I squeezed Reyla’s hand. “Can I borrow some power?”
She looked up at me with complete trust. “It’s yours.” Her eyes closed, and I could feel her tugging in strands of it from all around us. Various shades of purple—and something new and silver. Hints of red. The palest lavender.
When she sent them to me, they shoved me backward.
Her eyes snapped open. “Sorry about that. I’ve never done anything like this before.”
My crooked grin rose. “Your power tastes amazing, love.” It churned through me, seeking a way out. “Watch this.”
I faced the castle and drew in the power that fueled elemental magic, mixing it in with the pure strength my love, my wife, my wildfire had given me without hesitation. It snarled around me. Growing. Surging and waning until it towered above me.
With a bellow, I blasted it out, shooting it at the inky ward trying to keep the king and his beloved queen from returning to their court.
The ward fell. It was almost anticlimactic.
I held my hand out to Reyla. “Let’s see what’s going on inside, shall we?”
A feral gleam rose in her eyes. “We shall.”
Inside the foyer, servants scurried around like stirred insects, their movements frantic as they dragged crates of goods or shouted to one another. A woman clutching a child stumbled past,her face contorted with panic. A steward barked orders nearby, his voice hoarse as though he’d been pushed beyond reason.
A guard spotted us, his eyes widening. He rushed forward, his armor clanking. “Your Majesties.” He hesitated, his hand halfway to saluting before he opted to bow. “You’re alive?”
I gestured for him to rise. “Did you believe anything else?”
“Well, the queen…” His gaze shot to my wildfire who was living up to her name already, bristling at him naming my mother the queen. “Thequeen mother, that is, was certain that?—”
“She is wrong,” I growled. Very wrong, as she'd soon find out. “What’s the state of the castle?”
“Still on high alert, my—king. The staff believes the borgons will storm the building at any moment. We’ve been preparing for an attack.”
Reyla lifted her chin, her voice sharp and commanding. “The borgons have retreated. Get someone to spread the word before our people stampede through the city walls.”
The guard nodded and spun to relay her order. The firm note in her voice made the tension in my chest ease. She fit this role more than they deserved, this castle full of people who'd doubted her when they should've believed in her completely from the start.
I’d helped hone this skill, but everything she was today had already been there. She’d been a stone that gleamed brighter than all others, only in need of a final polish.
Before we made it halfway across the foyer, a second messenger darted toward us, her pale-faced and her eyes wide. “You must go to the throne room immediately, King Lorick. Please.”
The panic in her gaze scraped through me before Reyla and I exchanged a look, her lips pressing into a thin line. It appeared the “queen” had been busy while we defended the very people who made this court what it was today.
I took Reyla’s hand, and we strode through the castle, approaching the throne room and not stopping as the flustered guards swept open the doors.
Inside, we paused in the aisle, taking in the clamber jutting around the room like a live whip.
Erisandra sprawled on my throne like a viper encased in gold. Beside her, two high-ranking lords whispered and hissed, nodding as she gestured toward the gathered servants. A crew of them shuffled about, hauling gilded mirrors, jewel-encrusted goblets, oil paintings, and anything else of value to destinations unknown.
“Be cautious with that tapestry,” she snapped, her voice cutting through the hum of furious conversation. “It’s worth more than the annual wages you've received thus far combined.” Wages I suspected she'd end if her rule was secured.
Lord Hadrin bowed her way. “You’re wise to secure the castle’s treasures, Your Grace. With the king deceased, we need leadership in?—”
“Deceased?” I drawled, my voice laced with steel as Reyla and I stepped forward. “It appears that someonelied.”
Reyla’s hand remained in mine, her spine rigid as her gaze raked through the room. She noted who was present as eagerly as me and marked them.
My mother’s hand froze mid-gesture, the gilded goblet she held trembling before she quickly set it down on a low table nearby. The lords and servants around her looked everywhere but at us, their guilt as visible as the blood staining our boots. They melted away from her as if that might prove they had nothing to do with what had been occurring during my supposed death.
She pushed herself upright, her elegant composure marred only by the blood draining from her face.
