The news she’d dreaded, slamming into her chest like an arrow.
She took the blow standing, even though every bone inside her body turned to dust. Her hearing betrayed her, drowned by the exploding silence. Her sight followed, filling her vision with darkness, and for a heartbeat she thought she would faint.
But no, she would not faint before these men. She would not disgrace herself. Clenching her fists so tight her nails bit into her palms like claws, she willed her face to remain perfectly still.
“How did he die?” she asked.
“He was kil—” Whispers, shuffling.
Another man stepped out, older, with a dark beard. “We’re not here to discuss that,” he said. “We’re here to inform you that, since the prince had no heirs, the city of Abia and the province of Larion revert to the Crown immediately.”
Liana nodded. She’d expected as much: the king’s greedy, impatient little paws. She didn’t care, she had never wanted any of it. She’d been bound to Larion, to Abia, to this palace, by one reason alone, and that reason was Amron.
“I understand,” she said, keeping the tremor out of her voice. “Thank you for bringing me the news. I’d like a moment of privacy now.”
They hesitated, exchanging looks, but then the bearded man spoke again. “You must leave immediately. We’re here to escort you out.”
Liana had always known the king disliked her, but she’d never thought it was this personal. The calculated disrespect was nothing compared with the pain the news of Amron’s death caused her, yet it left her speechless. After more than a decade, after the immense service she had done for the king, after Amron had given everything, including his life, she was going to be thrown out like a beggar.
They came to hurt and humiliate her, believing that she was as attached to shiny trinkets as that spoiled brat who sat on the throne. They forgot that for the first twenty years of her life she’d possessed nothing but the clothes on her back. All she ever cared about was Amron; without him, this palace was just a shiny husk, an empty shell echoing the voices of the dead.
Gritting her teeth, she pulled her riding boots on and wrapped herself in her woolen cloak. Then she walked to her desk and took a bundle of letters Amron had written her over the years.
The young man who had spoken to her first cleared his throat again. “You are not to take anything with you.”
She had her cloak, her boots, her dagger. She had a silver medallion tucked safely under her shirt, with a lock of Amron’s hair inside it. She had her memories.
“I wasn’t planning to take them,” she said and threw the letters into the fire.
The bearded man roared and jumped at her, grabbing her braid and pulling her away, even though the letters were already turning to ash. She twisted in his grip and hit his face with the heel of her palm, registering a satisfying crunch when his nose broke.
He screamed and fell to the floor, bleeding all over the carpet. His men pulled their swords. At that moment, a handful of palace guards stormed into the room, Nina at their heels.
“My lady, do you want us to throw them out?” the captain asked.
Liana blinked and assessed the scene. The angry messengers bent on revenge, the furious guards ready to defend her with their lives, the blood soaking into the carpet as the injured man writhed in pain, and altogether too much sharp steel for such a small room. One word and it would turn into butchery.
Amron would never want that.
“No, stop.” She turned to the bleeding man. “I’m sorry I hit you.”
He spat out a glob of blood and shot her a venomous look.
“I’ll go in peace,” she said. “Escort me out.”
A strange procession formed in her room and walked down the corridors: Liana leading, followed by the king’s men, who were in turn followed by the wary palace guards and Nina, silently crying, at their heels.
The word must have spread because, even though it was past midnight, the doors opened as they passed and people—clerks, maids, pages, guardsmen—watched her go. Some nodded or raised their hands in farewell, but most stood in shocked silence.
She walked, avoiding their eyes, head held high, tears frozen on her eyelashes. When they reached the palace yard, she turned to the stable. “May I take my horse?”
The king’s men exchanged glances. The one with the broken nose spoke. “His Majesty said you were to take nothing from thepalace.”
She bit her lip and let the insult go. It didn’t matter, none of it mattered. The guards opened the gate for her and she walked out of her old life without a backwards glance, poorer than she was when she arrived thirteen years before.
Chapter 2
Melia
