“He nearly killed her, Lark. You know how powerful he is. Almost as powerful as—” her eyes flicked to me and she hesitated. “He tried. He tried to kill her and he might have if I hadn’t found her. I took her to the Court of Blessings and they healed her but she was unconscious for six months after that. Every day was touch and go. I tried to tell you, I did, but I couldn’t find you.”
“Where is he now?” Lark asked, his jaw clenched in pure rage.
“The Sanguine Throne.”
“That figures.”
It wasn’t the time to ask so I remained quiet even as I filed the small nuggets of information away to bring up later. Court of Blessings, Sanguine Throne. Court of Blessings, Sanguine Throne.
“Once they know you’re here…” Cass trailed off, looking from her brother to Rook and back again.
“We have no intention of staying in this orange monstrosity of a city,” Lark said then and my gaze slipped to him. We didn’t? He met my eyes and gave me a small nod of almost apologetic understanding. “I’ve been meaning to pay Sophierial a visit.”
Rook’s lips parted again in surprise at that.
“The Court of Light and Life,” Cass muttered, nodding in understanding. She turned to me as if to explain. “It is forbidden to kill on their lands.”
I nodded slowly, appreciating the explanation though I was several steps behind it.
“This Ursa woman is still trying to kill you?” I asked, showing how far behind I was as I glanced at Lark.
Rook became suddenly very interested in his food again. Cass huffed out a breath and waited for her brother to respond. Lark just watched me, fork dangling from his hand, and swallowed slowly.
“Ursa is my sister,” he told me and the color drained from my face. “Taurus is our brother. We are all siblings, all four of us.”
I just blinked at him, lost. He set his fork aside so that it clinked gently against his glass and cleared his throat, tenting his arms in front of him so that his hands folded together near his chin.
“It is a tradition in our court, the Court of Blood and Bone,” he began slowly, holding my gaze as he explained, “that succession is not determined by birth order or even by preordained choice of the former monarch. Our father is the king. The four of us are his heirs. If he should die, we will fight to the death to win his throne.”
My jaw dropped in shock. Both at the revelation that Lark was a prince and at the atrociousness of the custom he had just informed me of. It was one of the most barbaric things I’d ever heard and I had spent a good deal of my adolescence studying witch trials.
“You can’t yield?” I asked, stunned.
“You can,” Cass chimed in then, her expression one of sorrowful compassion. “I already have. My siblings know I don’t intend to fight them for the crown. They know I will yield to whoever wins.”
“And you?” I inquired, turning back to Lark, in awe that he could even consider taking part in such a brutal ritual.
He frowned deeply, crumpling up his napkin and throwing it hard on the table before him.
“I would yield,” he spoke. “I have no desire to kill my own blood. But I can’t. If Taurus or Ursa took the throne, things would get even worse than they have under my father. I can’t let that happen.”
Rook was nodding his agreement. Cass was frowning, that bright smile of hers having faded at last, but she wasn’t arguing either. I just gaped at all of them.
“You all agree with this?” I asked, astounded. “You think he has to do it?”
“It’s the only way,” Rook muttered.
“You can’t at least help him?”
So that he doesn’t have to kill his own brother, his own sister. So that particular evil doesn’t stain his soul for all eternity.
“If we interfered in any way, we would be executed,” Rook grumbled, having clearly considered it as an option before.
“No one can kill the royal family except, of course, the royal family,” Cass mused, as if the idea itself might have been funny if it were happening to anyone other than her family.
I turned to Lark, watching him swirl the contents of his glass around in brooding silence. It was hard to believe the man who had sealed my rift, the arrogant bastard who had waltzed into my office as if he owned the place and knew exactly how to get under my skin, was destined for such a fate. Before I could think about it, I reached up and grabbed his hand, pulling it into the warmth of my own. His skin was cold but, when that dark, penetrating gaze met mine, I did not look away.
“She told me what happened when she came for you,” Cass said then, so quietly that I almost missed it. “She told me what you did.”
