“Where did they go?” he asked, turning to Dalen. The grizzled tracker adjusted the furs covering him, clearly uncomfortable with Feledias’s attention.
“Not so easy to tell, Highness,” he said quietly in a dry, croaking voice that sounded as if he never used it. A fact which Feledias could attest to, for he had ridden with the man often and had rarely heard him speak. “The snow covers most tracks.”
Feledias frowned. “What am I paying you for then? Perhaps, it would be better if I chose, Dalen, to forego your services. What do you think of that?”
The man blanched, as well he should, for anyone with the sense the gods had given him knew what Feledias meant by that. He was the prince of the realm and, as such, men were not allowed to leave his service, not voluntarily at least, and he made sure, as a rule, that should he wish for them to leave, they would never work with anyone else again. Or breathe, for that matter.
“Covers most tracks, Highness,” Dalen said hurriedly, “but not all.” He knelt, studying the tracks carefully as if his life depended on it—which it did. Finally, he nodded. “They went this way, Highness,” he went on, pointing further into the forest. “Prince Bernard and the…the other.”
Feledias let out a growl, reaching out and slapping the man ringingly across the face. Dalen cried out in surprise, falling to the ground and staring up at him with wide eyes. “He is not your prince,” he growled at the man as he bled from his mouth. “Not any longer. Not since he lay with that adultering whore, not since he betrayed me. He is a traitor to the realm, a traitor to me. That and nothing more. Do you understand me, Dalen?”
“F-forgive me, sir,” he said, “I meant no offense. I-it was a mistake.”
Feledias watched him, considering reaching for the blade at his side, the fury and rage which had been his constant companions for fifteen years roiling within him like a storm. “A mistake,” he said, his voice a harsh whisper. “Very well, Dalen. I will forgive you, this time. But know that should you ever refer to that—that traitor as a prince again, I will not be so kind, and it will be the very last mistake you make. Am I clear?”
“O-of course, sir.”
“Very well,” he said. “Now, stand up and tell me what you have learned.”
The man climbed to his feet, bowing his head. “I apologize again, Highness, I did not mean—”
“Never mind what you meant,” Feledias growled. “Speak quickly, Dalen, for I have little patience left.”
“Yes, sire. As I was saying, I scouted ahead. The two went that way”—he motioned into the forest—“but then they turned around and are now traveling south.”
“South,” Feledias said thoughtfully, running a hand across his chin. What would his brother be planning? There had been a time when Feledias would have been able to guess his intentions easily enough, for the man had been little more than a beast, akin to a bull who saw red and so whose only thought was to charge at the nearest enemy and, if one weren’t forthcoming, his nearest ally, with bloodletting on his mind.
But it had been fifteen years since he’d last seen the man, more than that, in fact, and had he still been the same person as before, he would have heard of Feledias’s hunt for him and come to finish matters the only way a brute such as he had known—violence. The fact that Feledias had not seen or heard anything of him—neither, until recently, had his many agents scattered across the realm—meant that the man had changed. At least enough to fight his baser desires, those which were no doubt even now urging him to fight, to kill. But, somehow, for some reason, he was ignoring those desires, had ignored them for the last fifteen years.
Feledias could only imagine that the man was afraid for his life, and it was this fear which kept him from facing him. Of course, he was right to be afraid, for when Feledias found him—or any of those others who had aided him, whom he had called friend—he would make an example of him, would carve the price of the man’s betrayal out of his flesh.
He forced his anger down, forced himself to think. Yes, he would exact his vengeance from the man and his companions, but he had to find him first. He was close now, closer than he had been for the last fifteen years, and he could not afford to let his anger get the better of him. He frowned, looking around them.
His brother wanted to live, cared only for his own safety, that much was obvious. He wanted to live, and he was heading south. Where would he go, though? What refuge might he seek to avoid…Feledias hissed in a breath as the answer became obvious. The Fey would not long suffer the man in their lands. After all, it had been he who had lured their king to parley under a flag of truce only to chop his head from his shoulders with that great axe he carried. He would not turn around and head north, of that much Feledias was confident. After all, there was nothing there for him to head toward. Nothing, that was, except the burned-out skeleton of the village that had dared shelter him, the corpses of its inhabitants, traitors to the crown one and all, likely still smoking. And if he tried to go past that, to travel farther north, he would only reach the Barrier Mountains, their very name
