I Swore to Kill the Prince I Guard novel · Chapter 21 of 24
Chapter 21: Rask Hold
The gatehouse of Rask Hold still stood.
Everything behind it had gone to blackened stumps.
They came up the old road in the late afternoon with the thaw running in the ditches.
Florian rode his grey mare and Evander rode the gelding, with his left arm in a sling that Florian had tied himself and tied badly.
The king had brought four riders and left them at the bottom of the hill.
He had said, "Not for this," and nobody had asked what he meant.
Above the arch hung the stag.
It was carved in oak, as big as a man, with one antler snapped.
It was blackened to the shoulder, with a hole through its flank where something had hit it.
Evander had not seen it since he was twenty-one.
He stopped the horse.
It was much smaller than he remembered.
Florian dismounted.
He stood in the road in his plain riding coat, with the crown left in its box at Highmere, and looked up at the stag.
His mouth moved.
"I thought I'd be sick," he said.
"I thought I'd have to look at it and be a coward again."
"And?"
"And I'm only sad," said the king.
"Which is so much worse."
Evander took him in through the arch by the hand.
He showed him the court where his father had found the old steward asleep in the straw.
He showed him the well, and the black hollow of the great hall with only its chimney standing.
He showed him the kitchen garden, grown over with thorn and hawthorn.
He showed him the kennels.
Their roof was gone, but the stone runs were whole, and in the last one a brass name plate still hung on a nail.
Bracken, it said, in his sister's crooked hand.
Evander had forgotten that she named them all.
They stood there a long time.
It began to rain, the soft cold rain of the first thaw.
One room on the upper floor of the gatehouse still had a roof and a hearth.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of I Swore to Kill the Prince I Guard are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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