I should have run instead of wasting time in Ty’s room. Foolish girl. I’d lost my chance.
I glanced at Jotun’s writhing body, watching blood pour from his mouth as he flailed, until he stopped moving forever. My sacrifice hasn’t been for nothing. I tilted my chin, strength burning within. A monster was gone from the world, and I was the one to banish him to death.
I stood and marched to meet the Druman rushing toward me.
I expected to be taken to a torture room or my cell. But my blood chilled as the Druman corralled me the rest of the way up the stairs, herding me back to the throne room.
As we exited the stairwell, the ring of Druman surrounding me parted and I came face-to-face with Lord Irrik. The air sizzled between us as he stopped directly in front of me. His eyes flashed with a molten fire I couldn’t decipher.
He pushed past me and slammed his fist into the wall. He roared as he punched the wall repeatedly, and with his final blow, he simply asked, “How?”
The ground shook with the force, but his question wasn’t for me, or the Druman, apparently. He stomped off, snarling in his guttural Drae language.
A bruising shove had me dutifully following the mass of Druman into the throne room. As soon as I crossed the threshold, I knew something was different. It took me a moment to spot it.
The massive quantities of food were gone. The tables laid bare and pushed to one side of the room, stacked one on top of another, much like Dyter had stacked the stools at The Crane’s Nest. But the difference wasn’t just the lack of false gaiety in the ambiance or lack of food on the tables. The air in the throne room was heavy with a thick expectancy, a dark anticipation, a shivering tension.
I thought I was marching to my death, and I’d been at peace. But that was shattered as I saw who stood amidst another group of armed Druman.
I’d forgotten the king’s threats until my eyes locked on the only person I had left from my former life. I stared at my friend and mentor, lips numbing.
31
Unlike Arnik, Dyter was unmarred of any signs of recent torture, though he bore plenty of scars from serving in Emperor Draedyn’s war, scars I knew from memory. Dyter’s eyes widened as he saw me between two of the Druman surrounding him. Even with my silver hair and violet eyes, and in the enemy’s navy aketon, he recognized me.
My gaze shifted from him to his companion, and my mouth dropped. It was the twenty-something blond man from The Crane’s Nest. The young man who’d paid for his soup in coin.
“Ah, you’re feeling better,” the king said with a smile.
I turned to face him but blinked as I did so. I peered at the young man and then back at the king.
Even from across the room I could see the tightness in the king’s features. “You see the family resemblance, I gather,” he said, voice cold. “It seems my son, Irtevyn, hasn’t been fighting at the frontlines of the emperor’s war like I thought but rather plotting to overthrow his father, instead.”
His son was plotting to overthrow him? But . . . that would make the young man, Cal. I gasped, and something huge clicked into place. Cal was this man’s child?
I’d come here to face the music for trying to escape and for killing Jotun, but the king hadn’t yelled at me, and I wondered if he knew.
Dyter leaned forward. “Ryn?”
His tentative question and familiar voice were a crushing weight to my chest. Be quiet, Dyter, I begged him silently. I hung my head, squeezing my eyes shut, but when Dyter said my name again, I couldn’t ignore him. Everyone had heard by now.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to him. Sorry for Mum’s death, sorry I’d been captured, sorry Arnik was dead, sorry the rebellion had failed, and sorry Dyter was about to die now, too, because he had uttered my name and confirmed to the king that we knew each other.
“I see you’re acquainted, so introductions won’t be necessary. I’m sure everyone in my entire kingdom is aware of the penalties of treason.” He scowled at his son. “There are no exceptions.”
Cal raised his chin. “I wouldn’t expect anything else of you, Father. But know that it doesn’t end with me. The people are tired of your oppressive rule. You can kill me and my first today, but another will rise up tomorrow. Your time is nearing its end, and whether I watch it here in Verald or from the stars, I will watch you fall, and I will cheer.”
As the crown prince spoke, Irdelron’s face reddened, darker and darker. “You speak of fantasy and dreams, boy, and you always have. This is reality: There is no one with the power to stop me.”
The crown prince smirked. “You’re wrong, old man. There are Drae, besides the one you’ve poisoned and corrupted, as well as Phaetyn in hiding. They’ll join together, and they’ll destroy you.”
The king laughed, a harsh bray. “You know nothing. I have the only Phaetyn, right here,” he said, pointing at me. “And we all know Drae cannot harm their own, if indeed you have more, which I doubt. Your pitiful rebellion will be gone within the week. Lord Irrik will obliterate the rest of the peasants, and that’s all you’ll be seeing in the sky. You and your pathetic, decrepit first,” he mocked.
The insult to Dyter was enough to spark my anger.
“You believe your own propaganda. You’re—”
“Enough!” King Irdelron yelled.
The king was going to kill Cal. He was going to kill Dyter. It would happen in the coming minutes. When that happened, he’d send Irrik out and obliterate Cal’s rebellion. I wasn’t under the same delusions Cal seemed to be. If he died today, there was no tomorrow for the rebellion. He was the myth, the uniting factor, and if it was not him, it wouldn’t be anyone. If Dyter died today, I would cease to exist. I saw this clearly as calm acceptance settled over me. If Cal died, the kingdom of Verald died with him—what was left of it. My breathing became shallow, and the knife strapped underneath my borrowed aketon burned.
The doors to the throne room crashed open, and Lord Irrik strode in.
“My Drae?” Irdelron snarled, but his face paled as Irrik drew closer and what he was dragging became visible.
Dressed in his black aketon, the muscles of Irrik’s bare arms were taught as he hauled Jotun’s body behind him. The dead Druman’s face was still covered in dried rivulets of blood. The red moisture was splattered on his skin. In Irrik’s other hand, he carried a round object wrapped in black fabric. As he stepped up to the foot of the king’s dais, next to me, something dripped from the bottom of the makeshift bag and puddled on the floor.
“What is this?” the king demanded.
For the first time since I’d been in the castle, the king’s voice quivered.
Irrik threw Jotun’s body, and it came to land sprawled across the bottom two steps of the raised platform. “His body was in the passageway of the interrogation deck.”