Shadow War - Deborah Chester [82]
“Wait!” Caelan said in bewilderment. “What twisting of truth is this? I didn’t attack him.”
“Didn’t you?” Agel said, his gaze never wavering. “Didn’t he reprimand you, and didn’t you turn on him violently? Your temper has always been unreliable. And now you are afraid, too afraid to confess what you have done.”
Caelan was horrified. He realized immediately what the implications would be if Agel spread this lie. “You can’t do this,” he said, his voice choked. “You mustn’t.”
“Then cease this stupid insistence that the prince is a traitor,” Agel said.
Caelan stared at him, his mind whirling. He felt stunned with disgust at what his cousin was attempting to do.
“Who has set you to do this?” he asked finally. He was shaking inside, from rage and fear both. He wanted to throttle Agel, but he dared not move until he had answers. “Who?”
Agel would not meet his gaze. “Our purpose is to save this man. Tell me what you can.”
“Why should I?”
Agel looked suddenly fierce. “I have worked long and hard to secure my appointment to the imperial court. I won’t let you jeopardize that.”
“Tirhin is a traitor,” Caelan said in a hard voice. “You cannot coerce me into saying otherwise. My loyalty to him has ended. Don’t serve him, Agel. He is not worth your concern.”
“That is not for you to say!” Agel said sharply. “You are not this man’s judge.”
Anger leaped in Caelan, but he crossed his arms over his chest and said, “If his mind has gone, there is no reclaiming it.”
“I did not say his mind is gone. But he is far away, deeply severed.”
“That is justice,” Caelan said.
Agel’s eyes grew even colder. “And I have said you are not his judge! This man is a prince, and you are a slave. You are dust beneath his feet, unworthy in rank even to lick them.”
Caelan snorted. “I do not need a lecture about rank and standing. I have been taught my place at the end of a whip. But I am well born, and there is nothing in my lineage to make me ashamed. Never will I forget that.”
“If you are a slave, it is because you threw away all the advantages you were born to. You wasted everything. You deserve to be here, abased and wearing a chain of possession.”
Caelan’s fists clenched. He wanted to choked those pompous, lying words from his cousin. He wanted to hit Agel, to hurt him. He wished with all his heart to see Agel facing a Thyzarene attack, with the dragons screaming and belching fire, and the laughing riders spearing their victims. Oh, to see Agel in shackles, naked and covered with welts from a scourging, lying in filthy straw and grateful for a crust of molded bread.
All Agel knew about slavery was what he saw in Imperial most fashionable circles—the sleek, pampered house slaves, the groundskeeping workers, the champion gladiators who wore fine clothing and had servants of their own. He would never understand the debasement and degradation. He would never know the shame or the mental torment.
Agel already lived in a cage, one of his own making. His bars were prejudice and narrow thinking. How could he understand anything, much less the desperate need to be free? How could he understand honor, when he had thrown his own away? How far had the cruel elders at Rieschelhold twisted his thinking?
Caelan’s anger faded to pity. His fists uncurled, and he drew in a deep, ragged breath. Agel was not worth his hatred. Agel was not worth anything.
He turned in silence to walk out.
“You can’t go,” Agel said to his back.
Caelan kept walking.
“You can’t! I will say that you attacked the prince and injured him. I will accuse you, and you will go to the dungeons a condemned man.”
Caelan drew in a breath. He felt cold with contempt.
Turning around, he sent Agel a steely glare, but it was met by the ice of Agel’s gaze.
“You don’t want to die, do you?” Agel asked him. “You still care about your own life.