Why did Taran bring me here? Does he suspect I had something to do with it?
Will they kill me next?
“Did you see anything?” asks Taran.
It takes me a moment to realize he’s talking to me. Ronan and Cyrus turn to hear my reply.
“No…I—I don’t know.”
“Don’t be frightened,” says Cyrus lazily, as if it bores him to have to comfort me. “You’re not in trouble. We just need to know what you saw.”
HadI seen something? I try to remember what had been happening around me. I moved up through the crowd. I chose that spot because…“There was a space there, next to him. I was at the back. I moved forward so I could see. And there was a space next to him like someone had been there before, but they left.”
“Go,” Ronan says to Taran.
“But sir—”
“Send in Stella. He may have an accomplice.”
Taran does as he’s asked.
Taking a deep breath, Ronan stretches and leans back against the wall, looking at me. He has the nerve to smirk.
Is this some kind of game to him? A man is dead on his order, a man that I’m genuinely hoping was planning to kill him so that I don’t have his death on my conscience, and he’s just smirking at me like he was dealt the best hand at the table, and everyone else has bet their fortune.
He’s slouching now against the wall, and I am once again one hundred percent certain he’s Soren. Either that, or the king has a secret, slum-dwelling twin.
Come to think of it, after everything I’ve heard about how royalty tends to carry on with the common folk, that’s not unlikely.
“Cyrus, you too. Go back to your quarters and check on Quinn.”
Cyrus doesn’t look like he minds being dismissed, nor does he perceive me as a threat. He leaves without so much as a glance in my direction.
Ronan turns to the guard Taran sent in. “Leave me alone with her.”
A shiver runs down my spine. What is he doing?
“But your majesty, Taran would—”
“I know what Taran would say. That’s why I sent him away.”
The guard swallows hard. She’s very young, and she clearly doesn’t know how far she should push against the king. Even when he’s doing something incredibly reckless, like asking to be left alone with someone who wants to kill him.
Maybe he wants to kill me, and he wants there to be no witnesses.
But I don’t see why that should be the case. Surely the king’s Grand Vizier and his guards would lie for him. Or they would even do the deed themselves.
“Sir, I—” the guard tries again.
“I’ll tell him I made you leave. Go.”
“Yes, sir.”
The guard leaves, shooting a nervous look in my direction.
We’re alone in the room.
Ronan looks at me for a long moment. It’s unfair that he can feel what I’m feeling, and I have no idea what’s going through his mind.
