The footsteps drew closer, and Kell looked up, expecting the king, or Rhy. But instead Kell beheld the queen.
Emira stood on the opposite side of the bars, resplendent in her royal red and gold, her face a careful mask. If she was glad to see him caged—or saddened at all by the sight—it didn’t show. He tried to meet her eyes, but they escaped to the wall behind his head.
“Do you have everything you need?” she asked, as if he were a guest in a plush palace wing, and not a cell. A laugh tried to claw its way up Kell’s throat. He swallowed it and said nothing.
Emira brought a hand to the bars, as if testing their strength. “It shouldn’t have come to this.”
She turned to go, but Kell sat forward. “Do you hate me, my queen?”
“Kell,” she said softly, “how could I?” Something in him softened. Her dark eyes finally found his. And then she said, “You gave me back my son.”
The words cut. There had been a time when she insisted that she had two sons, not one. If he had not lost all her love, he had lost that.
“Did you ever know her?” asked Kell.
“Who?” asked the queen.
“My real mother.”
Emira’s features tightened. Her lips pursed.
A door crashed open overhead.
“Where is he?” Rhy came storming down the stairs.
Kell could hear him coming a mile away, could feel the prince’s anger twining through his own, molten hot where Kell’s ran cold. Rhy reached the prison, took one look at Kell behind the cell bars, and blanched.
“Let him out now,” demanded the prince.
The guards bowed their heads, but held their places, gauntleted hands at their sides.
“Rhy,” started Emira, reaching for her son’s arm.
“Get off me, Mother,” he snapped, turning his back on her. “If you won’t let him out,” he told the guards, “then I order you to let me in.”
Still they did not move.
“What are the charges?” he snarled.
“Treason,” said Emira, at the same time the guard answered, “Disobeying the king.”
“I disobey the king all the time,” said Rhy. “You haven’t arrested me.” He offered up his hands. Kell watched them bicker, focusing on the cold, letting it spread like frost, overtaking everything. He was so tired of caring.
“This will not stand.” Rhy gripped the bar, exposing his gold sleeve. Blood had soaked through, dotting the fabric where he’d carved the word.
Emira paled. “Rhy, you’re hurt!” Her eyes immediately went to Kell, so full of accusation. “What—”
More boots sounded on the stairs and a moment later the king was there, his frame filling the doorway. Maxim took one look at his wife and son, and said, “Get out.”
“How could you do this?” demanded Rhy.
“He broke the law,” said the queen.
“He is my brother.”
“He is not—”
“Go,” bellowed the king. The queen fell silent, and Rhy’s hands slumped back to his side as he looked to Kell, who nodded grimly. “Go.”
Rhy shook his head and went, Emira a silent specter in his wake, and Kell was left to face the king alone.
*
The prince stormed past Lila in a blur.
A few seconds later she heard a crash, and she turned to see Rhy gripping the nearest sideboard, a shattered vase at his feet. Water wicked into the rug and spread across the stone floor, flowers strewn amid the broken glass. Rhy’s crown was gone, his curls wild. His shoulders were shaking with anger, and his knuckles were white on the shelf.
Lila knew she should probably go, slip away before Rhy noticed her, but her feet were already carrying her toward the prince. She stepped over the mess of petals, the shards of glass.
“What did that vase ever do to you?” she asked, tipping her shoulder against the wall.
Rhy looked up, his amber eyes rimmed with red.
“An innocent bystander, I’m afraid,” he said. The words came out hollow, humorless.
He ducked his head and let out a shuddering sigh. Lila hesitated. She knew she should probably bow, kiss his hand, or swoon—at the very least explain what she was doing there, in the private palace halls, as close to the prison as anyone would let her—but instead she flicked her fingers, producing a small blade. “Who do I need to kill?”
Rhy let out a stifled sound, half sob, half laugh, and sank onto his haunches, still gripping the wooden edge of the table. Lila crouched beside him, then shifted gingerly and put her back to the sideboard. She stretched out her legs, scuffed black boots sinking into the plush carpet.
A moment later, Rhy slumped onto the carpet beside her. Dried blood stained his sleeve, but he folded his forearm against his stomach. He obviously didn’t want to talk about it, so she didn’t ask. There were more pressing questions.
“Did your father really arrest Kell?”
Rhy swallowed. Nodded.
“Christ,” she muttered. “What now?”
“The king will let him go, when his temper cools.”
“And then?”
Rhy shook his head. “I honestly don’t know.”