Draka knew Christophe’s daughter was following him. As he meandered his way across the small city, stopping to indulge vendors and passing flower girls, he would catch short glimpses of her. Her curly golden hair, even when hidden by a coif, was like a beacon among the crowds. He wanted to see how far she and her little servant girl would follow him.

  At first, it was like a game. He would turn a corner and linger at a stand, nodding away one sided conversations, and she would follow shortly after, keeping her distance mostly. But every now and then she would come close enough that her perfume would mix with the dank smells of the streets in a sickening blend of sweetness and sour rot. When she did, he would meander on.

  The old and new blended together seamlessly in this city. The cement of the world before the Great Fires were sealed with bricks. Thatched roofing repaired places where the stone had fallen away. Spacious buildings became halls of vendors and small shops. There were even small cottages behind and between the shops within these buildings. An entire tribe within the city of people living in shelters within shelters within shelters. It wasn’t so different from other cities he had been through. Old Rome, The City, and Heblem, to name a few, were similar. Though they differed in very important ways. Those three had survived the Great Fires nearly completely intact. This place, he could see, did not. If it had, Talkro would be deep within the blanket of shops and buildings that spanned from horizon to horizon, not separated by oceans of trees.

  Another difference was stark. In those cities, the poor were cared for. Here, he could see the children thin with bloated bellies of starvation. Ten year olds, and even younger, were sole caretakers of the smaller ones, and their scrawniness told of why that should never be. Their faces were crusted with years of dirt. The vendors were just as thin, skeletons with skin hanging from their bones.

  That was when it struck him hard as a fist to the face; none of the vendors were selling food. They were all starving. His hand went to his pouch at the sight of a group of children studying him. Girls and boys together, standing straight and stiff to protect the smaller ones behind them.

  He pinched his mouth to one side in thought at the sight. Gold caught the corner of his eye and he turned to see Lisbeth and her servant girl trying to sink back from where he had wandered. By the time he looked again, the children were gone, leaving an empty cement platform dripping with corrosion.

  Lisbeth stiffened her back when she saw him walking toward her. Her redheaded servant girl slid her hand from in the wide sleeve of the opposite arm. The glint of a knife made Draka shoot her a tilted glare. The girl fluttered her eyes to behind him. Half a turn and he already knew. Three thugs, skeletons in clothes that draped from them like curtains.

  “My Prince,” Lisbeth bowed in greeting.

  Draka wasn’t looking at her. He was eyeing the thugs who were sinking back into the crowds. She moved herself into his view with a wanton grin unabashedly aimed at him. He frowned with a scoff at her, mimicking Vigora’s expression of disdain.

  “I was so embarrassed to have my personal guard leave me and Nina,” she indicated the servant girl who had yet to put the knife away though kept it hidden from most eyes in her cloak, “so helpless. I know my father will deal with him. But I would be honored if I could accompany you for our safety. And perhaps even yours.”

  Draka rolled his eyes.

  Fine, he indicated with a flat hand brushing them nearer.

  He continued toward the river, along one of the many canals through the city, with them in tow. He tried not to listen to their whispering.

  Masons and engineers were hard at work in every angle as they approached the river and the bridge across it to Kehl. Walls with towers reaching high into the sky with turrets of ballistae and a few catapults, were built into the surf of the river. If an army were to attack from across the river, they would have no choice but to brave the bridge. And that, too, was heavily fortified with portcullis gates between brick and mortar towers. A hundred men could hold against an invader from Kehl almost indefinitely if its people wouldn’t starve to death in a matter of days.

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  Where is the food? Where are the fruits, the harvests, the meat? Draka eyed the artisans. Not a one looked hungry and, the closer he came to the bridge they were working to fortify, neither were their families.

  “He seems tall enough,” Lisbeth was whispering behind him, as if answering a question. “And he’s handsome enough that I wouldn’t notice if he wasn’t.”

  Nina, her servant girl, said something that made Lisbeth giggle. “I’ll ask.” She tapped Draka’s shoulder.

  He turned toward her but his eyes were still fixed on the people who were gluttonous in comparison to their own neighbors no more than a few doors away.

  “Do you like roses or apple blossoms, your majesty?” She looked up to him with that same wanton grin. “We are wondering so that we may know your grace better.”

  Draka rolled his eyes and went around her, back toward the palace. Back toward the man who was allowing this travesty in his own city. With every bulbed child and skeletons watching him that he passed only fed his fury.

  “I told you that was a dumb question. He doesn’t seem to care that we are…”

  The children from the platform blocked his way. Little eyes looked up to him. Hands cupped in front of them. Behind them were mothers with linens covering their heads. Some had curls of hair framing their faces. Green eyes, dark curls, a hundred Mauds staring at him, silently begging him for help.

  Their thin hands and overlong fingers reached for him. Lisbeth and Nina were gripping Draka’s shirt for comfort. They were surrounded by people now. All were gathering to see their prince walking among them. The green eyes became pale blues and the dark curls, as if sun light had fallen over them, became blonde as they reached for him. The Mauds became Auries in his eyes.

  Draka didn’t hesitate. He tugged from Lisbeth and Nina. The woman reaching for him had her hands clasped in his. She gasped to match Lisbeth’s and Nina’s at the sight. His knee fell to the muck of the street, to beside the tiny bare feet and toes of her children. He didn’t let go of her hand, though he loosened his hold so that she could pull from it if she wanted to, this starved, unclean, and hopeless Aurie standing before him. If he could, he would apologize to each of them.

  ‘God has not abandoned you,’ he wanted to say to them. ‘I was sent to help and I will.’

  “What are you doing? They’ll kill us. Nina, Nina, what do we do?”

  “Your Grace? Prince Dietrich? Please. Please do something.”

  Draka waited, his head bowed. His eyes shut tight. He wasn’t able to reassure the women, their children, wasn’t able to do anything but kneel before them. And, slowly, he pulled his shirt off.

  “Wha—what are you doing?” Lisbeth stammered.

  Draka lay the shirt on the ground, in the muck, in the mud. He ignored whatever Lisbeth said next as he took the woman’s hand, took Aurie’s hand, as he would a Lady or a Queen. He bade her step toward him with an upward glance, never lifting his knee.

  “What is he doing?” Lisbeth gasped toward Nina.

  The woman’s bare feet stepped out of the muck and onto his cotton shirt. Mud and refuse dripped from her ankles onto those tiny threads, staining them. And he looked up to her, silently begging, pleading with her to forgive him for not knowing sooner.

  He heard Nina say as the woman touched her hand to his hair, “It’ll take more than a pretty face and jewelry to catch this one. He’s not your prince.”

  Draka lifted himself from kneeling and turned his attention toward the palace walls in the distance. Without reaching for the shirt the woman and her children were stepping on, he went.

  “He’s mine,” Nina finished with a wide, proud smile.