Elkona’s brow rose as if to say “so what if I am?”
“Thia isn’t a liar,” Caylus said, now standing at my other side. “Kiva and I have both seen Res’s powers.”
“And aren’t you just as likely to lie for her?” Elkona snapped back.
I looked helplessly to Samra.
The captain gritted her teeth, then rose to her feet. “I have also seen the crow use his powers. I can vouch that he is a powerful storm crow and also has access to other crow abilities. Without him, we wouldn’t have escaped the blockade. He destroyed a good number of their ships with ease.”
Relief swept through me, but it was short lived as the same council member asked, “And how was his control of those abilities? He’s quite young, isn’t he?”
Samra looked to me, an apology in her eyes. She wouldn’t lie. “He’s still learning,” she admitted, and my hope dwindled with every word. “He lost control toward the end of the battle and—”
“Lost control?” Elkona asked. “So what you’re saying is he not only refuses to use his powers now, but if he did, he might strike us all with lightning?”
A murmur rippled through the room at that, uncertainty breaking openly on more than one person’s face.
“No, he wouldn’t,” I said hurriedly. “It was only a momentary lapse. He thought I’d been killed and—”
“And promptly started electrocuting everything around him?” Elkona demanded. “So if you fall in battle, what then, Princess? We contend with the Illucian army and a deranged crow?”
If you fall in battle.The words chilled me, even as my frustration mounted.
“You don’t understand,” I argued.
She flicked a hand in a dismissive gesture. “I understand just fine. Your crow can’t control his magic, and now he’s afraid of it or of battle or of losing you. In any case, he’s useless.” She looked to the Trendellan rulers. “Rhodaire has already broken one alliance with my kingdom. Who is to say they won’t break another? They are as dangerous as the Illucians they fight. Jindae will not join this alliance, and I advise you do the same, lest you send your soldiers to the slaughter.”
I gaped at her, desperately trying to conjure the words that would fix this, stop this alliance from slipping through my fingers like ash.
Queen Luhara evaluated me, her hands folded before her mouth. Then she rose. Everything inside me went still and cold.
“We have heard all arguments regarding the matter of an alliance between our nations,” she said. “Based on the evidence that’s been provided, I am not prepared to enter Trendell into any such coalition. You have a place of safety here for as long as you need it, Princess Anthia, but Trendell will continue to remain neutral in this war.”
Her words echoed through the chamber. Elkona smiled. I staggered, Kiva’s quick hands the only thing that kept me upright.
We’d failed.
Eighteen
We’d failed, and I didn’t know what to do.
The throne room had emptied long ago, leaving me alone with Kiva, Caylus, Res, and the slow, creeping feeling descending about my shoulders.
We’d failed, and now Rhodaire would fall.
I stared at the empty thrones and heard Elkona’s damming words again and again.Useless useless useless.
We’d failed, and it was my fault.
“Thia—” Kiva began but stopped when I shook my head.
Res nudged me with his beak, but I couldn’t look at him. Caylus hovered nervously at my side. My eyes snagged on the empty cushion where Estrel should have been.
Suddenly, their presence was too much. All of it was too much. Before any of them could say anything more, I broke for the open doorway. The wide corridors spread before me in a welcome maze, allowing me to lose myself in them.
I remembered another time not so long ago when I ran. When everything inside me felt too sharp to touch. Too broken.
I’d rested all of Rhodaire’s hopes on this alliance, and in the end, it was my inability to lead, my failure as a rider,me, that brought it tumbling down.
