As I slip out of the Salon of Stars, my thoughts tangle with many lives. Lila was right. Every enchanted object spoke of a creature at the very center of Versara, one they cannot reach. Although I cannot see the living thing in my mind’s eye, I know its depth, the power that surges up from the drains. Something remade, something unrelenting.
Something that will never submit.
It is not a monster; it is merely trapped. I promise that creature—whatever it may be—that I shall return and free it, too.
—
I hover outsidethe king’s bedroom door. Death will be here any minute, and still I strain for the sounds within—the snoring, the clink of bottles. The servants’ door swings open and I flatten myself against the wall as Carter pushes a cart out, turning his back to me as he moves toward the Mouth.
The snores tumble into the hall.
I have moments.
I slip inside the king’s bedroom. Only a few candles float this time, the space dark and moody. It smells of sweat and alcohol and smoke. The chambers have been destroyed—bits of broken glass, food strung about, the curtains ripped down. Pausing, I watch the lump of covers on the bed shift and settle, followed by a snore.
I pick my way toward the grand desk to the left of the bed. Scattered with papers, an upturned wine goblet, and letters, requests. If this were any other time, if Death weren’t around the corner, I would snag a few papers, read them over. Instead, I scan the desk until I find it.
His royal letter opener, the Reign crest imprinted on its handle. A solid bar of gold, it is heavier than most platters I’ve carried. Still, it is not the diamond dagger.
I open the drawers, searching.Where is that damn thing?
It has to be here, somewhere.
Opening the bottom drawer, I spot it. Glimmering, translucent, deadly. Yet when I pick it up, it feels too light, dull. I flip it over and notice cracks along its blade. This, I realize, is made of glass. This is fake. I brush aside more paper, and they glitter up atme.
A dozen or so failed diamond daggers. Some have been shattered, others half formed. Still, a pile of loose diamonds rattle around the bottom.Carter and Lila were right.
But is it because he’s a halfling, or because Kassandra is so powerful?
A noise in the hall.
I close the drawer and retreat from the desk. Moonlight pools on the prone figure among silk sheets.
Maxian. Beautiful, powerful Maxian, with his sharp jawline and bulging shoulders, lying on his bare stomach.
My breath leaves me. A grotesque patchwork of bumpy, cross-stitched scars cover his entire back, gnarled flesh on top of gnarled flesh. I have never witnessed one before, but I know its aftermath, have heard of it from other faeries, know my own grandmother died of it.
A lashing. From the look of it, many.
Someone has whipped the king. Over and over again.
A deep terror trickles through me.Who would dare whip the king?
The letter opener feels heavy in my hands. The eagle clutches a branch from Lucan’s Tree in one claw, and the Golden Whip in the other. No, it couldn’t be—but it must.
The king was not whipped.
Prince Maxian was.
Brutality is in your blood,he said of my lineage, the glint in his eyes not curiosity but connection. This is the legacy of Amyria: ledby monsters and murderers. I could end it all now—cut off the eagle’s beak and watch the kingdom plummet into chaos.
But that is vengeance, not venturing to something better. Jeremee was right. High Fae will issue orders, faeries will die, and someone worse will rise from the bloodshed. Someone sadistic. Someone like Dominik. So today I will not take the king’s life, if only to ensure a safer tomorrow.
If I am to fight the High Fae, it will have to be in their Houses, their bedrooms.
This is the logic I cling to as my eyes settle on a packet of black powder by the king’s bedside. An unnatural powder. There is no time—and still, I make it.
Opening a letter addressed to Lila, I drop the black powder between the folds. I take the empty packet to the fireplace and fill it with ash. Death is waiting, and suddenly I don’t want to be late. It is only then that I notice the silence.
