Page 36 of The Prince's Sacrifice

King Forex looked mutinous, his bloodshot eyes narrowed, but he didn’t outright reject Tor’s suggestion.

“Perhaps it’s time to remind the exiles of their place,” Tor pointed out smoothly, trying to channel his brother. They’d switched places frequently as children, and Tor needed some of that energy now. “We’ll ensure they’re aware of the boundaries of the mountain and that any show of force on your side of the mountain will result in retaliation.”

“They’ve already shown what miserable cowards they are! It’s time to attack!” Forex seethed.

“They’re back on their side of the mountain,” Tor said as calmly as he could.

He suspected Tond reallywaswithin its rights to attack at this point. A little sneaky pilfering was a gray area but distinctly different from killing Tondians and burning their houses to the ground. They had so little information, though, and King Forex wanted to killeveryone.

“They can’t keep hiding on their side of the mountain!” the King raged, clearly working himself into more and more of a fury. “My hands shouldn’t be tied like this! It’s unreasonable!”

It was much more complicated than that—but then, none of the rest of the realms were dealing with exiles who were killing citizens.

“We will march on the exiles immediately!” King Forex roared.

“You have to stay on your land,” Tor reminded him, trying to stay calm in the futile hope it would calm the King a little. “Write to the High King. He needs to be informed, and I’m sure he’d be willing to discuss options. The terms of the peace accords are clear. We can’t go after the exiles when they’re over the mountain.”

“On my land,” the King spat out, face nearly purple with rage.

Yes, that was probably the root of the whole problem. Tond had shrunk in the peace accords, the land over the mountains given to the exiles. King Forex had never been happy about that. And now he had what he felt was a valid reason to respond with force.

Bavil tried to intercede, too.

“I think this may have been a splinter group, Father, or a group of rogues. They were far more violent than we’ve ever encountered before. They didn’t behave like other reports have indicated.”

The King scoffed, eyes still hard and angry. He was continuing to drink steadily, hand shaky on the glass, and Tor felt a surge of understanding towards his brother. If it had felt like this,wanting to snatch the glass from the other person and make them sober up and see sense… Well, Tor probably wasn’t going to apologize, but he realized now that his brother might have had a point about Tor’s drinking.

Forex growled, “They’ve realized that we’ve been soft, and they’ve grown bold! We have to respond with equal boldness! We’re marching!”

Bavil couldn’t march with the guards, and Larexa wouldn’t, but Pel and Tor both insisted on going, which Forex acceded to with poor grace. He bellowed for the captain of the guard and dismissed the rest of them with clear annoyance.

Bavil asked to see Tor privately, and Tor followed after the man as he was wheeled and then lifted up the stairs to his room. Once they were alone again, Bavil spoke.

“Look, I know what it looks like, but Father can’t march on the exiles.”

Tor nearly rolled his eyes. “I’ll mitigate the damage as best I can, but it’s clear he’s not listening to a word I say. I don’t want a war any more than you do.”

Bavil looked sheepish. “Sorry. I’m feeling useless at the moment and sort of like I’m the messenger that’s going to cause all of this.”

“This definitely wasn’t you,” Tor countered immediately. “Someone has an agenda here. It might simply be desperation. If it’s a splinter group like you said, then hopefully, we can stop them without it going any further.” He hesitated for a moment. “It’s truly never been like this before?”

Bavil shook his head emphatically. There were still lines of pain around his eyes, and his golden blond hair was a tousled mess. “No. I would have said they were actually quite careful not to do anything that might call wrath down on their heads. I mean, obviously sticking to their side of the mountain would be best, but for the sake of argument, let’s say they neededthe supplies to survive, or even that they wanted to harry us a little because they were annoyed with what we had that they didn’t. There was virtually no violence unless they fought with the guards, and they seem to have worked hard to avoid patrols whenever possible. They never engaged civilians, and they never damaged property. This was highly atypical.”

“So, either a splinter group, or—” Tor straightened.

“Or?” Bavil demanded.

“Or someone is trying to get us to do exactly this. Move a large contingent of guards to the mountains.”

Bavil’s eyes widened. “We’ve got to tell the King.”

Forex was still furious, but he reluctantly agreed that it would be unwise to leave the castle with minimal defenses.

“It would be just like them,” the man spat. “Taking more land that never belonged to them! I won’t have it!”

Tor could have done without Forex’s speech before they left, which basically amounted to the desire to raze the exiles to the ground and obliterate them utterly, but it still meant that when Tor and Pel left with the guard, it was with about half the force originally intended.

Tor was still determined to prevent a slaughter if at all possible.