still very tender lump behind his ear.

  She scowled at him across the fire. “Have you been drinking too much lingberry, Cub?”

  “Have you been bitten by a bark-hound?” he retorted. Damnation, he didn’t know if he could take much more of this. She treated him as if he were indeed that cub—perfectly safe, utterly tamed—while he felt anything but tame right now, fighting urges she clearly didn’t feel in turn.

  No wonder the nickname was starting to slice at him.

  “I could be any Triotian,” he said with an effort at calm. “You know there are lots of people traveling between here and Trios since the MIP was signed.” The Mutual Interest Pact had been a triumph of his father’s negotiating skills, even if there were doubts on Trios that Arellia would hold up their end.

  That all this would someday be his responsibility was a knowledge he’d grown up with. Yet somehow the coming changes in his own life and position, which had once loomed huge over him, seemed less important right now than the change in his feelings toward his best friend.

  Shaina ignored his words. “Of course they know who you are. You look just like your father. You know, the guy whose face is right next to your mother’s on all those placards all over the planet?”

  He signed inwardly. She was right. Of course his father was everywhere. As was his mother. The Graymist family was as famous and revered on Arellia as his father’s was on Trios. Many had died heroically during the first Coalition invasion, and had been secretly venerated even as the Coalition became the way of life. The rest of the Graymist family on Arellia had been wiped out in the rebellion. So when a surviving member of a most beloved family bonded with a king and became queen of the most revered planet in the system, he supposed the fame was inevitable. Especially when together they had waged the battle that had ended the Coalition’s evil on Trios, which in turn had inspired the rebellion here on Arellia.

  But two of the biggest heroes of that rebellion were Shaina’s own parents.

  “Look who’s talking,” he said. “Your parents are right next to them on practically every sign.”

  “Yeah,” she said, rather glumly. “And before you ask, yes, I saw the statue.”

  Lyon managed not to laugh at her tone. His edgy mood faded. He’d seen it, too, that larger-than-life sculpture commemorating the flashbow warrior of Trios and his remarkable weapon, the gleaming silver crossbow that could only be used by him, firing bolts of incredible power. The new statue was the reason this year’s celebration was even bigger than usual. It made sense, he supposed. This had always been a tribute to the warrior as much as to the decision to fight.

  That warrior also happened to be Shaina’s father, the near-mythical Dax Silverbrake, former skypirate, now Defense Minister of Trios, a title he ignored for the most part, saying being the flashbow warrior amounted to the same thing.

  “Quite a party,” Shaina said, looking toward the glow of lights and the faint sounds of celebration still coming from the city. “You’d think they’d just signed the declaration this morning.”

  “My father says it’s important that they remember. If you forget, you get soft—and ripe for the picking all over again.”

  Shaina grimaced. “My mother says the same thing. She says the Coalition, or people like them, will never, ever give up, not really. Even if you wipe them out, more like them will reemerge, somewhere, and take the same path all over again.”

  Lyon didn’t say, “She would know,” although it went through his mind. Shaina’s mother, also Arellian and the former Major Califa Claxton of the Coalition Tactical School, had been both famous and honored in the Coalition before she committed the unpardonable sin of betraying the High Command for a friend—his mother.

  Like everyone on Trios, Lyon knew the story inside out: A prince become king and his new queen working with the prodigal flashbow warrior and his tactically brilliant mate, standing together in a way that inspired them all. The Coalition, which had expected to crush the upstart rebellion easily, had instead been driven out of its most prized conquest.

  He was incredibly proud of them. The responsibility of being their heir was heavy at times—hence his desire for anonymity on this trip—but he wouldn’t trade being their son for anything.

  “—stay here. I may never go back.”

  Lyon snapped out of his reverie at Shaina’s words, and the edge that had come into her voice. “Never go back?” he said, afraid he’d missed something crucial.

  “Well, maybe not never,” she amended, “but come on, Cub, you have to admit living out from under our parents’ legends has . . . a certain appeal.”

  Since he’d just been thinking something similar, he couldn’t deny it. Nor could he deny the tense undertone he was still hearing as she spoke. As always, she used the bedamned nickname, which he’d only allowed because it had pleased him to have at least one person eschew the royal deference.

  That at twelve she had refused to allow him the same privilege with her own name had amused him. Now he only used the shortened “Shay” in his mind, when his thoughts strayed into territory he tried to avoid. When someone thought of you as their brother, thinking of them as something much different than a sister only made things worse.

  And taking off for another planet hadn’t helped much, even before the source of his disquiet had turned up in person.

  “Do you really think it would be different here?” he asked, feeling his way carefully, not knowing what was eating at her. “They’re as celebrated here as they are at home. Especially your father.”

  She grimaced. “If they only knew.”

  There it was, Lyon thought. Whatever was eating at her was surfacing now. He’d grown up with her, and he knew her expressions almost as well as he knew his own.

  “Knew what?”

