“Where are we going?”
Maris slowed. “The family wing.” He opened a set of heavy doors that led to another ornate, marbled hallway that stretched out for what seemed to be a mile at least. Each side of it was lined with doors. “This is where the governor’s wife and children stay whenever they’re in residence.”
So this was where Darling’s room had been before he killed his uncle.
As if he heard her thoughts, Maris led her down to the next to the last set of doors on the left side of the hall. She wasn’t sure what to expect as he opened the room and stood back for her to enter first.
Large and airy, it was definitely a boy’s room. Decorated in maroon, dark blue and gold—the national Caronese colors—the room held a large canopy bed with a seal on the headboard that matched the seal in Darling’s current chambers. There was an old computer on a huge desk that was littered with chemistry sets and spaceships.
The wall on her right was covered with intricate drawings and sketches pinned over each other. “Are those… chemical compounds and bombs?”
Maris laughed. “Darling was always a little strange. But yes, they are components to different devices and explosives he was working on.”
But as she looked around more, she was nonplussed by what she saw. The room was like a time capsule. Covered in dust and obvious signs of neglect, it appeared as if Darling had been ripped out of it as a boy and never allowed to return. There were even toys left scattered across the floor.
It didn’t make sense. “This was his room before Arturo died?”
Grief and sadness lined Maris’s features before he spoke. “We were at school, laughing during study hall about something innocuous. Suddenly, there was a shadow falling over us. Thinking it was a teacher there to yell at us to lower our voices, we looked up to see three Caronese guards. Without any compassion or decency, their captain glared at Darling and said coldly, ‘Your father’s been assassinated. You must come with us.’ ”
Bile rose in her throat at the cruelty. How could anyone be that cold to a child when telling him his father was dead? “Are you serious?”
He nodded. “I’ll never forget the look on his face when he heard those words. They didn’t give him even a second to recover or pack so much as a toothbrush before he was hauled back here. He was only twelve. A scared little boy who had no idea what had happened. When he tried to see his mother, she refused.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Grief does strange things to people, and everyone copes differently. I won’t pass judgment on her for it. But it devastated Darling. After the funeral, we came back here to his room. His mother wouldn’t even look at him. She retired to her chambers with Drake and Lise, and Darling wasn’t allowed near them.”
He jerked his chin toward the desk. “Darling sat there looking shell-shocked for hours. He didn’t speak. He didn’t cry. Just stared at nothing, except the floor, while I sat on the bed, waiting for him to say something. Ryn was the one who finally came to check on him. He told Darling that he couldn’t stay, but that if he needed anything at all to call him.”
Zarya tried to make sense of that. “Ryn abandoned him, too?”
“In his defense, there wasn’t much Ryn could do. Both Arturo and Natale hated him. Natale had driven him out not long before Drux died. And at the funeral, Arturo made it abundantly clear that Ryn would never be welcomed here in any capacity. But Ryn tried to keep in touch with Darling. Three days after the funeral, Drake and Lise were allowed to return to school. Arturo withdrew Darling and kept him here.”
“Why?”
“The Grand Counsel isn’t a blood position. It’s anyone the governor appoints. As the future governor, Darling could have chosen another.”
She’d never heard that before, and it didn’t make sense that Darling would live under his uncle’s vicious rule if he didn’t have to. “Why didn’t Darling choose someone else?”
“It’s not quite as simple as it sounds. First, the replacement has to agree to it and show cause as to why he would be a better counselor than the one picked by the former governor. And Darling had to be sixteen to make the declaration.”
“Was that the only way?”
Maris nodded. “It was why Arturo wanted to keep Darling close by so that he could watch him. And I’m sure it’s why he didn’t tolerate Ryn’s presence here. He knew how close Darling and Ryn were.” He motioned her to follow him again. He went down the hallway, back toward the main part of the palace.
They turned a corner into a smaller corridor that was far less ornate.
Maris stopped at the first door on the right. “Three weeks after Darling turned fifteen, this became his room.” He opened the door and stepped back for her to see it.