Title: The Spy

Series: Princes of Toval, Book Three

Author: Mell Eight

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: 06/10/2025

Heat Level: 1 - No Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 57800

Genre: Historical fantasy, adventure, baking, magic, missing person, MM Romance, politics, royalty, spies

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Description

After spending two years away at culinary school, learning the arts of baking and magic, all Karl wants to do after graduation is return home to the kitchen where he grew up. However, when Karl's adoptive uncle asks him to do a little favor for him along his journey, of course Karl says yes. He needs to find a missing person, one who may have been captured somewhere in Yaroi, a neighboring country to Karl’s home in Toval.

Finding the missing person is hard enough. Add in each of their secretive pasts, and the implications and dangers inherent with being a Prince of Toval, and a simple rescue turns into a deadly adventure. Especially once Karl learns just why Ama was arrested in the first place. Karl’s chances of returning home to use his newly honed baking skills dwindle as escaping the situation with their heads still attached is proving to be almost impossible.

Excerpt

The Spy

Prologue

Ama knew how he had gotten into this situation. The Yarokai had excellent noses, so sniffing him out, tracking him down, and capturing him had been far easier than in most of the places Ama went to sneak around. Even his magic hadn’t been enough to prevent his capture, warning him too late that he should have taken his chances heading for the border rather than holing up and trying to hide.

What Ama didn’t know was how he was going to get out of this with his head still attached to the rest of his body. The Yarokai were, in general, a suspicious bunch, insular, and parochial. Any strangers in the cities within the country of Yaroi received extra scrutiny. Tracking them all had to be difficult, since the majority of Yaroi’s cities were coastal trade cities along the Eiroi Strait with merchants, sailors, and travelers from other countries coming and going constantly. They were the main entry port to the rest of the continent for land-based travel too, so Yaroi always had caravans of foreigners crossing through.

Ama had planned to blend in. He arrived at Yaroi’s capital city of Yari with a merchant caravan, acting as a guard to deter thieves, and then spent plenty of time each day visibly working to negotiate a contract to leave Yaroi with a different caravan. Only in the quiet hours around noon, when any good Yarokian was meditating and business was never conducted, or in the dark of night, had Ama tried sneaking around.

He had never failed so miserably.

Sensory deprivation was the worst sort of punishment for a Yarokai, so Ama’s cell didn’t have any windows to allow light or air in. The door was thick wood with only a small flap at the bottom to push meals through. While depriving sight, sound, and smell might be particularly terrible for the Yarokai, it wasn’t exactly a walk in the park for Ama either, especially since he was basically convicted before they could put him on stage for a sham trial.

At least Ama would go to his execution knowing his last mission had been successful. Queen Trina would be relieved to know that much. Aunt Millie would be sad to know he was gone, although given her abilities, she probably already knew he was in trouble. She was too far away to help, though, so Ama wasn’t counting on that. Aunt Millie knew better too. In her four years since taking the throne in Namin, she had become a good and trustworthy ruler, and Namin was beginning to return to prosperity. She wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that, including engaging with Yaroi on his behalf, particularly after what he had just done. Even if Yaroi didn’t use military assets to attack Namin, they controlled the trade from the Eiroi Strait. If they leveled extra tariffs on Namese goods or simply refused to allow Namese goods to be traded through Yaroi ports, Namin’s economy would backslide. No, Ama was definitely on his own there.

At least Ama had visited home recently, to see all his aunts, uncles, and cousins, and had visited Namin too. Seeing Aunt Millie was always fun. She had been too busy at the time to really talk though. The last time Ama had actually sat down with her alone for more than a hurried lunch, before she went on to her next meeting and Ama returned to work, had been four years ago, right after her coronation. Ama had hoped her words at the time meant he had a happy future in front of him, but now he knew better. She had meant he shouldn’t worry about his future because he would be executed before he had a chance to actually achieve his dreams.

“If you want my advice, I think you should continue adventuring on Prince Braxton’s behalf. Have some fun for a few more years, and maybe someday you’ll find whatever it is you’re actually searching for.”

Even Toval, who had assigned him this delicate mission, wouldn’t be able to save him. They couldn’t admit they had sent him to Yaroi, that they were involved at all, nor that they knew Ama even existed—all for the same reasons Namin wouldn’t dare help Ama. No, Ama had to take complete responsibility for this fiasco. That was the only way to save Toval and Namin, as well as to ensure the last parts of this mission were successful.

Ama shifted on the hard stone bench, the only furniture in his cell, and leaned against the rock wall, attempting to get as comfortable as possible. He tried to focus on happier memories as he waited to die.

The first time he had seen Prince Braxton, looking so strong and powerful on a horse as he rode through Ama’s home village. Ama making the decision to help Prince Braxton any way he could and going about gathering information so he could convince Braxton to hire him. The second time he had seen Braxton, he had snuck into Braxton’s camp and startled him. Once Braxton calmed down, Ama had managed to convince Braxton Ama was only there to share information. That memory made him smile.

Another of his favorite memories was more recent. Namin’s aggressions against Toval had grown too much, so Toval had decided to intervene by sending troops to support a coup. Braxton had asked if Ama might be able to find someone suitable to sit on the Namin throne after they removed the king of the time, which meant finding someone capable of wielding Namin’s royal magic. Ama had traveled only a few hours before finding Aunt Millie, who had chosen to come to him, to support Ama in Ama’s quest to help Braxton in any way the Tovalians needed. Now Aunt Millie was Queen Carmillian of Namin.

Ama couldn’t say how much time passed as he sat in the tiny prison cell, inwardly focused on his memories —a couple days, at least, but he couldn’t be sure. Food came, but not at regular intervals, so Ama couldn’t use that to gauge time. After what felt like a very, very long time, he finally heard the scrape as the lock was turned. The door opened with a slow groan, the light beyond almost blinding Ama. He blinked, trying to clear the spots from his vision, and a grinning guard eventually came into view. A pair of manacles in his hands were held out in Ama’s direction.

“Your punishment has been decided,” the guard stated as Ama stood and walked over to the door, arms outheld for the guard to place the manacles around Ama’s wrists. He didn’t say anything more, instead, shoving Ama forward so he stood in the middle of a circle of guards. They walked for a while, the floor sloping slowly upward, only the torches set into the walls at intervals supplying any light. The group paused when they reached a door, then waited for the guard in front to unlock it and pull the door open. He stepped aside and waved for Ama to go through first.

The guards and the excited crowd surrounding the perimeter of the stone-flagged amphitheater just outside the door let Ama get a good look at his punishment for a few long moments. Eager anticipation emanated from the crowd as they let him take it all in. Ama swallowed hard, but his resolve was firm. He would complete his mission no matter what they did to him.

“Anytime you want to tell us everything, this will stop,” the guard growled in Ama’s ear.

“There’s nothing to tell. I didn’t do anything wrong,” Ama replied. He tried to sound unconcerned, but his throat was dry and stomach clenched. He had hoped for a quick hanging or beheading, not a slow death like this, but either way, he would endure–for the sake of everyone he had to protect.

He had to.

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Meet the Author

When Mell Eight was in high school, she discovered dragons. Beautiful, wondrous creatures that took her on epic adventures both to faraway lands and on journeys of the heart. Mell wanted to create dragons of her own, so she put pen to paper. Mell Eight is now known for her own soaring dragons, as well as for other wonderful characters dancing across the pages of her books. While she mostly writes paranormal or fantasy stories, she has been seen exploring the real world once or twice.