THE EXILED PRINCE SON-IN-LAW STRIKES BACK

Chapter 3: The Ring and the Raven

The ring was gold, old and plain, with a single deep blue sapphire set in the middle. Under the white lights of the room, the stone glowed like a piece of night sky.

The room went very quiet. Most of them had never seen it. They had only heard stories.

It had belonged to my mother.

My name, my real name, is Leonid Varenne. I was born in the Old Palace of Kestrograd, the son of King Mikhail and Queen Sofia, and on one winter night when I was sixteen, I stopped being a crown prince and became a ghost.

"The Varenne Vault," Sasha whispered.

"The Varenne Vault," I said.

Far away, in the banking city of Bergstadt, high in the mountains of Halvetia, the deepest vault of the Edelweiss Private Bank held the royal treasury of Kestrovia: gold, jewels and old paintings worth more than most countries. It also held the Crown Charter, the paper signed by every Varenne king for a hundred years, the only thing that could prove to the world who I was.

And this ring was the only key.

"Open it," Nikolai said at once. "Open it now, Leon. With that money, we could buy half the parliament back before the vote."

"No," Dorov said from his stool.

"Colonel, with respect..."

"No." The old man's voice cracked like a whip. "The moment that vault opens, the bank sends a message to Kestrograd. It's the law. Your uncle learns that the crown prince is alive, and he learns which day and which city. You want his Iron Bureau knocking on doors in Rosegate by the weekend?"

Nikolai threw up his hands. "Then what do we do? Wait another twelve years?"

I tucked the ring back under my shirt. "We don't open the vault. Not yet. The day I open it is the day I stop hiding, and I'm not ready."

"Then when?" Nikolai demanded.

"When opening it saves more people than it kills."

Nobody spoke for a while after that.

I knew what they were thinking. Twelve years of hiding. Twelve years of money moved through secret companies, of loyal people smuggled out of Kestrovia, of spies planted inside ministries and banks. And now the moment had come, and the Raven was telling them to wait.

But they didn't know what I remembered. They didn't know about the smell of smoke in the palace hallways, or my mother pushing me toward Dorov and telling me to run. They didn't know that every night for twelve years, I'd closed my eyes and seen my little sister Elena's empty bed.

She was twelve. They said she died in the fire.

I wasn't going to lose anyone else by moving too fast.

"Leon is right," Sasha said quietly into the silence. Everyone turned to look at her, and she went pink. "I mean... the bank system in Bergstadt is old, but it's not stupid. I've looked at it. The second that vault opens, alarms go off in three countries."

Nikolai sighed and raised both hands. "Fine. Fine. We wait. But not for long, brother."

"Colonel," I said. "The back room. I need to hit something."

Dorov pushed himself up from his stool with a grunt and limped after me.

The back room was small and bare, with a wooden floor, a few old mats and a rack of training sticks along one wall. Dorov took two sticks and tossed one to me.

"You're angry," he said.

"Yes."

"Good. Anger is fast." He spun his stick once. "But it's stupid. Show me you can be fast and smart at the same time."

He came at me.

For a man of sixty-two with a ruined knee, Dorov was still terrifying. The stick whistled toward my head, my ribs and my knees in a blur. I blocked, stepped, turned. He had trained me since I was six years old in the palace courtyard, and for twelve more years in this city, in this room, every single night. He had made me into a weapon.

But the fight was mine now. I caught his stick, twisted it out of his hand and stopped the end of mine an inch from his throat.

Dorov looked down at it and grunted. "Not bad."

"Not bad?"

"Your left foot was slow." He picked up his stick. "The men in the hidden world who whisper about the Raven, the one who has never lost a fight, they'd be very disappointed in that left foot."

I almost laughed.

"I beat you," I said.

"You beat an old man with a bad knee." He bent down slowly to pick up his stick. "The men your uncle sends will not be old, and they will not have bad knees. Again." Then the door banged open, and Sasha ran in with a laptop clutched to her chest.

"Leon. You need to see this. Now."

She set the laptop on a bench. On the screen were rows of bank transfers, account numbers and company names.

"You asked who's backing the vote," she said. "I started with the money, because money always leaves footprints. Look at this account. It's in the name of the Kestrovian Ministry of Energy. Every month for six years, it's sent huge payments to one private company."

"Which company?"

She pointed. "Rask Energy."

Anton Rask's family company.

I remembered the name from childhood. Old Gregor Rask, Anton's grandfather, used to bring my father bottles of plum brandy at New Year and bow so low his nose almost touched the floor. The day after the coup, Rask Energy was the first company to sign a new contract with the Regent.

"There's more," Sasha said, scrolling. "Rask Energy turns around and sends the money out again, all over the world, through dozens of smaller companies. Some of it goes to bribe people. Some of it goes into Anton's own pockets. His houses, his cars, his yacht, all of it." She looked up at me through her thick glasses. "Leon, Anton Rask isn't just friendly with your uncle's government. His money comes straight from it. He's your uncle's wallet."

The room was very quiet.

"And tonight," Dorov said slowly, "that man offered to marry your wife."

Sasha looked at me in surprise. She hadn't heard about the gala yet.

"He did," I said. "In front of two hundred people. He'll pay the Ashworth debt if Victoria divorces me and marries him by summer."

I stared at the screen. In my head, I saw Anton walking across the Ashworth ballroom with his big white smile. I saw Beatrice clapping. I saw Victoria standing perfectly still in her dark blue dress, saying nothing.

If Victoria married Anton, the Ashworth family would belong to him. And through him, to my uncle. Their name, their seat in the Circle of Crowns, their auction house, everything.

The family that had fed me and mocked me for three years would become one more tool in the hand of the man who murdered my parents.

"Thirty days to stop the Crown Law," I said quietly. "And seven days to stop that wedding deal."

"Can you do both?" Sasha asked.

I picked up my training stick and set it back on the rack.

"Sasha," I said, "find out everything Anton Rask is sending to the Spring Auction."

She blinked. "The auction? Why?"

"Because a man like Anton doesn't offer thirty million dollars out of love," I said. "He's using that auction house for something. And I want to know what."