“Dreus, even if we knew for sure that the seers’ predictions were real, it’s impossible to know what the words mean. Remember when our tutor made us study King Perin. His seer told him water would flow across Eden and wash away that which didn’t adhere to the seven virtues. He ordered all the men who worked in the fields to stop tending crops and to build ships so everyone in the castle would be able to find safety from the flood the seer predicted.
“Only it wasn’t a flood.” It was an earthquake that pulled apart the earth all the way to the Fire Sea. Water from the sea rushed into the void, sweeping away anything that had fallen into the crack, and people for a hundred miles around Eden suffered from starvation because men had been building ships instead of tending the land.
“And who knows if that really was what the seer predicted,” his sister said, echoing what she’d often argued with their tutor. “You’ve said it yourself. People want to believe life isn’t random. They feel safer if the seers have the power to see the future and call the winds. So they look at things that happen and find a way to fit those events around the words.”
“Except that if I have an attack, we know what will happen. It’s not magic, it’s logic.”
“Then we will deal with it,” his sister snapped, clasping and unclasping her hands in front of her. “No matter what happens, this isn’t going to be easy. I never once in my life thought I would sit upon the throne in the Hall of Virtues. I think your heart is stronger than you know. I think you would make a great king. But I will not ask you to do something that could cause you harm.”
“Do you want it?” he asked. “Do you want to sit on the throne?”
Carys hesitated. Not long. Just for an instant before she answered. But Andreus heard the pause before she said, “I want us to survive.”
So did he.
Andreus took his sister’s hand and held it tight.
“Keep your remedy with you always, Andreus. And be careful. The Trials aren’t the only thing working against us. We don’t know who was behind Father’s and Micah’s deaths or who killed the men in the tower or why the wind power line was sabotaged. We can’t trust anyone but each other.”
So much happening. So many threats.
“From the moment we leave this room, we must conduct ourselves as combatants. But if I need you, I’ll leave a note beneath your step.”
His step. The loose one he never failed to trip on as a kid when he went to the battlements. “I’m going to miss talking to you, Carys.”
“I’ll miss you, too.” Her eyes glistened. She squeezed his fingers, then pulled hers away and stepped back toward the door. “We will talk again when you are King.”
And with that Carys disappeared out the door, leaving him to wait until she was long gone before he could depart as well. So he paced the room that felt smaller with every moment as anticipation and nerves began to churn inside him.
King.
Just a few days and he would rule on the throne. He would be good at it. Better than their father had been. He hadn’t cared that High Lord James was cruel to his people. Andreus would never forget visiting the Stronghold where Lord James ruled and pointing out the dirty, starving people lining the streets of the city. His father said a strong leader did what he must to keep his people in control.
Andreus had never understood how keeping people so weak they could barely stand was a show of strength. When he was King, he’d make sure the people were better cared for.
But only if he got through the Trials without an attack. If the Council saw his curse . . .
Andreus decided he’d waited long enough. He shifted the tapestry and slipped out of the cramped, time-forgotten room and headed downstairs to his mother’s quarters.
He spotted several guards and saw the way their eyes followed him as he walked through the corridors. His hand itched to hold on to the hilt of his sword.
A maid curtsied in the hall as she hurried past and gave Andreus a flirtatious look that just a few days ago he would have taken as an invitation and accepted with enthusiasm. Now he no longer had interest in what she was offering. He ignored the girl, approached his mother’s doors, and knocked. When there was no answer, he yelled, “Oben, it’s Prince Andreus. Let me in.”
The doors opened and he hurried into the dimness. Quickly he shut the door behind him. The doors to his mother’s bedroom were closed. Bits of glass and broken china and overturned chairs decorated the room.
“I’m sorry, Your Highness,” Oben said. “Your mother needed quiet. A number of the Council of Elders and several of the lords and ladies of the court have come by, but I have been keeping all but Madame Jillian out. She gave something to the Queen to quiet her and encourage rest.”
Which meant his mother was drugged out of consciousness. After how she’d behaved on the castle’s steps, that was probably a good thing.
“Is Mother still . . . ” Should he say the word? Insane? “Lost in her grief?”
Oben sighed. “I fear the Queen is still not herself. I saw signs of her withdrawal from this world yesterday, but I thought she’d had too much tea and was not as clearheaded as she otherwise might be. Unfortunately, today . . .”
“I know. And because of today there are things happening that will make it hard for Carys and me to help Mother through this. We’re counting on you to keep her safe. Let no one but my sister and Madame Jillian through this door until we tell you otherwise.”
A locked entrance wouldn’t prevent entrance to men with swords who would be more than willing to shatter the door, but it would keep the Council of Elders and curiosity seekers in the court at bay.
“Of course, Your Highness. I will guard the Queen with my life.”
“I know you will.” Oben’s devotion to his mother was something Andreus could count on even if it was often a little disturbing in its passion. If Mother ordered Oben to slit his own throat, Andreus had no doubt the man would do it. “I’d like to see for myself that Mother’s okay.”
Carefully, Andreus opened the door to his mother’s bedroom, walked into the candlelit room, and closed the door behind him. Mother was in bed with the covers tucked perfectly around her. Her dark hair had been brushed until it gleamed and was fanned out perfectly around her pale face. The steady rise and fall of her chest told him she was deeply asleep.
Ever since he’d been born, she’d told him how strong he had to be. She’d told him he had to be stronger than anyone ever suspected . . . just as she was. Looking at her now, he resented the words he once lived by. She’d said she was stronger than everyone knew. But she wasn’t.