Reba tensed at the sound of running feet, headed her way. Beside her, Byron pulled his scarf up to cover his nose and mouth. Between that and his deep hood, you could barely tell there was a person in the shadow.
A figure appeared at the end of the road they’d been assigned. He probably wouldn’t be sprinting quite so hard if he knew what was waiting. Only Prince Grayden would be stupid enough to wear white and gold in the lower town, while supposedly in hiding.
Bryon growled and crouched. Reba risked a murmur. “Capture, not kill.”
His hood flap in an echo of the nod beneath it.
The man raced under an inn-entrance lamp, brighter than the weakly flickering street lamps above them. Lank blond hair, worn long, pale skin, narrow, pointed features. His Royal Vileness in the flesh.
Reba pulled out her largest, showiest knife, and stepped into the runner’s path. “I think you might have taken a wrong turn or two, Prince.”
Bryon ghosted past the panting man, all but invisible even to Reba. When Grayden spun, he was there, a knife at the fugitive prince’s throat.
Grayden squeaked. “I can pay.”
Reba jerked his arms behind him and began winding rope around his wrists. “Oh, you’ll be paying, Highness. Hopefully for the rest of your worthless life.”
He jerked back, jabbing his shoulder into her chest, then trying to duck around Bryon, who only came up to his chin. The boy still had a few growth spurts ahead of him.
They scuffled, but Bryon was too quick, and too strong, he had Grayden on his back with a foot on his throat in seconds. Just enough time, and movement for Byron’s scarf to come loose and his hood to fall back.
Grayden’s mouth gaped as he stared up at the young face glaring at him. “Nikoli? But you’re supposed to be dead.”
Byron flinched then sneered. “Don’t know who you’re taking of. My name’s Ron.”
Reba stepped in to re-tie their prisoner and give Byron a chance to cover his face again.
Shouts echoed toward them and Reba called back. “Got him. Come and collect your little lost lamb, lads, we have him all ready for roasting.”
Byron sniggered.
Grayden squirmed on the cobblestones. “Nikoli, please, they’re going to send me back. You have to help me.”
“You’re being sent back to where you belong. If you hadn’t done what you did to those girls, you might have made yourself a life here, but you made a choice; now you’re facing the consequences.”
Did the boy realise he sounded as cold and learned as one of the Supreme Judges? He needed to tuck himself back into his street brat persona before the guards arrived.
Reba nudged him. “Ron, go and wave a lantern or something at the corner, hurry the lads along a bit.”
A shuddering breath sounded from inside the hood, then another flapping nod and he was off, scooping the inn’s lamp from its hook as he went.
Grayden’s eyes darted from side to side, then fixed on Reba. “You’ll get good money for him you know. The family would pay anything for the return of the Crown Prince’s heir.”
She gave him a hard stare back. “Don’t know what you’re talking about. Ron’s a local street kid. Known him since he was tiny.”
Life was about to get very complicated. Even if Byron only looked like Prince Nikoli, but was nothing more than what Reba claimed, he could be used. But he didn’t just look like the vanished prince, did he. Byron was Nikoli. Too many strange and jagged pieces slotted together into the shape of a brave but broken boy. They had to disappear.
The DNA of Stories 