He also brings news that Lord Alek is being held under heavy guard, awaiting the king and queen’s interrogation.
I wish he were being held in the dungeon, but I keep those thoughts to myself and revel in theimaginingof it.
After two days of quietly standing guard over the lane, my hours are suddenly full of obligation. I’m sent with Lord Jacob to find the magistrate, who has no knowledge of what transpired with the queen. Later, we’re sent back to the Crystal Palace with a handful of guards, to assess whether the capital city has been taken.
Once there, we discover that there’s little panic. Jake and I seek out Nolla Verin, the queen’s sister.
She’s surprised to see us. “I sent word to Emberfall days ago,” she says. “Lia Mara was to be visiting her Royal Houses with Sinna, but she should have returned before now. I have been quietly making inquiries—”
“She’s in Briarlock,” I tell her. “Near the border. She said that if you were alive and unharmed, you should return with us.”
Her eyes flare at the wordsaliveandunharmed. “I will assemble a team of guards at once.”
I shake my head, thinking of Ander and all the others who betrayed their queen. “You should come alone, and quietly.”
We make it back to Briarlock by early evening, where I find that the king has put Jax to work. The blacksmith has sweat threaded throughhis hair and soot on his fingers, and he barely glances up from the horse he’s shoeing when I arrive.
“Well met,” he says, and there’s more than a little sarcasm in his tone.
It makes me smile. “I see you’ve been busy, too?”
“Apparently when an army assembles hastily, there’s little attention given to the hooves of its horses.” His hands are full of tools and glowing iron, so he blows a lock of hair out of his eyes.
I reach out and tuck it behind his ear, and that earns me a grateful smile.
“Tycho.” The king’s voice speaks from behind me, and I turn to find him standing with Queen Lia Mara, Prince Rhen, and a half dozen advisers.
I don’t know how I know that orders are coming, but I do.
There are so many things going on that are more important thanme, but I can’t stop the clenching tightness in my chest. I think of the moment I punched him in the woods, declaring so vehemently that I wasn’t a child.
As before, if I mean it, I have toproveit.
I stand at attention. “Yes, Your Majesty. How may I serve?”
CHAPTER 64
JAX
Again, midnight arrives and Tycho hasn’t returned to the forge. It’s so late that I’ve begun to wonder whether he’ll return at all, or if the king has already sent him on a mission, and I won’t receive word for weeks or months.
It won’t be weeks or months or never, Jax. I promise you.
But he can’t promise that when he doesn’t know what his future holds. I’ve known all along that his life was at the mercy of the king. Now more than ever.
But just as I begin to drift to sleep, I hear the squeak in the floor, and I sit up sharply in bed.
“Don’t shoot,” he calls ironically from the main room. “It’s just me.” He appears in the shadowed doorway. His face is in darkness, his weapons catching glints of light from somewhere. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I’m getting used to it.”
He smiles, but something about it seems a bit reluctant. “May I sit?”
I can already hear it in his voice. “You’re leaving.”
He doesn’t beat around the bush. “I am. At daybreak.”
My throat tightens almost at once. I try to breathe past it, but my voice is still husky when I say, “You can sit.”
