“Because I’m not going,” Josef said. “I made a promise to my mother, and I mean to keep it.”
“How novel of you,” Duke Finley said, grabbing his drink again. He downed the rest of the glass in one swallow, keeping his eyes on Josef the whole time. “Tell me, Thereson,” he said when he’d finished. “Are you trying to be as difficult as possible, or it is your natural state?”
“What do you care, anyway?” Josef yelled. “You just said you’re not worried about the succession. Shouldn’t you be off giving orders and being kingly? Why are you wasting time with me?”
“Because you are in my way,” Finley yelled back, slamming his glass on the stone so hard it cracked. “You are a millstone around this country’s neck, Josef Liechten. You always were, what with your moods and your stubbornness. But just when the people were learning to love you for your mother’s sake, you run away to become a traveling swordsman and a thief.” The duke let go of his cracked glass with a scowl. “We all breathed a sigh of relief when you left. The selfish boy was gone, and good riddance. But your selfishness knows no end, does it? For here you are again, back to weigh down your country one last time at the hour of her greatest need.”
Josef took a deep, shaking breath. “You think I don’t know that I let this country down?” he said. “No one was more aware of how great a failure I was than myself.”
“Good,” the duke said. “So prove it. Leave. Your presence in Osera is a disruption. The people are confused. They fear that this wandering swordsman, this no-account murderer who abandoned them has returned to be king. This fear causes division and distraction at the time when we must be the most focused and united. If you love your mother, Thereson, if you want to preserve the country she fought so hard for all her life, then do us all a favor and remove yourself from it. I swear I will take good care of our people. I will defeat the Empress and lead Osera into an even brighter age of wealth and prosperity. I will be the king you never could be, and I will even make sure your legacy of failure is forgotten. All you have to do is go.”
Finley reached into his pocket and pulled out a heavy bag. He swung his arm, tossing the bag on the floor between them. It landed with a bright, metal chink, spilling open in a shower of gold coins.
“That’s a hundred gold standards,” the duke said. “There’s also a pledge that can be used in Zarin for five hundred more. If you ever loved Osera, take it and leave before you do irreparable harm.”
Josef stared at the bag of coins, and then, without a word, he swung his boot back and kicked it as hard as he could. The kick sent the gold flying, the coins tinkling like golden bells as they scattered across the heavy wooden planks.
The duke stepped back in surprise as coins bounced across his boots. When he raised his head, his face was pale with rage. “That was very foolish.”
“Then you should have expected it,” Josef said. “Given your opinion of me.”
Finley began to shake, but before he could open his mouth, Josef moved in. He closed the distance between them in one long step, pointing his finger right in the duke’s face.
“There’s only one understanding we need between us, cousin,” he whispered, his voice sharp as his blades. “Whether my mother is alive to see it or not, I will honor her wish and continue the blood of our house. That wish is the only thing keeping me in this country, and the moment it is fulfilled, I will vanish so quickly not even you will be able to find fault. But until that time, nothing, not gold, not threats, not even poison in the night, nothing is going to make me abandon the one duty my mother has ever asked of me that I could actually deliver. Everything else, the throne, the people, I gladly leave to you, but I will not betray my promise now that I’ve made it, and I’m not going anywhere.”
With a final glare, Josef turned on his heel and walked toward the door. Behind him, he heard the duke’s boots scrape as the old man recovered.
“Thereson!”
Josef stopped and looked over his shoulder. The duke had pulled himself up to his full height, his face scarlet with barely leashed fury. “I have given you every chance to do right by your country, but if you will not leave on your own, I will not hesitate to do what is best for Osera.”
Josef’s hands went back to rest on the swords at his hip. “You’re welcome to try, old man.” With that, he flashed the duke a long, bloodthirsty smile and walked out the door.
The servant was waiting just outside. Josef pushed past him, sweeping down the stairs. When he reached the bottom of the tower, he kept going, walking past the waiting carriage to the rutted road leading back to the city. The moment he hit the dirt, he started jogging, his legs eating the distance in long steps as he pushed up the slope into the poor, crater-pocked neighborhoods covering Osera’s eastern side. People came out to gawk at him as he passed, the tall man with his fine clothes hidden under blades. Josef ignored the stares and kept running, his hands clenched in white-knuckled fists.