Free Penelope & Prince Charming by Jennifer Ashley Page B

handsome face, had calmly and ruthlessly blocked every one of Damien’s attempts to step into his father’s shoes. Alexander had said point-blank that he wished Damien to rule as a puppet prince to Alexander’s dictation—or not at all.
    The people of Nvengaria wanted a symbol to adore; very well, Damien could be it. Alexander and the Council would do everything else.
    When Damien tried to have Alexander arrested for treason, however, the guards refused to obey him. Alexander had them in his hand. The palace guards and the military had loathed Damien’s father and were as happy as Alexander to see the end of rule by Imperial Prince.
    However, there was a prophecy, Alexander had said. His eyes had remained ice-cold, the ruby he wore in his ear winking like a drop of blood. A test of the prince’s true right to rule. Fail that test, and…
    The prophecy of the Imperial Prince finding the longlost princess descended from Prince Augustus of old, and reuniting the crown of Nvengaria was an ancient story that every child learned from the cradle. Nvengarians loved legends, the more ancient and ludicrous the better. They’d be ecstatic to learn that Damien would make it come true. And Nvengarians were just volatile enough that if he failed, they’d let their disappointment be known, violently.
    Nedrak, head of the Council of Mages, said that the signs pointed to Damien as the prince to fulfill the prophecy. Nedrak was firmly under Alexander’s thumb, but his eyes had glittered with eagerness. He believed in the magic, too.
    Word that Damien would fulfill the ancient prophecy had quickly spread. A mob soon surrounded the castle, a peaceful one, come to encourage Damien to ride off on the insane quest. Alexander had not smiled, he never did, but he managed to look pleased. Damien could not refuse, and Alexander knew it.
    So Damien made a fair speech to the multitude from the balcony of the Imperial Prince’s castle, packed his bags, and traveled thousands of miles on the word of a nervous mage and a half-mad advisor to find the village of Little Marching, Oxfordshire.
    He remembered the faces of his people when he had ridden out of Narato with his entourage, how the citizens had lined up to see him off in a fervor of cheering, their eyes shining with hope. Damien was the new Imperial Prince, he was following the prophecy, and everything would be put right again.
    And so, he would do what Sasha told him and observe the rituals and pretend he believed it. He would drag Nvengaria out of the dust into which his father had ground it and save it from Alexander at any cost.
    Neither he nor Alexander truly believed in the prophecy, but he had to admit that perhaps Sasha was not wrong about it. Events that had occurred since he’d left Nvengaria were nudging him toward belief. Something out there had pushed Damien unerringly to Penelope’s doorstep. And he’d tumbled immediately into love.
    He came out of his thoughts to find Petri grinning at him.
    “What are you smiling about?” Damien asked irritably.
    Petri’s grin widened. He set down his glass and got to his feet. “I want to show you something.”
    He rose and walked to Damien’s bed. As Damien watched, he moved the night table and swung open a door-sized panel in the wall beside it. “I found it when I checked the room. It is a passage behind the walls.”
    Petri always searched Damien’s chambers even after the bodyguards did. Assassins liked to pop up and shoot things at Damien, so Petri went over every building carefully himself, not trusting anyone else to do the job properly. It was not a matter of if , but of when Alexander’s assassins would strike.
    Damien got to his feet. “Where does it lead?”
    “Not far. It runs behind the corridor and opens to a bedchamber at the end.”
    Damien raised his brows. “Hmm, now, for what reason does a man build a house with a passage that leads secretly from one bedchamber to another?”
    “I cannot imagine,” Petri