“Help me pack a few bags with food,” I say to Nora. “We need to make them heavy so I have a reason for you to be with me.” I think quickly. The soldiers were checking the bags of food at first, but either they grew bored with it or they stopped worrying about me planning anything. They’re so busy celebrating now that they surely won’t bother this time. “Fetch Mother’s daggers from under the bed. Pile the loaves from yesterday on top of them.”
Her eyes go even wider. “Why?”
“Hurry.” I glance out the window of the door again. “I don’t want to leave you here.”
“Why not?”
“Because we’re going to try to save the queen.”
CHAPTER 53
JAX
I’m surprised Da didn’t shootmewith the crossbow. After he punched me, he reloaded the weapon and pointed it at me for a solid minute. I was so sure he was going to pull the trigger that I laid on the dirty floor of the dim workshop and peered across the piles of iron and half-finished projects to meet the pain-stricken eyes of the king.
“Forgive me,” I said to him. “I didn’t know—”
“Don’t ask him for forgiveness,” my father snapped. “Go in the house, if you can manage that much. Find the shackles under my bed.”
I didn’t move.
“Do it,” said the king, and his voice was strained. “Don’t give him cause to shoot me again.”
So now he’s chained to the forge, which is hot enough that sweat threads his hair. The arrows are still embedded in his skin, and he’s all but panting from the strain of it. The first rays of sunlight have broken over the mountain, and I can see that blood has soaked into his shirt and the leather of his armor. His weapons lie in a pile on the other sideof the workshop, well out of reach, courtesy of my father. Swords and daggers and a bow like Tycho’s.
Da left five minutes ago. Presumably to tell whoever he’s working with, because I heard a cheer go up down the lane, near the bakery.
No matter what I think of my father, he’s no fool. He snapped my crutches before he left. “Guard him,” he said.
That’s a joke. I’ve offered the king water, which he refused. He doesn’t trust me. I can see it in his eyes.
I don’t blame him.
Tycho is gone, too. I was surprised how many soldiers seemed to be down the lane. I’m not sure what that means.
I do know Tycho can’t hold them all off. Not without his rings. Maybe not evenwiththem.
And then there’s the matter of my friend. Have the Truthbringers done something to Callyn?
Or did she know all along?
The king shifts his weight and winces. I rise to my knees and move to approach him, but his eyes flash to mine, and I freeze.
Most of Syhl Shallow is afraid of this man, and I’ve heard all the rumors of what he’s capable of. I know there are many people who’d be relieved to see him chained to a forge, powerless. Many of them are apparently down the lane. But all I keep hearing in my head is Tycho saying,He isgoodand he isjustand he will do everything in his power to protect Syhl ShallowandEmberfall. I keep hearing the king’s unyielding voice demanding answers—followed by the emotion in his tone when he asked about the queen and the princess. His wife and daughter.
King Grey might have terrifying magic, but he’s not the sum of all the stories that Callyn and I have heard.
He might be in pain, but his eyes are picking me apart. I wonder what he sees.
“Tycho swore to me that you were not plotting against the throne,” he finally says.
“I wasn’t,” I say. “It was just supposed to be messages. We’re so far from the Crystal City.” I have to fight not to look away. “We were so desperate.”
“You had to know your father was a part of this.”
“I didn’t. Truly.” I frown, though, remembering Lady Karyl. On the very first day, she was looking for Da, but I didn’t think he could be working with the Truthbringers. Not after what happened to Callyn’s father.
But maybe he and I were on opposite sides of the same coin: desperate for silver and not caring how we got it.
