Balling her hands into fists, she dug her nails deeper into her palms with each step to keep herself from giving in to the pain. The cold eased the heat of the welts, but after the first soothing moments it made her huddle deep in her cloak to try and halt the shivering. Each shake of her body made her clench her teeth harder as she crossed the courtyard and entered the castle. The freckled guard followed.
Lights glowed in the halls and she willed herself to walk like the princess she was through the castle to the chapel. Inside the high arching space filled with benches and statues representing each of the seven virtues twinkled hundreds of flickering candles, symbols of the time before the virtues were the guiding principle of the kingdom.
In the front, as she knew they would be, the silhouettes of two bodies were laid on white stone benches.
“Excuse me, Your Highness.” Elder Jacobs rose from a bench in the shadows near the back of the chapel, making Carys jump at the sudden movement. “I didn’t mean to startle you. With the excitement at the gates earlier, I never got the chance to extend my sympathies for your loss.”
“I appreciate that, my lord, but I am here to grieve and ask—”
“I am also sorry I could not intervene on your behalf.” His dark skin blended into the shadows, but his eyes reflected the candlelight, causing them to appear to glow as he walked slowly toward Carys. As he moved, his long braid undulated in the shadows, making it seem almost alive. “It was a shame you had to endure more discomfort on a night filled with such sorrow. The North Tower is not a place in which a princess of the realm should ever step foot.”
“If you hadn’t noticed, Elder Jacobs,” Carys said, “I am not the fainting type. A trip to the North Tower is never pleasant, but it didn’t kill me.”
“I’m glad for that. But you should be careful, Princess Carys. Just because a moth flies close to a flame and lives doesn’t mean the next time it won’t catch fire.” He pointed a long, dark finger down at a gray moth lying on the ground. “These are dangerous times. I said as much to your brother a few minutes ago.”
“Andreus was here?”
Elder Jacobs nodded and a shimmer of relief pushed aside some of Carys’s aches. The attack had passed. Her ruse had worked.
“As was Lady Imogen. They paid their respects to your father and brother and left together not long ago.”
“I see. Now, if you don’t mind, my lord,” Carys said, trying to stay still as the aching and throbbing grew, “I would like to be alone with my father and brother so that I, too, might pay my respects.”
“Of course, Princess,” he said smoothly. Then, with a perfectly executed bow, Elder Jacobs headed for the doorway. When he reached the arching entrance, he turned and looked at her, then disappeared, his dark, thin braid slithering behind him.
For a moment, Carys stared at the entrance, wondering at the meaning twisted in between Elder Jacobs’s words. He always played the mediator—brokering compromise between the Council and the King, or the King and the High Lords of the Seven Virtuous Districts. But rarely did his mediations create anything other than disillusionment and dissent. What dissent was he trying to create now?
Without an answer to that question, Carys turned back toward the front of the chapel. She felt her heart tighten as she walked up the center aisle. Hundreds of flickering flames were arranged on and around the white stone bench her father’s body was laid on. The soft glow of candlelight illuminated her father’s face. Even in death he was handsome, with his golden hair and beard that someone had cleaned and combed so he appeared more like himself. Only now he was still. And pale. Now that the streaks of blood and dirt had been washed away, it was obvious that the man she’d always thought was undefeatable was gone.
Carys reached out to touch his cheek as she did when she was very small and still allowed to crawl onto his lap.
Ice.
And despite the new clothes they had dressed him in and the ceremonial robe draped around his shoulders, he would never be warm again. She shivered. Maybe she wouldn’t be, either. Not after today.
She heard the young guardsman shift in the back of the chapel as she walked the ten feet between where her father lay and her brother.
Micah.
The next Keeper of Virtues. Guardian of the Light. Ruler of Eden.
To her he’d always looked like a younger version of their father—without a beard. Perhaps that was why they were always at odds in recent years. Both were leaders. Neither liked giving way to anyone. Now someone had forced them both to do exactly that. The question was who? Was it really the Kingdom of Adderton or had someone else orchestrated their murders?
Carys ached to bury her head in Andreus’s shoulder and weep. For him. For her. For the pain streaking up her back and slowly eating away at her heart. Her stomach twisted. Her hands once again shook as she unfastened the deep blue tunic her brother had been dressed in. She tried not to look at his face as she worked. Pretending she didn’t care. Even though she did.
Micah never stood up for her. He often wanted her punished more harshly for her actions. He would assert that she caused embarrassment to the crown. But he was always at her door bringing her sweets or a kind word when the punishment was over.
Spreading the tunic, Carys looked at her brother’s hair-covered, muscular chest. As on her father’s body, there was only one wound. A knife had been driven into the base of his throat. A place the chain shirt he wore did not cover. Carys started to roll him over, and this time she couldn’t stop the moan of pain from escaping her lips and the tears from burning the backs of her eyes.
“Let me, Highness.”
She hadn’t heard the young guard approach and started to order him away, but she couldn’t. If she spoke, she’d cry. And she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stop.
Nodding, she allowed him to help her turn her brother’s body.
He had scars along his back from years ago. A pink, mostly healed gash decorated his shoulder. A souvenir from his efforts on the battlefield to the south, she guessed. But the knife puncture in the throat was the only recent cut. She took each of his hands in hers. Turned them over one at a time. Calluses. Nails trimmed nearly to the quick. But no cuts or scrapes.
Micah, who trained for hours every day with his guard so he would always be better and stronger than his enemies on the field, had been struck down without evidence of his having defended himself. Maybe one of them might have been taken off guard during the attack, but both her father and Micah?
It seemed impossible.
The King’s Guard had lied. Perhaps Adderton soldiers had ambushed them, but there was more to the story. And she would learn what that was.
“Roll the Prince on his back.”
The guard did as she commanded, then started to redress him.
“I can do it,” she said quietly. “I need to do it.”