“Yes.”
Sage didn’t know how to react, but Clare looked horrified. The queen might think it was necessary to pry into the king’s secrets, and if caught she would likely be pardoned, but Sage and Clare had no such guarantee. “Your Majesty, with so many others excluded, the secret must be dangerous,” Sage said. As would be pursuing it, she silently added.
“You have hit on the reason why I must know what is going on, Sage,” Orianna said, drawing her mouth into a tight line. She suddenly looked much older than her thirty-five years. “When this new unit he’s assembling marches, Nicholas is going with them.”
Prince Nicholas was fourteen and trained with the palace guards as a squire, rather than with the regular army as his older half brothers had. As a consequence, he was far less skilled than they’d been at that age. He was also behind his peers academically, though Sage suspected he might be like Princess Cara, for whom learning was difficult. Numbers and letters seemed to change their order as she tried to read them. Sage rarely dealt with the prince and so wasn’t able to prove it, though, and if he did have the same problem, he hid it under a haughty attitude. In any case, it sounded like the king wanted him to branch out.
“That may only prove this is not dangerous,” Clare pointed out. “If he’s willing to send his own son along.”
Orianna rolled her eyes in the way she regularly scolded Rose for doing. “When has Raymond been known to shield his own sons from danger? Robert and Ash have always served on the front lines.”
“That’s not true,” Sage couldn’t help saying. Clare looked shocked at her bold correction, and Sage blushed a little. Her Majesty had always encouraged frankness, but even that might have crossed a line. “Robert was moved away from Tasmet last year.”
“Because he is crown prince,” replied the queen. “He is of age and becomes more valuable every day, both in what he handles and in his closeness to taking the throne himself. Nicholas may be second in line, but to my husband he’s always a third son.” Orianna shook her head. “But he’s the only one I have.”
Sage still felt the queen was overreacting. “Majesty, if Captain Quinn is indeed going along on this mission, I assure you there is no one who can better protect him.”
“Maybe so, but that doesn’t change that I’m being kept in the dark.” Orianna’s pale hand closed into a fist. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be lied to by the man you love, Sage? To not be trusted to know the truth?”
Sage flinched. She’d never told the queen how Alex had lied about who he was—and more—to protect both her and Prince Robert. He’d been honest as soon as it was safe, and he’d promised to never deceive her again. It was different.
Wasn’t it?
Her eyes drifted to Clare, who had held her while she’d cried, then offered to skin Alex alive but settled for silently threatening him instead. Clare shook her head ever so slightly, as if to say there was no comparison.
“I’m not asking you to do anything illegal or deceptive,” Orianna said. “I’m only asking you to pay attention, ask questions, and tell me what you learn. Don’t you want to know what’s going on, too?”
Sage suddenly didn’t just want to know.
She needed to know.
9
ALEX LOOKED OUT over the columns of soldiers. He’d brought only one hundred men with him, but as he’d led the morning’s exercises, more had trickled in to join them. By the time they’d finished, the ranks had swelled to twice what they’d started with. He glanced up to the observation platform, where a lone man stood watching. Alex knew him by his posture alone.
Colonel Traysden wasn’t just the minister of intelligence and one of the king’s closest advisers, he commanded the Norsari. Or rather, he used to. The battalion had been disbanded before Alex was born. Few outside the army had given them a thought in over a dozen years, but the colonel had been a friend of his father’s, and Alex had grown up hearing stories about Demora’s elite fighting unit. The word Norsari came from old Aristelan norsar, which referred to a bird of prey so swift and stealthy most people had never seen one. Many believed they were only a myth. If Traysden was watching the new recruits—all of whom had been handpicked by their commanders—it wasn’t hard to guess why.
The Norsari were coming back, and Alex was to be a part of it.
He was very thorough in cleaning up, trying to fill some of the time before his meeting with the king. When the hour finally came, Alex forced himself to walk to the main hall outside the council chamber with measured paces. Lieutenants Casseck and Gramwell flanked him on both sides. They reached the double doors to the chamber, and the pair dropped back to enter the room a step behind him, though the doorway was wide enough to accommodate all of them at once. As with Ash, their deference bothered him, but it was his friends’ way of showing respect for his rank around others.
Another lieutenant paced behind the chairs on one side of the long table. Alex recognized him from morning drills. The man had done very well for all his slighter stature. Alex didn’t know his name, so he walked up and extended his hand in introduction. “Captain Alex Quinn.”
The lieutenant’s blue eyes widened in recognition as Alex approached, and he started to salute, then realized he shouldn’t in this situation. Instead he seized Alex’s hand like a drowning man. “Lieutenant Ben N-Nadira,” he stammered. “It’s an honor to meet you, sir.”
Alex smiled tightly. It felt good when Sage called him a national hero, but facing others who believed it was awkward. After a few seconds, he extracted his hand from Nadira’s grip and stepped aside so his friends could introduce themselves.
Cass’s blond head towered over Nadira by nearly a foot. “Lieutenant Casseck. Everyone calls me Cass.”
“Lieutenant Lucas Gramwell,” said Gram, shaking Nadira’s hand. “Luke or Gram is fine.”
Two more men wearing silver lieutenant bars entered the room. One looked about the same age as Alex, but the other was older by several years.
“Lieutenant Sorrel Hatfield,” the younger man said with a nod, looking Alex straight in the eye, as if daring him to comment on the illegitimacy his botanical name declared. Alex didn’t rise to the bait, though he made a mental note that this man might feel the need to prove himself more than others. The lieutenant had hair that matched Gram’s ruddy brown shade, but otherwise the two could not be more dissimilar—Hatfield was short and stocky with green eyes, and his skin was more freckled than any Alex had ever seen.
The older lieutenant gruffly introduced himself as Zach Tanner, and Alex instantly liked him. With a background as poor as a tanner, he must have had to fight his way into an officer’s commission, perhaps—judging from his scarred face—earning it on the battlefield. Tanner and Hatfield had a rapport with each other, a kinship of experience, and there was no question in Alex’s mind that they’d both earned their rank. Ironically, his own famous name meant he’d always have to prove his.
Once introductions were finished, Alex moved to stand by a chair near the end of the rectangular table, and the others followed his lead. Normally the table was long enough to seat all twenty members of the king’s council, but several leaves had been removed to size it down for ten, making the room feel even larger. After a minute, the herald announced the king’s arrival.