  “That my father, their vaunted, adored hero,” she said, her voice now nearly dripping with a bitter note, “is a liar.”

  Chapter 2

  SHAINA LOOKED as if she’d expected him to react exactly as he had, with shock. She turned her head and let out a compressed breath.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked.

  Shaina did what she often did when she wasn’t ready to talk about something. She diverted.

  “Never mind. Do you really believe those slugs who grabbed you didn’t know who you were?”

  “If they did, they never let it slip. Just cleaned me out. Except for the ring,” he said, thankfully touching the bulk of it through his shirt. “They didn’t see it.”

  “If your coin is all they wanted, why didn’t they just leave you on the street once they had it? Or just kill you?”

  She sounded so matter-of-fact about it, he couldn’t help but wince inwardly. Sometimes she carried cool logic a bit far. He had no answer, but her words had something tickling at the edge of his memory, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Thinking the best way to remember was to stop trying, he circled back to the beginning.

  “What did your father lie about?”

  He’d thought he’d kept his tone fairly even, but she flared up anyway. “Oh, I know. Why would the great, the heroic Dax Silverbrake lie? His whole story, every detail of his time as the most famous skypirate in the galaxy, is public knowledge, right? He came clean about everything, so what could he possibly have to
lie about now, right?”

  “Did I say any of that?” he asked mildly; not for nothing had he grown up with this girl, who had inherited her mother’s fiery temperament as well as her courage.

  “You didn’t have to, I know you were thinking it. Like everyone else.”

  “And here I’ve always thought I was so exceptional.”

  He said it teasingly, trying to nudge her out of her mood. She didn’t even smile, but lapsed into silence, her jaw set. He sighed. She could go from cool and calm to fierce and impetuous faster than anyone he’d ever met. The trip back to cool and calm wasn’t always so quick.

  He tried another path. “Why are you here anyway? I thought you weren’t coming.” Because this was the last place she’d wanted to be. He wondered if she realized he’d guessed that.

  “You’re bedamned lucky I did,” she muttered.

  He owed her this much, he thought. “Yes. I am.”

  Her gaze flicked to his face, searching, as if looking for any sign of falsity, or any hint he was patronizing her.

  “All right, then,” she finally said, apparently satisfied that his acknowledgment had been genuine.

  “Thank you,” he added because it seemed appropriate. That, at least, embarrassed her enough that she smiled awkwardly.

  “Had to,” she said. “Who would I torment if anything happened to you?”

  “Whoever he is, I wouldn’t wish it on him.”

  He said it wryly, although underneath he supposed he was glad to see his teasing, impish companion back. It made it easier for him to keep his thoughts under control. But at the same time, he didn’t know how long he could keep going like this, as the safe, harmless playmate of her childhood.

  “And I’m sure those thuggers will be loath to admit they were bested by a mere helpless girl.” He made himself smile as he said it, and she made a childish face at him. It was an old, familiar exchange between them, and made them both laugh.

  “You better be more careful then,” she said, her tone changing.

  There was something in the way she said it, some deep concern that might even be worry, that tugged at him. It warmed him. No matter how crazy his life was, Shaina was always there. Sometimes chiding him, sometimes teasing him, sometimes encouraging him. And now he had to add rescuing him to that list, he thought. It was usually the other way around.

  But she understood, in the way only another child of legendary parents could.

  Which brought him back once more to what she’d said in the first place. Her father, a liar? It didn’t seem possible. Certainly not necessary. As she’d said, his godfather’s entire history, some of it much less than pristine, was out there for people to see and learn. And while the general consensus was that by his actions as a skypirate he’d done more single-handedly to harass and frustrate the Coalition than the entire band of rebellious Triotian survivors, there were some who wished he’d found another way. Mostly these were parents of children who were fired with the stories of his adventures and were determined to run off and become skypirates themselves.

  But Shaina felt much differently about the flashbow warrior, and she wasn’t ready for him to poke what was clearly a raw wound.

  “When did you get here?” he asked instead.

  “This morning,” she said. “It took me most of the day to track you.”

  He was well dressed, but didn’t look outwardly wealthy. Once, just being Triotian would have been enough to draw a thief’s interest, but that time had passed with the Coalition’s near destruction of a world that had given so much to other worlds. But wealth, he supposed, was relative. It could well have been a simple robbery of someone they thought had more than they did. Leftovers from Coalition philosophy.

  “How did you find me?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “Lots of questions. Finally found someone who saw you with those skalworms. After you took that knock on the head. He thought they were just helping a friend who’d partaken a bit too much.”

  His brow furrowed. “You asked around for me by name?”

  She gave him a disgusted look. “Of course not. I knew you didn’t want to be held to ceremony yet. I just kept asking about a pretty Triotian walking around looking like he wanted a fight.”

  He blinked, drew back slightly. “I wanted no fight. They started it.”

  “I didn’t say you wanted a fight, just that you looked like it.”

