The Purple Prince by Sebastien Menkes

Author:Sebastien Menkes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sebastien Menkes
Published: 2022-03-02T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 29

Ben was escorted back to his carriage, leaving Auriel to cry on her own.

A Dawnbringer was posted outside both his doors, to ensure the prince did not roam. It was another three hours before the mess on the highway was cleared away. All the while, the stench of burnt flesh hung heavy in the air. Ben kept mistaking the sound of the wind whistling in the grass for distant screams.

The sky had begun to darken by the time Agent Crane and her company returned. With one ear to his carriage door, Ben heard her report to the Emperor in a grave voice. Appleby had been razed to the ground. Innocent or guilty, its inhabitants had all met the same fate.

“Not a word of this to anyone,” his uncle had said. “When we reach Sungarde, your father and I will speak privately with Lady Gosling. You will never speak of today, or Appleby again.”

I’ll say nothing of Appleby, Ben thought to himself. But I will never forget.

*

They arrived in Sungarde two days later. Gravel crunched under the wheels of Ben’s coach, a welcome change from the rumble of the highway. He was glad the journey was over. It had been a fortnight of boredom and nausea, culminating in the most wretched day of his young life. He could not scratch the image of the revenant bonfire from his mind, nor the hateful things his father had said.

“You are no son of mine. I deserve better than you. A golden heir. Not some stammering, ungrateful, left-handed swine, who killed his mother to be born …”

Ben had never considered her death to be his fault. For a moment outside Appleby, he had almost believed it.

No, he decided, his guilt giving way to fury. I didn’t kill her, you fat bastard. You did. You knew she was sick, too weak to bear another child. You shouldn’t have gotten her pregnant. But you wanted a golden heir, no matter the cost. You’re the one who killed her. Not me. Not Auriel. You!

The prince stepped from his carriage in something of a daze, out into the slanting copper light of afternoon. Sprawled on the green hill above him was the pale magnificence of Sungarde Palace. It was just as he remembered it – wrought of bone-white stone, with a hundred tinted green windows. Above the front gate was an enormous rose window of stained glass. The gardens around the palace were just as sumptuous, full of fountains and hedges and peacocks wandering free.

Next he knew, Ben was being shepherded up the palace steps. At the top, he met the lady of Sungarde, Susannah Gosling.

“My prince!” she squawked as she threw her arms around him. “What a pleasure to see you again!”

The Duchess of Herondale was an overloud, overwrought peahen of a woman in her fifties with greying blonde hair. Her eyes were the same sea-green as the windows of the palace, her large white teeth uncannily like its pearly bricks. She wore a dress of white silk, dazzled by silver lace, and far too much perfume.

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