A couple of hours later, I awoke to find the prince sitting at the edge of the cot, his hands folded above his head as he stared straight ahead. He was already dressed in a formal leather jerkin and a thick wool cloak, heavy boots at his feet.
“Darren?” My voice cracked as I sat up in bed, clutching my thin chemise to my chest. My breath fogged up the air—I had forgotten how cold the keep’s winters could get.
The sun wasn’t even peeking through the window bars. Our room seemed to be the only one facing the outside of the keep, and I could see the darkness still pooling across the barren landscape, the keep’s flaming torches lining its fortified walls.
“I can’t sleep.” He still hadn’t raised his head. “I keep trying, but all I can think about is Caine. What will happen if I find a rebel today? Gods, Ryiah, what can they possibly think to gain? A nation in ruins so the Caltothians can tear us apart? How could anyone wish for that?”
There was a pang in my chest, and I swallowed it down. I couldn’t confess. Telling Darren the truth would only relieve my own guilt.
And what I felt, what I wanted for him, none of that mattered. The country did. The people did.
But I didn’t.
I swallowed, my mouth full of sand as I spoke. “Some things will never make sense.”
Darren sighed and lifted his head. “I’m going to the training courts. I can’t just sit here waiting.”
I was standing, pulling on a pair of breeches and a tunic. “I’ll join you.”
“Ryiah.” His eyes found mine, and I could see how fatigued the prince really was. He must not have slept at all. “You don’t have to do this. What my brother said—”
“This isn’t about an order from my king.” In another second, I was pulling on a pair of woolen breeches and a quilted jacket of my own. I was failing him in so many ways, but the gods themselves would have to keep me from Darren’s side when he needed me most. “This is about me keeping an eye on the Black Mage to make sure he hasn’t gone soft.”
“Soft?” A small smile tugged at the corner of Darren’s mouth. “Are you planning on a rematch?”
I remembered that terrible ache of jealousy, back when I had lost the Candidacy, back when my worst problem had been envy. Now I had to wonder if I had won the robe instead, how things would have changed.
I might have missed the signs. I might have been leading a war against my brother and friends, instead of my husband.
“When the war is over—” I swallowed back the knowledge I’d never get the chance, “—we’ll duel.”
“No one has ever challenged one of the Colored Robes during their twenty-year reign.” Darren’s words were laced with humor. “Some might say it’s against Council rules. The Candidacy exists for a reason, Ryiah.”
In twenty years, will you forgive my betrayal? I made myself smile and feign ease instead. “An heir to the Crown is a mage. What happened to the Council’s Treaty?”
Darren’s grin spread. “Some rules were meant to be broken.”
“In that case…” I raised a brow.
The prince gave an unexpected laugh. “Very well. When this war is over, you’ll get your chance, love. You win and I’ll hand you the robe myself.”
When this war is over, will you still care?
*
Two hours later, we left the practice court, our guards trailing sluggishly behind. I wasn’t sure who had trained harder, the Black Mage or me. Our faces were flushed and we were dripping sweat from a battle against opponents no one else could see. Pain was preferable to the shadowy recesses of our minds.
We were one and the same.
Fifteen minutes of winding, spiraling passages and we were at the narrow hall that led up to the keep’s prison. Just as Commander Nyx promised, a hundred men stood nervously in line, waiting for the Black Mage and his team. The hall could barely fit five men shoulder to shoulder. The twenty-two of us had to make our way to the end of the hall, one by one, waiting for soldiers to move aside as we passed. Paige scowled at every face along the way.
The walls were looming, almost cavernous. The passage lacked any natural light. We were in an offshoot of one of the keep’s many floors, and the air was a bit musty but clean. This was nothing like the rot and festering odors of the palace dungeon. The cells to the prison were just beyond a pair of heavyset doors barred by steel.
I had always wondered why the commander sent local criminals to the jail in Gilys instead of her dungeon at the keep, but that was before I had found out she was recruiting them to her cause. No one had ever been going to jail.
I stumbled, choking on air as a familiar set of hazel-green eyes caught on mine in passing. And then another. And another.
And then I was face to face with Sir Gavin at the front.