I tripped and stumbled a few times, to ensure that every male there found me too insignificant to worry about. That done, I listened and learned. And began to fear for mykralovna’slife.
We had stumbled into a den of vipers, and she would need every antidote she could muster to get out of it.
ROYA
Mere days later, I was willing to kill every inhabitant on Havira if it meant the regent would be dead with the rest.
For the first three days, we had been confined to two sets of chambers—a bedroom and a small bathing chamber for me, and another for Thorn and Kavin across the hall—and instructed to wait. It was some sort of quarantine that had been traditional since the Great Plagues on the continent, according to the regent. We had been provided food and water and basic comforts, but no company. Not even a servant entered the room except to slide in food and necessary toiletries. Supposedly, they were looking for signs of plague, but no apothecary ever came in to examine my tongue or feel my brow for fever.
When Thorn drugged the guard outside his door and snuck out each night to check on me, he reported the same treatment in their room. So far, no attempt had been made on our lives and Thorn had tested our food and water at every meal for poisons. We’d eaten very little of the prepared food, though, choosing to consume fresh fruits that hadn’t been obviously tampered with.
At the end of those three days, I had been happy to leave my room, dressed in a borrowed white dress and my cloak, for a formal luncheon with the regent. But that feeling had faded after a few minutes in his company. Havira may have been some sort of utopia, but this island paradise had a very lecherous snake, with wandering eyes and hands.
I threw my soft slippers across the floor of the new, larger, and more luxurious bedroom. Thorn had followed me inside after waving Kavin on to his new room. “If I never have to talk to that pompous, condescending fool again, it will be too soon!”
Thorn shot me a glance that held two familiar words:Temper, Roya. He wasn’t wrong; I was losing my temper.
I knew it was unwise to speak freely—even at a whisper—so I waited for him to finish his inspection of the room the regent had assigned me. The last one had been more like a holding cell, plain but functional.
This one came with a few extras, I realized, as Thorn silently moved about the walls, his hands plucking and pulling at hidden seams and divots in the wood. As I watched, he found three spyholes leading into what might be hidden hallways or other rooms. None of them were manned just now, but they could be.
My stomach gurgled, and Thorn shot me a sharp glance. Of course I had indigestion—we had just finished the most ridiculous farce of a luncheon at the royal table, with Regent Gullen acting as host, and us forced to play the roles we’d created on the beach. I may have sprained an eyelid, I’d fluttered my lashes so hard, and had giggled until my throat was sore. The regent had reveled in the attention, and even patted me at the end of the meal like a dog.
My head hurt, and I pressed a hand to my temple. Thorn motioned to the corner of the room that housed the bathing area and mimed sticking his finger down his throat.
I felt like an idiot. That we’d been fed safe food for the past three days meant nothing. I took a quick turn over the chamber pot, vomiting carefully and quietly. Any poisoner worth her salt knew how to do so, and how vital it was to eject suspicious foods before the body had time to process them. Thorn handed me a charcoal pill from one of the wax packets in his cloak. He had a larger supply than I did, so I took it, swallowing with a wince.
A carafe of water sat on a small bamboo table by the bedside. Thorn sniffed it, then reached into his cloak again, pulling out a tube of dark powder. Obscuring his actions from view of the spyholes with his cloak held wide, he dropped a pinch into the carafe and swirled the water around. The liquid turned a murky shade and then the powder began to form into larger balls, revealing the foreign particles that had been in the water all along.
He dipped a fingertip in the carafe, then his mouth, spitting after. “Sedative, I think,” he murmured. “Doesn’t numb the tongue. Non-lethal, at this level.”
I reached to taste it myself—this was what we always did, him teaching and me learning—but he stopped me. “No. I don’t know what else they have in store. This isn’t a lesson, Roya. This is real. From what Kavin learned from those fishermen, since the queen’s death the regent has either sold or murdered every Omega on this island.”
“But why?”
A soft scrape behind one of the spyholes alerted us both.
“Ah, niece, I know you are frightened to be away from home. Dry your tears,” he said loudly in Mirrenese, then pulled me close, as if he were embracing me. He spoke softly and quickly into my ear while I pretended to sob. “Queen Nesta died under suspicious circumstances. She had no daughter and no living female kin, so the monarchy was to pass to her son, Altair, when he reached his majority, and then to his bride when he took a mate. He never had the chance—the Omegas began to die, sometimes vanish. The slavers, remember? Around two years ago, Altair fell into a quasi-catatonic state. He wakes long enough to eat and drink, and then lapses back before he regains his senses fully.”
“They’re poisoning him every time he wakes. Why not just kill him?”
“If he dies, the monarchy does as well. They have a law that mandates an election to choose a new ruling line if that occurs.”
“Could he abdicate, or be forced to?”
“Possibly.” Thorn’s breath tickled my ear and sent inappropriately timed shivers down my back. “But then, again, the people would vote. He can’t hand the crown over.”
“Tricky traitor, that regent,” I murmured.
“Yes, they can’t elect a leader while Altair lives. And the regent is very carefully keeping him alive.”
“But not alive enough to rule.”
“Or marry,” he breathed. “But there’s something else I couldn’t find out.” He paused. “They knew your name.”
“Roya? You said to be truthful.”
“All of it.” His breath was warm on my neck, but his words chilled my blood. “Roya ta Milian. They knew your full name somehow. They know who you are, who your biological father was.”
