My heart swelled with love for him. I blinked back tears. Why did this feel like an ending, like the glass of the window would shatter with the first volley of musket fire?
This couldn’t be the end. I wouldn’t allow it to be, not unless he truly understood my feelings for him.
A commotion rose from behind the doors to the ballroom. Boots clapped the marble and echoed louder—nearer—like the rolling of thunder. “In here!” someone shouted.
Anton cursed. “Nicolai,” he spat under his breath.
My eyes flew wide. “The count betrayed you?” I asked in disbelief. “And you knew he would.” To save his own neck, Nicolai must have revealed Anton’s part in the revolution, regardless of his word to stay true to the prince.
The muffled sound of drawn sabers split the air. An onslaught of Imperial Guard was coming.
Anton shoved me behind the curtains. “Promise you won’t make a sound.”
I stumbled into the recessed window and blinked against the harsh sunlight outside. My heart pounded. “No!” I turned and wrestled with him past the heavy cloth. “You can’t leave me like this. I won’t stand by while they take you away!”
“Listen to me!” Anton slid in past the curtains and held me still. “I have done my part. I need you free to do yours.”
“But—”
“Hide and live and reach my brother. If you care for me at all, Sonya, do as I say.” His face was stark in the light. Dark shadows plagued his eyes from fatigue, but his irises were golden, regal as a monarch’s, the king he would always be to me.
The raucous noise of the guards reached a crescendo. My throat thickened with emotion. I couldn’t draw forth any sound, so I nodded my promise, my heart ripping apart.
And then his beautiful face was gone, just as the great doors groaned on their hinges. I pressed back into the glass.
“Seize him!” someone commanded. With a start, I recognized the voice as Valko’s. His familiar aura met mine like poison.
Boots shuffled with the rattle of chains as the guards clapped the prince in irons. Anton didn’t groan or make a sound of struggle. I wanted to scream, to burst out and fight the men, even though I had no weapon. Instead, I squeezed my lips together and fought to keep my labored breathing silent.
“Take him to the dungeons.” Valko’s words were emotionless now that Anton was captured, as if arresting his own brother was nothing of importance. But I knew differently. I felt the triumphant smile in his aura. “He can make his bed on the muck of his favorite gypsy traitor.”
Chains clanked and boots clipped the marble floor as they guards went to leave, no more thunder in their movements, only the sad patter of an abating storm. I sensed their reluctance to lock away the prince of the empire alongside their resolve in their duty.
“Keep an eye out for the sovereign Auraseer,” Valko called after them.
I tensed at his words.
“She had no involvement in this!” Anton’s anger scorched my skin.
Valko ignited. His voice was no longer cool and apathetic. It flamed with rage. “Not warning me of the threat of a traitorous prince is all the involvement she needs to be sentenced to death!”
A shock of cold seized my body. Would Valko really kill me? I trembled as Anton’s chains clashed and scraped in his struggle to break free. “You bastard!” he shouted.
“No, brother,” Valko replied, his voice so arrogant I could almost see the sneer on his face. “Unfortunately for you, I didn’t die. I was never the changeling prince.”
The ruckus of jangling irons and angry curses grew dimmer as Anton was dragged away. I scarcely dared breathe. If I did, I would scream.
How could I help Anton now? How could I save him? How could I save anyone?
Valko’s energy lingered in the room. I felt the horrible weight of the sapphire around my neck. My fingers curled like frozen claws against the windowpanes. I fought the urge to rake my nails down the glass. Go away, I silently pleaded. I couldn’t face Valko now. I had no chance of persuading him when all I felt was my harrowing fury and despair.
At last, the emperor’s haughty footfall receded as he swaggered out of the room, and the latch on the door clanged shut.
All of the oxygen rushed out of my lungs. My tears fell. My body slid to the floor. I burrowed into the window, my cheek pressed against the panes. The heat of the sun melded into my bones, but brought me no warmth.
Outside, a man with a flop of dark hair and sloping shoulders exited the palace. He took the long walk from the porch to the gate in quick strides.
“Coward!” I cried in a strangled whisper, and smacked the glass with my fist. I held no empathy for him, only hatred.