Free The Firebrand Legacy by T.K. Kiser

cause.”
    She patted his shoulder. “King Marcel will
figure something out for Esten.” It didn’t seem to help. After a
moment of silence, she spoke her true thoughts. “Alviar said I
couldn’t escape Manakor any more than I could escape my own skin.
Do you think that’s true? Do you think everything has a name that’s
being called every minute?”
    David’s attention shifted. He had big, brown
eyes, so defenseless and attentive. His voice got quiet. “Have you
ever been to a funeral?”
    Carine’s throat tightened. She had been small
when they buried her sister Louise, but she still remembered the
red casket and the white linen that covered it.
    “My dad died before Giles and I were born,”
he said.
    Carine had known this. Mom and Didda said
it’d been a tragedy when the heir to the throne died in a border
skirmish with Padliot when his wife was pregnant. The would-be king
never even found out they were having twins. His wife survived, but
spent her days allowing foreign suitors to court her.
    “They didn’t bury his casket in a grave. They
keep it with the other Marcels in the catacombs. His casket is
covered in glass, and under the glass on the linen is written my
dad’s name in shining Manakor.” Prince David smiled. “Don’t get
uncomfortable. I know how much you love that language.”
    Carine grinned.
    “I used to go down there sometimes with
friends. We’d pretend we were exploring, and I would show them the
caskets and everything. But I went there mostly to try and figure
out why Giles and I had to grow up without a dad. I mean, we have
Grandfather, but since we’re not named Marcel, we may as well be
unrelated. Grandfather doesn’t want the line of Marcels to be
broken. The Marcels are supposed to have a great destiny, you know?
I always thought about that name. Was it planned out for my dad to
die that way at that age? For a while, I thought it wasn’t fair.
But then, one day I got to thinking that if I have a name too, a
Manakor name, with a destiny and everything, then that means I
might not be fated as the stupid middle child. Maybe I can be
heroic like my father, even if it means dying a heroic death.”
    It was a new experience, sitting on a stair
in the cellar while someone her age, someone like a friend, poured
out his heart. All Carine could do was watch his dopey ears stick
out when he clenched his jaw and see his pale lips tremble with
anxiety. She felt like she knew him, like she had known him a long
time, and everything that he did made her want to laugh for its
familiarity. And everything he said made her want to cry for his
heartbreak.
    On the outside, however, she sat casually on
that stair, though she thought that if he looked closely, David
might see in her eyes the admiration that felt like joy.
    Carine exhaled. “Do you want to play a card
game?”
    Prince David snorted. “Here I am, pouring out
my heart, and you want to play cards?”
    Heat rose in Carine’s cheeks. “I’m sorry,
it’s just in my family, we never talk about my sister. We just make
shoes or sing or drink tea.”
    “Or play cards,” Prince David suggested. He
didn’t ask any details about Louise, thank the flames.
    “Exactly.”
    The prince’s eyes sparkled. “All right. I
don’t know how to play anything, so you’ll have to show me. And
maybe after that, we can work on dealing with negative
emotions.”
    Crack.
    Lightning struck. Carine shrieked on her step
and huddled against the wall. David jumped up. He stared at the
open hatch at the top of the steps. The sky, which moments earlier
had been a serene blue, had turned dark. Ominous clouds gathered as
rain sprayed down.
    “What the—” David held onto the banister, and
Carine clung to the wall as the ship rolled. The crates fell,
crashing bread and onions over the floor. The water that fell
through the hatch flowed down the stairs in a river. When the ship
tossed, the water sprayed over the stairs onto the food crates.
    “Stay here,”