Emira raised her head. “Listening.”
Rhy looked around, as if there might be something—or someone—he hadn’t noticed. But they were alone in the vast chamber. Beneath his feet, the floor was marked with half-finished circles, the beginnings of spells made when the palace was under attack and abandoned once Tieren’s spell had taken hold, and the ceiling rose high overhead, blossoms winding around thin crystal columns.
His mother reached out and ran her fingers along the nearest one.
“Do you remember,” she said, her voice carrying, “when you thought the spring blossoms were all edible?”
His steps sounded on the glass floor, causing the room to sing faintly as he moved toward her. “It was Kell’s fault. He’s the one who insisted they were.”
“And you believed him. You made yourself so sick.”
“I got him back, though, remember? When I challenged him to see who could eat the most summer cakes. He didn’t realize until the first bite the cooks had made them all with lime.” A soft laugh escaped at the memory of Kell resisting the urge to spit it out, and getting ill into a marble planter. “We got into a fair amount of mischief.”
“You say that as though you ever stopped.” Emira’s hand fell away from the column. “When I first came to the palace, I hated this room.” She said it absently, but Rhy knew his mother—knew that nothing she said or did was ever without meaning.
“Did you?” he prompted.
“What could be worse, I thought, than a ballroom made of glass? It was only a matter of time before it broke. And then one day, oh, I was so angry at your father—I don’t remember why—but I wanted to break something, so I came in here, to this fragile room, and pounded on the walls, the floor, the columns. I beat my hands on the crystal and the glass until my knuckles were raw. But no matter what I did, the Jewel would not break.”
“Even glass can be strong,” said Rhy, “if it is thick enough.”
A flickering smile, there and then gone, and there again, the first one real, the second set. “I raised a smart son.”
Rhy ran a hand through his hair. “You raised me, too.”
She frowned at that, the way she had at his quips so many times before. Frowned in a way that reminded him of Kell, not that he would ever say so.
“Rhy,” she said. “I never meant—”
Behind them, a man cleared his throat. Rhy turned to find Prince Col standing in the doorway, his clothing wrinkled and his hair mussed, as though he’d never been to bed.
“I hope I am not interrupting?” said the Veskan, a subtle tension in his voice that set the prince on edge.
“No,” answered the queen coolly at the same time Rhy said, “Yes.”
Col’s blue eyes flicked between them, clearly registering their discomfort, but he didn’t withdraw. Instead he stepped forward into the Jewel, letting the doors swing shut behind him.
“I was looking for my sister.”
Rhy remembered the bruises around Cora’s wrist. “She isn’t here.”
The Veskan prince gave the room a sweeping look. “So I see,” he said, ambling toward them. “Your palace really is magnificent.” He moved at a casual pace, as if admiring the room, but his eyes kept flicking back toward Rhy, toward the queen. “Every time I think I’ve seen it all, I find another room.”
A sword hung at his hip, a jeweled hilt marking the blade for show, but Rhy’s hackles still rose at the sight of it, at the prince’s carriage, his very presence. And then Emira’s attention flicked suddenly upward, as if she’d heard something Rhy couldn’t.
“Maxim.”
His father’s name was a strangled whisper on the queen’s lips, and she started toward the doors, only to come up short as Col drew his weapon free.
In that one gesture, everything about the Veskan changed. His youthful arrogance evaporated, the casual air replaced by something grim, determined. Col may have been a prince, but he held his sword with the calm control of a soldier.
“What are you doing?” demanded Rhy.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Col’s grip tightened on the blade. “I’m winning a war before it starts.”
“Lower your blade,” ordered the queen.
“Apologies, Your Highness, but I can’t.”
Rhy searched the prince’s eyes, hoping to see the shadow of corruption, to find a will twisted by the curse beyond the palace walls, and shuddered when he found them green and clear.
Whatever Col was doing, he was doing it by choice.
Somewhere beyond the doors, a shout went up, the words smothered, lost.
“For what it’s worth,” said the Veskan prince, raising his blade. “I really only came for the queen.”
His mother spread her arms, the air around her fingers shimmering with frost. “Rhy,” she said, her voice a plume of mist. “Run.”
Before the word was fully out, Col was surging forward.
The Veskan was fast, but Rhy was faster, or so it seemed as the queen’s magic weighted Col’s limbs. The icy air wasn’t enough to stop the attack, but it slowed Col long enough for Rhy to throw himself in front of his mother, the blade meant for her driving instead into his chest.
Rhy gasped at the savage pain of steel piercing skin, and for an instant he was back in his rooms, a dagger thrust between his ribs and blood pouring between his hands, the horrible sear of torn flesh quickly giving way to numbing cold. But this pain was real, was hot, was giving way to nothing.
He could feel every terrible inch of metal from the entry wound just beneath his sternum to the exit wound below his shoulder. He coughed, spitting blood onto the glass floor, and his legs threatened to fold beneath him, but he managed to stay on his feet.
His body screamed, his mind screamed, but his heart kept beating stubbornly, defiantly, around the other prince’s blade.
Rhy drew in a ragged breath, and raised his head.
“How … dare you,” he growled, mouth filling with the copper taste of blood.
The victory on Col’s face turned to shock. “Not possible,” he stammered, and then, in horror, “What are you?”
“I am—Rhy Maresh,” he answered. “Son to Maxim and Emira—brother to Kell—heir to this city—and the future king of Arnes.”
Col’s hands fell from the weapon. “But you should be dead.”
“I know,” said Rhy, dragging his own blade from its sheath and driving the steel into Col’s chest.
It was a mirror wound, but there was no spell to shield the Veskan prince. No magic to save him. No life to bind his own. The blade sank in. Rhy expected to feel guilt—or anger, or even triumph—as the blond boy collapsed, lifeless, but all he felt was relief.
Rhy dragged in another breath and wrapped his hands around the hilt of the sword still embedded in his chest. It came free, its length stained red.
He let it fall to the floor.
Only then did he hear the small gasp—a soundless cry—and feel his mother’s cold fingers tightening on his arm. He turned toward her. Saw the red stain spreading across the front of her dress where the sword had driven in. Through him. Through her. There, just above her heart. The too-small hole of a too-great wound. His mother’s eyes met his.
“Rhy,” she said, a small, disconcerted crease between her brows, the same face she’d made a hundred times whenever he and Kell got into trouble, whenever he shouted or bit his nails or did anything that wasn’t princely.
The furrow deepened, even as her eyes went glassy, one hand drifting toward the wound, and then she was falling. He caught her, stumbled as the sudden weight tore against his open, ruined chest.
“No, no, no,” he said, sinking with her to the prismed floor. No, it wasn’t fair. For once, he’d been fast enough. For once, he’d been strong enough. For once—
“Rhy,” she said again, so gently—too gently.
“No.”
Her bloody hands reached for his face, tried to cup his cheek, and missed, streaking red along his jaw.
“Rhy …”
His tears spilled over her fingers.
“No.”