“To . . . summon you?” I echo.
“Adam said you would have questions.” She lifts her chin boldly. “I presumed we would be brought before the king.”
Saeth speaks from somewhere behind her. “Leah.” Then he appears at her side to face me. The baby is asleep in his arms, drooling onto his tunic. Little Ruby has trailed him to the door, and she’s clinging to his trousers, looking up at me with big eyes.
“Your Majesty. Forgive me.” He gives his wife a look. “Us.”
Leah scowls.
“I do have questions,” I say carefully. “If you’re willing to answer.” I pause. “I don’t mean for it to be an interrogation.”
“Oh, I’ve been through plenty of interrogations,” Leah says darkly, and I remember one of the guards saying,Do you know what they did to your wife?Her eyes hold mine, full of anger. “What’s one more?”
Saeth inhales sharply, but I lift a hand. “You can speak openly,” I say. “I’d like to hear about the others.”
“Then come in, Your Majesty.” She takes a step back and extends a hand toward a small table near the hearth. “I never dreamed the king would deign to visit me personally.”
The sarcasm in her voice is thick. Saeth’s jaw is tight, but I stopped him once, so he says nothing. Ruby’s eyes flick between us all.
I step across the threshold and follow her to the table. “Your husband has stayed by my side through countless attacks, and regardless of what you’ve endured, you’ve joined him here. That’s no small sacrifice. If we survive to stand against the consuls and reclaim my kingdom, the king will visit you every week, Mistress Saeth.”
That burns out some of her fire—but not all of it. She eases into a chair across from me, and when she speaks, her voice has lost the edge. “Last night, Adam told me you said he could leave.”
“I did. And I meant it.” I glance at my guardsman, then at the baby in his arms, and finally at the little girl, who’s the only one who hasn’t taken a seat at the table. She’s standing between her parents, peering across at me. “I still mean it,” I add. “None of you are trapped here.”
Leah regards me levelly. “Do you know how much money Consul Sallister is offering for information about your whereabouts?”
I wonder if that’s meant to be a threat, or if it’s just a question. “I heard it was a thousand silvers,” I say. “Do you know how little I trust that he’d actually pay it?”
“Oh, I think he would. You know how I know?”
“Tell me.”
Her eyes don’t leave mine, and her voice is cool and even. “Because he paid soldiers to stand guard at my door. He paid my neighbors to report on everything I did. Captain Huxley himself showed up to question me every day for a week. He’d have guards search the house every time. At first I didn’t know the king was missing—they just said Adam was wanted for treason, and if I didn’t help them find him, they would hang my children in front of me.”
My eyes flick to Ruby, wondering if she should be elsewhere for this conversation, but she doesn’t flinch.
Leah watches my gaze shift, and she says, “Oh, they said far worse to her, Your Majesty.”
Her husband reaches out and puts a hand over hers.
“When I had no answers to give, their questions changed. Gossip began to spread that no one had seen the king. Then announcements were made that the king had fled the palace after proof was found that he was poisoning the people. They said that you had a select group of guards assisting you, and Adam was one of them. No matter what I said, they didn’t believe me. They thought Adam would eventually return home—or that we had a secret way of signaling him. That this had been planned, and all they had to do was wait us out.”
She abruptly falls silent and looks away, and I realize Saeth’s jaw is tight. But he lifts her hand and brushes a kiss across her knuckles.
“Forgive me,” he whispers. “I had no idea.”
She looks back at him and says nothing. But she pulls his hand to her cheek and closes her eyes.
Ruby looks between her parents, then back at me. When she speaks, her voice is so small. “The soldiers took all our food.”
Leah opens her eyes again and takes a breath. “And our money. We had nothing. And the neighbors had been warned that if they helped us, they would be guilty of treason as well. They claim you’ve been poisoning the people, and using Moonflower profits to line your own pockets. Consul Sallister absolutely would pay this money, Your Majesty. All this and more.”
The weight of their emotion is weighing on my heart—but my thoughts are churning, too. Because Ididn’tplan any of this, and they all well know it.
Right?
Could there be any chance that the other consuls do believe I’m poisoning the populace, that they really are protecting Kandala by working with Allisander?
