The spell was pulling on Maxim with every breath, every heartbeat, threads of magic drawn taut through walls and down stairs, leaching energy with every unused moment.
Soon, the king promised the spell. Soon.
He penned three letters, one to Rhy, one to Kell, and the last to Emira, all too long and far too short. Maxim had always been a man of action, not words. And time was running out.
He was just blowing on the ink when he heard the door open.
His heart quickened, hope rising as he turned, expecting to find his wife.
“My dearest …” He trailed off at the sight of the girl, fair and blond and dressed in green, a crown of silver in her hair and crimson splashed like paint across her front.
The Veskan princess smiled. She had four polished blades between her fingers, thin as needles and each dripping blood, and when she spoke, her voice was easy, bright, as if she weren’t trespassing in the royal chamber, as if there were no bodies in the hall behind her, no blood smeared on her brow.
“Your Majesty! I was hoping you’d be here.”
Maxim held his ground. “Princess, what are you—”
Before he could finish, the first blade came sailing through the air, and by the time the king had his hand up, magic rising to turn the blow, a second knife was driving down through his boot, pinning his foot to the floor.
A growl of pain escaped as Maxim attempted to pivot, even so, to avoid a third blade, only to take a fourth through the arm. This one hadn’t flown—it was still in his attacker’s hand as she drove the steel in deep above his elbow, pinning his arm back against the wall.
It had taken less than a full breath.
The Veskan princess was standing on tiptoes as if she meant to kiss him. She was so young, to seem so old.
“You don’t look well,” she said.
Maxim’s head pounded. He’d given too much of himself to the spell. Had too little strength left to summon magic for a fight. But there was still the blade sheathed at his hip. Another on his calf. His fingers twitched, but before he could grab either, one of Cora’s discarded blades sailed back into her fingers.
She brought it to rest against his throat.
Maxim’s arm and foot were going numb—not from pain alone, but something else.
“Poison,” he growled.
Her head bobbed. “It won’t kill you,” she said cheerfully. “That’s my job. But you’ve been a lovely host.”
“What have you done? You foolish girl.”
Her smile sharpened into a sneer. “This foolish girl will bring glory to her name. This foolish girl will take your palace and hand your kingdom to her own.”
She leaned in close, voice slipping from sweet to sensual. “But first, this foolish girl will cut your throat.”
Through the open door, Maxim saw the fallen bodies of his guards littering the hall, their armored arms and legs sprawled motionless across the carpet.
And then he saw the streak of dark skin, the shine of gems like tears catching the light.
“You are out of your depth, Princess,” he said as the numbness spread through his limbs and the Faroans slipped silently forward, Sol-in-Ar in the lead. “Killing a king grants you only one thing.”
“And what is that?” she whispered.
Maxim met her eyes. “A slow death.”
Cora’s blade bit in as the Faroans flooded the room.
In a flash, Sol-in-Ar had the murderous girl back against him, one arm around her throat.
She spun the needlelike knife in her hand, moved to drive the point into the Faroan’s leg, but the others were on her fast, holding her arms, forcing her to her knees before Maxim.
The king tried to speak, and found his tongue heavy in his mouth, his body fighting too many foes between the poison and the cost of spent magic.
“Find the Arnesian guards!” ordered Sol-in-Ar.
Cora fought then, viciously, violently, all the girlish humor stripped away as they divested her of blades.
Maxim finally wrenched the knife free of his arm with half-numbed fingers and unpinned his foot, blood squelching in his boot as he moved with uneven steps to the sideboard.
He found the tonics Tieren kept mixed for him, those for pain and those for sleep, and one, just one, for poison, and poured himself a glass of the rosy liquid, as if he were simply thirsty and not fighting back death.
His fingers shook but he drank deeply, and set the empty glass aside as the feeling returned in a flush of heat, bringing pain with it. A new wave of guards appeared in the doorway, all of them breathless and armed, Isra at the front.
“Your Majesty,” she said, scanning the room and paling at the sight of the slight Veskan princess pinned to the floor, the Faroan lord giving orders instead of bound to his palace wing, the discarded knives and bloody trail of steps.
Maxim forced himself to straighten. “See to your guards,” he ordered.
“Your wounds,” started Isra, but the king cut her off.
“I am not so easily dispatched.” He turned to Sol-in-Ar. It had been a near thing, and they both knew it, but the Faroan lord said nothing.
“I am in your debt,” said Maxim. “And I will repay it.” Fearing he might fall over if he lingered long, Maxim turned his attention to the Veskan girl kneeling on his floor. “You failed, little princess, and it will cost you.”
Cora’s blue eyes were bright. “Not as much as you,” she said, her mouth splitting into a cold smile. “Unlike me, my brother Col has never missed his marks.”
Maxim’s blood ran cold as he spun on Isra and the other guards. “Where is the queen?”
III
Rhy hadn’t gone looking for his mother.
He found her entirely by accident.
Before the nightmares, he had always slept late. He’d lie in bed all morning, marveling at the way his pillows felt softest after sleep, or the way light moved against the canopied ceiling. For the first twenty years of his life, Rhy’s bed had been his favorite place in the palace.
Now he couldn’t wait to be rid of it.
Every time his body sank into the cushions, he felt the darkness reaching up, folding its arm around him. Every time his mind slid toward sleep, the shadows were there to meet him.
These days Rhy rose early, desperate for the light.
It didn’t matter that he’d spent the better part of the night holding vigil in the streets, didn’t matter that his head was cloudy, his limbs stiff and sore and aching with the echo of someone else’s fight. The lack of sleep worried him less than what he found in his dreams.
The sun was just cresting the river as Rhy woke, the rest of the palace still likely folded in their troubled sleep. He could have called a servant—there were always two or three awake—but instead he dressed himself, not in the princely armor or in the formal red-and-golds, but in the soft black cut he sometimes wore within the interior rooms of the palace.
It was almost an afterthought, the sword, the weapon at odds with the rest of his attire. Maybe it was Kell’s absence. Maybe it was Tieren’s sleep. Maybe it was the way his father grew paler by the day, or maybe he’d simply grown used to wearing it. Whatever the reason, Rhy took up his royal short sword, fastened the belt around his hips.
He made his way absently to the salon, his sleep-starved mind half expecting to find the king and queen taking breakfast, but of course it was empty. From there he wandered toward the gallery, but turned back at the first sounds of voices, low and worried and wondering questions to which he didn’t have the answers.
Rhy retreated, first to the training rooms, filled with the exhausted remains of the royal guard, and then to the map room, in search of his father, who wasn’t there. Rhy went to ballroom after ballroom, looking for peace, for quiet, for a shred of normalcy, and finding silvers, nobles, priests, magicians, questions.
By the time he wandered into the Jewel, he just wanted to be alone.
Instead, Rhy Maresh found the queen.
She was standing at the center of the massive glass chamber, her head bowed as if in prayer.
“What are you doing, Mother?” The words were said softly, but his voice echoed through the hollow room.