Am I really here? he wondered to himself. After all this time, it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that this was all an elaborate dream his innermost consciousness had conjured to force him to face his greatest insecurities.

He shook his head and breathed out a laugh, mocking his own self-awareness. At times, it was a curse. Why couldn’t he have been born ignorant and oblivious? Perhaps then every second wouldn’t feel like a battle against himself.

Stop, he commanded himself. He needed to focus on what was to come, the purpose for his visit. He’d been informed that no one knew about his brother’s disappearance except for his mother the queen, her most trusted advisor, Lord Stapleton, and her uncle through marriage, one Lord Kyrin, who, he supposed, was his own great uncle, though not by blood.

If word that the Crown Prince was missing spread, it had the potential to destabilize the entire realm, which could be detrimental to the tenuous peace Finfalla and Kinkalla had clung to for the last two decades. Tomas was no fool—he knew his father was shielding him from his worsening condition—but he refused to make decisions out of fear of losing the only parent he’d ever known. No, whatever he did here in Drouin would be as an extension of his father, which meant he needed to handle things well.

He turned toward the apothecary, who happened to be standing next to him. This was unusual for the brooding man, who typically disappeared below decks shortly after breakfast. The lack of direct sunlight on his skin had rendered him so pale he looked unwell, especially when contrasted with his raven-dark hair. “You’ll wait here. If I’m required to stay the night, I’ll send for you in the morning.”

As you wish, Your Highness,” the man said, wiping his long nose with a handkerchief. It was a nervous habit of his. “Either way, I’ll have your tincture ready.”

Tomas turned away, watching the landscape skate past. Closer the kingdom of stone drew, until the oarsmen changed the nature of their shouted commands, working in unison to turn the riverboat, angling toward the space between a pair of long wooden piers, like the prongs of a meat fork. Are we about to be skewered? Tomas thought wryly, even as the boat was expertly steered into position, where ropes could be swiftly tossed to men working the docks who tied them to wooden columns.

And then, what had been a rather long and arduous six-day journey, came to an abrupt end. The gangway was lowered, snapping into metal brackets; the oarsmen, their bronzed, muscled skin sheened with sweat, filed onto either side, heads bowed deferentially; the boat’s captain, a rough-edged man who seemed to regard Tomas with a heavy dose of curiosity, waved him forward. “After you, Your Highness,” he said.

“Thank you, Captain,” he said. “You’ll remain at port.”