Excerpt: Skull Juggler: Columbarium (Book 2 in the Skull Juggler series)

I was born one hundred and fifty years ago as Prince (and later King) Christopher Henry John Mikhail Roc, crown prince and only heir to the kingdom of Roc, a vast and mostly desolate northern territory on the outskirts of the White Wood Forest. My life was nothing worth mentioning in history books. The only scandals of note I’d ever participated in were the harmless kind that only ruined tapestries and annoyed those who were too indebted to my family to retaliate. I attended lavish parties and befriended servants. I terrorized foreign princesses and stole food from the kitchens. Life was grand. Life was boring.

All that changed the day my father was murdered…

I still remember that horrible day. I had attended a party with my best friend in some foreign dignitary’s winter estate. That particular day had been bright with moonlight and blistering with cold. It had not snowed in Roc for two weeks and the night held a frosty promise for us. Richard Rannoch of the ancient and honored Rannoch family, expert troublemaker and my best friend in the world, had suggested our little outing. As I had nothing better to do and had no intention of wandering the icy hallways of my empty castle, I’d tagged along.

The Rannoch family’s history was as deeply rooted in Roc as my own family’s, so it was natural that he and I would be friends. Admittedly, he was the only friend I had of any worth in court. The rest of our ragamuffin group of acquaintances were either lower-status nobles desperate for my favor or servants who thought that slumming with the future king would be a great way to make more noteworthy connections.

We had sneaked away from our whining friends and stumbled into the kitchen while the main party continued in the ballroom. I’d sweet-talked the scullery maids into giving us beer, the cheapest that the stable boys could offer. We had fine wine at our disposal at the party, and the sweetest champagne our very wealthy host could provide… but we weren’t interested in doing what everyone else did. We wanted beer, the stuff of the ruffians who served us. We wanted to belong to another group entirely, so sick were we of the ways of our wealthy families.

We were both ridiculously drunk when my uncle found us. I’d never seen him so serious as at that time, watching Richard and I through the kitchen doorway with only the glowing stove behind us to light our faces, as we lay strewn against the wall. We’d accumulated a ring of pretty maids to listen as we told dirty jokes – Richard more than me, as I’d had little experience with women – and he was just at the best part when my uncle finally spoke. I remember laughing as he told me, very gravely, that my father had been found in the courtyard. Murdered, he added.

I thought it was a riot joke. Richard realized right away from my uncle’s expression that this was no playful jest joke. The smile slipped from his face and he put his arms around me in a bear hug. “I’m so sorry,” he mumbled, more physical with me because of the alcohol. He probably would have just stared at me with a pitying look otherwise. The hugging was worse, because I still didn’t believe him.

“Get off me,” I shouted at him, still laughing. “Father is fine, it’s all a great big sham to scold us for leaving the party early. Is Mother angry? I’m sure she is. Don’t worry, Uncle, we’ll return in a little while. Let Richard finish his joke first.”

But the maids had drifted away, their faces masked in horror, already whispering and spreading the news to the rest of the estate castle. As I watched, the foreign dignitary rushed past the doorway speaking quickly to another man I didn’t recognize, ordering for his horses to ride out of Roc immediately. If the king was dead, then that meant that no one was safe.

Richard had not removed his arms from around my neck, even after I watched our previously languid guest rush off in a flurry of coats and clinging jewels. My best friend hugged me as if he could take the grief from me by the sheer force of his arms. I still didn’t get it, even as my uncle knelt in front of me and held out his hand. For some reason, my eyes focused instead on his other hand, clamped against his hip. I couldn’t understand what I was looking at.

“It is true,” he said. “Come, your mother needs you, now more than ever.”

“Christopher, I am so sorry,” Richard said again, still hugging me.

I wasn’t smiling anymore. I was shifting restlessly, now struggling. Now I was screaming. Because I’d finally recognized what it was that my uncle held in his other hand, clasped against his hip as if it were no more important than a glove. It was my father’s battered crown, still matted with his blood with pieces of his hair tangled in the crown’s intricate metalwork.

Worse still was the figure who appeared, seemingly out of thin air, standing in the doorway, staring helplessly at me. Richard’s father, my own father’s best friend, looked as if he’d been turned to stone. Nikko Rannoch just stood there with emptiness glazing his eyes and an expression so bleak that I have never seen its equal before or since. Nikko was the smartest man I had ever met, smart enough to stay friends with my father since childhood when all of his other advisors had fallen by the wayside. Nikko, who always knew what to do in a time of crisis. Nikko who had loved my father more than anyone else ever had.

He just stood there, staring at me. There was a distinct stiffness to his body, a tension that betrayed all the emotion that he normally hid so well. I stopped screaming immediately, even though I thought I would never stop. I wanted to beg him to tell me otherwise, to swear it was all a horrible joke to teach us a lesson about shirking our duty. Nikko loved playing jokes like that, as long as we learned some lesson from it. This was a joke, wasn’t it?

“We are leaving, Richard,” was all Nikko said. The bottom dropped out of my stomach and I latched on to Richard.

“No, don’t take him away,” I whispered. “No… not him too. Please let him stay. Please. I need him right now. Don’t take him away.”

Nikko’s hands clenched at his sides and he descended on me like a wild animal. He wrenched my shoulders back and shook me hard enough that my jaw snapped together and I bit my tongue, drawing blood. I gasped and held my breath, staring at him wide eyed until he finally stopped, seemingly coming back to himself.

“Richard,” he whispered, his voice rough with restrained emotion. “We can’t stay here. It isn’t safe.”

“I’m not leaving Christopher alone,” Richard countered, again holding on to my shoulders now that his father had released me. Nikko stared at me hard, his mouth twitching uncontrollably until I realized that what I had mistaken for anger was unspeakable grief. His eyes were bright red and filled with moisture, although he refused to let a single tear fall, holding in all that emotion. When Richard refused to let go of me me, loyal even in his drunken state, Nikko just turned and walked away. He didn’t look back, not that night nor for many nights after.

That’s when I knew my father was really dead.