  “And I’m not pretty.”

  “As you wish. Ugly then.”

  She grinned suddenly. She was definitely back, his little pest of a companion. So he risked going back to his earlier question.

  “Why did you come?”

  She let out a long breath. For a moment she just stared into the fire. He thought of warning her she would temporarily destroy her night vision that way, but held his tongue. They’d both been taught by the greatest warriors of the rebellion. She knew.

  Her lowered lashes were dark sweeping semicircles against her pale Arellian skin, skin so different from his own golden, Triotian tones. In an odd quirk of fate, he who looked so much like his father had inherited his mother’s Arellian blue eyes, while she who looked so much like her mother had in turn inherited her father’s jade green ones.

  “I had to get away,” she finally said, sounding tired—enough of an oddity for her that concern spiked through him.

  “Why?” he asked, his voice soft.

  “I was so angry I was . . . afraid. I’ve never been so enraged. I was in a fume like I’ve never felt before.”

  “So you left before you could say or do something you’d regret? How full-fledged of you.”

  “And I hope a zipbug finds your ear,” she shot back.

  “Easy. I meant it nicely. Learning to walk away is hard.” As I know all too well. I had to walk away from you.

  “Oh.” She grimaced. “I didn’t, though. Not before I . . . said some things. Did some things.”

  “To who?”

  “My father. And my mother, too, but mainly him.” Her jaw tightened, and her voice was fierce when she added, “She just went along because she had little choice. He’s the one who lied.”

  And now they were at the point of truth.

  “About what?”

  “He—”

  She broke off suddenly, her head whipping around to look behind them, her hand streaking to grab her dagger from her boot almost simultaneously with his own movement. He’d heard it too, the faintest of rustles.

  Animal? Arellia had some dangerous creatures with more than two legs: slimehogs with tusks as long as his arm, the dangerously fanged flymouse, and jumpspiders the size of your fist. The fabled Arellian dragons were a myth, of course, but then many had thought the golden horses of Arellia a myth, too, until his several-generations-back uncle had found the last surviving herd. Arellia abounded with such mystical, magical tales, scoffed at and banned during the Coalition years, but clung to and repeated in the hidden corners.

  Silence continued, and he wondered if it had merely been a bit of stray breeze they’d heard, rustling leaves. It was a still night, but perhaps up in the trees air was moving faintly.

  He didn’t believe it, not really, but whatever it was was holding fast now.

  Shaina seemed to reach the same conclusion, and turned back. Or almost. Just as he had, she kept her head slightly turned, one ear aimed in that direction. And the dagger stayed unsheathed, within easy reach.

  “Maybe it’s that nasty slimehog we saw earlier,” she said in a conversational tone that was a little bit too loud. He glanced at her, saw her expression, and realized what she was doing.

  “Maybe,” he agreed cheerfully. “He certainly was a bad-tempered thing. Looked like he’d go after anything that moved.”

  Shaina grinned at him. If the watcher was of the
two-legged variety, thinking an ill-tempered—although that was a redundancy—belligerent slimehog was around would make him start thinking of his own welfare as much as whatever he was here for. And if it was indeed an animal, their voices would keep any but the most aggressive or crazy at bay.

  “Maybe we should hunt him,” Shaina said. “Since we’re too insolvent to even buy food and lodging.”

  Lyon grinned at her; that easily she’d put out the possibility of a greater threat, and in the next breath announced they had nothing worth stealing. His father was right—she was a very smart girl.

  “Ho, the fire!”

  Lyon’s dagger was back in his hand in an instant. So. Two legs.

  He flicked a glance at Shaina. She was as ready as he, and when it came down to it, she was a bigger threat with the blade than he, not technically, but because no one expected a wispy little girl to be a threat at all. But she was frowning, and gave a slight shake of her head to indicate she hadn’t sensed anything in that way she had.

  “Approach,” he called out, with every bit of command he could muster, “with your hands in full view.”

  “That’s it, put your royal on,” Shaina whispered.

  “Quiet?” he suggested; no one ordered her and got very far.

  The rustling came again, from the same place, more definite this time.

  “And if you have friends, best they come with you now. We will not take it kindly if they eschew our hospitality by hiding and watching.”

  “I swear,” Shaina muttered, “sometimes you sound more like your father than he does.”

  He hushed her again, although he appreciated the compliment, whether she’d meant it as one or not.

  “Alone,” came the answer out of the trees. “And I come with a gift to share, if you’re truly without food.”

  So he had heard them. Clever, clever girl.

  A man stepped out of the shadows of the trees and into the outer edge of the light cast by the small fire. He was small, wiry, and his face held the wrinkles of advanced years. One hand was held up, palm out to display its emptiness. The other hand held a fat, skinned, and ready-for-the-spit brollet. The thought of a juicy steak made Lyon suddenly realize he’d had nothing for two days now but one of the life bars he always carried in his pack.