I’d composed the letter that same night. My mother had sewn it into my cloak with a bit of thread, and I’d worn the smelly thing ever since, refusing to take it off even for a moment. The last thing I’d wanted was for Darren or the others to find a mysterious letter hidden away in the paneling of my sleeve.
“Darren and I appreciate your cooperation in this matter,” I said hastily, taking a step back to stand beside the prince. “We hope not to take up too much of your regiment’s time.”
The woman smiled. This time there was a confidence that she hadn’t carried just a couple of seconds before. Nyx was an intelligent woman; she knew the paper held some purpose I could not speak aloud.
“I am more than happy to cooperate. I, too, have this country’s best interests at heart.”
*
Fifty minutes later, I made an excuse to Darren and the others that I needed to bathe despite the extremely late hour of our arrival. The stench of my cloak was enough to discourage any protest on the parts of our guards. Darren had been immersed in his scrolls, reviewing everything the Crown knew about the rebels in preparation for the interrogation that following morning.
Paige, of course, accompanied me. Luckily, however, we’d spent over a year at the keep and she had come to consider bathing trips a simple task.
I feigned a quick search of the bathhouse.
“There’s no one inside. I’ll be as quick as I can.”
My guard nodded along absentmindedly, her gaze locked on the dark corridor beyond. Rebels were far more likely to be stalking a princess in the halls, not hiding out in the unheated waters of an unoccupied bathhouse an hour past midnight. She trusted my inspection without question.
When I entered the building, Nyx was waiting in the shadows on the opposite dais. I knew she would come; the commander had far too much at risk not to.
The first thing I did was cast out a listening “wall.” It wasn’t foolproof, just a thick, stagnant wall of condensed air, but I wasn’t planning to shout.
I didn’t bother with the candles. If Paige took it upon herself to check on me later, I wanted the inside to be as indiscernible as possible.
“Your Highness—”
I held up a hand, stopping her. “Derrick told me everything.”
“Everything?”
“Before he was caught, my brother confessed the truth about this keep—the truth about you, the truth about the old king and Caltoth, all of it. At the time, I didn’t believe him…” I paused and looked her straight in the eyes. It was hard to see them in the dark, but I thought she looked scared. I wondered what she thought of me. “Every word out of his mouth sounded like something you had constructed to recruit na?ve rebels.”
“I swear, every word was the truth!”
“I know that now.” My words were bitter and low. “But I didn’t then. I didn’t because you never gave me the chance. You used my new position to fund your regiment, you had one of my best friends return just to test my loyalty to the keep, you sent my own brother to abuse my ties to the Crown, you made me lie to my husband—” my lips started to tremble, but I made myself carry on, “—but never once did you ask.”
“Ryiah.” Nyx’s whisper was apologetic.
“You can understand why I doubted your cause.” The rage rose and boiled in the center of my chest. It was back, and however misdirected, I couldn’t keep from relaying it to her in an angry hiss. “I lost him, Commander! I lost my own brother because you never gave me the chance to understand. I lost him because I was overwhelmed and blind and I couldn’t see the truth until it was too late.”
“King Lucius was a tyrant.” Nyx stood a little straighter, arms folding across her chest. “I couldn’t risk the chance you’d run to the Crown and destroy all those years of planning. There was too much at stake. Derrick was never supposed to tell you. That was never a part of the plan—”
“But he did.” I clenched and unclenched my fists, trying to send the anger away before things got too heated. It would be too easy to yell, to raise my voice and forget why I was here. “I just didn’t believe him.”
“I am sorry for your loss.” The woman paused; she seemed to have difficulty speaking. “He was a great soldier, one of the brightest I’ve seen.”
“He was.”
“Derrick reminded me of Raphael.” One of the dead lords who had tried to poison Lucius. “He kept begging me to recruit you against the others’ advice, telling me I was making a mistake.” She paused. “I suppose he was right after all.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then she asked, “What changed? If you didn’t believe him while he was…?” She averted her gaze.
“Alive?” I took a deep breath and braced myself against the wall. This was it. What I was about to say now, I could never take it back. But if I didn’t, we would go to war. And so I told her, leaving nothing out, sharing every detail from my mission during the apprenticeship to the girl in the Candidacy stands, and especially the king.