The Rebel Prince (The Season Series #3)

Chapter 47

Home. I was home. And from the looks of it, they'd planned a celebration. Except all it really felt like was a defeat.

The ship creaked and groaned beneath me as it jerked and lurched as the sailors tugged the bowlines taut. I pulled my jacket closer, against the Pretanian breeze that had once been refreshing but that now felt frigid after the heat of Ardalone. Festive banners of the family crest flapped in the wind, hanging off the buildings along the road that led through the city, towards the palace. There was no crowd of onlookers, but there would be as soon as a royal carriage jangled up to greet me. It would carry back to the palace, where some ridiculous party was surely awaiting me, while all I could think about was Beatriz, in a cell, likely being tortured by that bastard Armando.

It felt surreal, seeing Highcastle again. Almost as if everything in Ardalone had been a dream. As if I'd never left in the first place. But my sun-bronzed skin and the lumpy, still-tender feel of my ruined ear were reminders that it was real. All of it had been real. I still had a battle to fight, even though I was home now, safe and sound.

Safe, while Bea was locked away in a dungeon. Sound, while that bastard Armando gave her more scars.

I ground my teeth, my knuckles white against the ship's rail. I inhaled a deep lungful of salty, briny sea breeze to anchor myself. I had to put on a brave face now. I could not appear desperate. Despite the urgency to return to Ardalone that thrummed through my veins, I had to be careful.

"You must hurry, principito," Dulciana had warned. "I will give you a month."

It was barely enough time to sail home and back, let alone muster troops.

I shoved her voice and the thought from my head with another deep breath. Calm. Rational. Logical. That is what I needed to be. Not a frenzied fool.

When the royal carriage—pristine, gilded, and drawn by a team of groomed grey horses—finally arrived, I nearly tumbled from the gangplank at the person who climbed down to open the door for me.

"Giles!" I blurted, forcing myself not to throw my arms around him.

He was here. He was safe. He was alive.

My former butler bowed stiffly. "Your Highness."

Throwing decorum to the wind, I clapped my arms around him anyway. He cleared his throat and a smile sprang to my lips. The first one since I'd left Ardalone.

"You tricky thing," I said, releasing him. "Here I was, thinking that the usurper got you, too."

Giles' lips thinned to a line. "I am not without my wiles, Your Highness." He opened the carriage door. "If you please, your family is quite eager to see you."

I half expected Anne to tumble out of the carriage, but it was empty. I eyed the hanging banners lining the streets and bit back a groan. The absence of my siblings could only mean that some massive, ostentatious return party awaited me at the palace.

"Wait," I said, seizing Giles' sleeve when he made to climb up beside the coachman. "Come sit with me. I want to know what I should brace myself for."

Giles cast a look around to the growing crowd and I tugged his sleeve again. A low, unhappy sound rumbled from his chest, but he climbed in after me and shut the carriage door.

"Your mother has planned a celebration for your return," he said, his tone as stiff as his posture as the carriage lurched into motion. "I really should not be sitting here with you, Your High—"

I sagged back against the plush carriage seat, unaccustomed to such luxury after my weeks of sleeping under the stars in Ardalone. "Giles, much as it may ruffle your sensible feathers, I royally command you to stop calling me Your Highness. And to tell me what happened."