“Guards! Help!”
Help?Who would the guards choose to help? The dirty soldier still covered in the blood of Ravenstone or the respected councilor and his sobbing wife? Gods. There was no doubt; the guards would arrest him. And prison would be even worse than this nightmare. Finding himself in a cell beside Val, that would be worse. Wouldn’t it?
He took a deep breath, reaching for his last reserves. Trying to find the clarity of battle. That place where he locked his feelings deep in ice. He needed that sharpness. Needed to remove all emotion if he was to move. To act.
He could do this. He could keep himself together and walk away. He pulled on every ounce of the self-control he was known for and took a step. And then another.
They had really done it. They had seen his failure and cut him from their lives as if amputating a gangrenous limb.
Tor forced himself out of his parents’ rooms, hardly noticing where he was going, barely aware of his mother sobbing while his father closed and locked the door behind him.
He had thought he had lost his king, his friend, and his position in the palace. In reality, he had also lost his family, his heritage, and his entire understanding of the world. All in one day.
He was adrift in a ruthless, treacherous ocean with no oars and no land to rest on. He was of so little value that he could be thrown away again and again.
Nothing made sense. It might never make sense again. But if he didn’t think about it—if he didn’t let himself feel it—he would be okay.
That was the key. He had to make sure that he didn’t feel.
He let a cold numbness sweep over him and settle down his spine. It allowed him to walk that long corridor, down the stairs, and into the barracks. It allowed him to gather his things and ride out with the Hawks. To keep his eyes forward and his head down. It allowed him to leave the place he’d thought of as home and never once look back.
Chapter One
September—thepalace at Kaerlud—King Ballanor’s banquet
The beatof bass drums thudded hard against Tor’s breastbone, the accompanying vielle and high soprano providing an eerie, melancholy counterpoint that scratched at his nerves like a blade down glass.
Tor tugged at the collar of his new tunic. So new that the blue dye still gave off a bitter reek that burned the back of his throat and caught in his lungs. He wanted to strip it off his body and fling it into the frothing waters of the fountain that dominated the palace courtyard…. Along with the extra tunic gripped too tightly in his fist.
Instead, he forced himself to stand still, swathed in shadows beside the wall. Keeping himself, and his thoughts, tightly controlled.
Walking out the palace with his parents’ words still ringing in his ears, he hadn’t imagined he would ever be back. He definitely hadn’t imagined that he would be back like this. Wearing the Blue. Spare tunic in his hand. About to finally, irrevocably, blow up his life.
Those long weeks that the Hawks had spent living in exile, scratching out an existence in a bleak corner of the kingdom, were already a blur. Those strange, numb days had come to a sudden, brain-jarring end with the arrival of the messengers bringing a new mission—capture Val’s sister, Nim, hand her to Lord High Chancellor Grendel for execution, and be pardoned for their role in Ravenstone. One easy mission and they would be welcomed back into the palace. Blue Guards once more.
It had seemed perfect. The first thing in weeks to break him from the chilly impassivity he’d wrapped himself in. The opportunity to take back their place in the Blues and for him to prove to his family that he was worthy. To show them all that he was good enough. To showhimselfthat he was good enough.
But it had all been lies. Grendel was a sadistic bastard of the worst kind. And Ballanor, presumably, just the same. The soldiers serving under the new king had been allowed, encouraged even, in the worst cruelties. And he hadn’t seen it until Nim forced them all to truly open their eyes.
But now he knew the truth, and he couldn’t stomach serving under Ballanor ever again.
Boots ringing on the courtyard cobbles broke into his thoughts, and he pushed himself further back into the shadows as a small unit of the new Blue Guards dragged a woman down the opposite corridor.
He knew her instantly—Keely, the queen’s maid. He had seen her in the palace before, even guarded her as part of his duties on occasion, but never paid her any attention. She’d merely been the companion to the difficult, tantrum-prone Verturian princess—the princess everyone had loathed—not someone he needed, or wanted, to know.
But now he was questioning everything. Was any of the gossip about the queen true? Nim was adamant that they had made a terrible mistake in misjudging Alanna and Val. That they had abandoned Val when he needed them most. And now, for the first time, he considered just how awful living at court had been for Alanna. And, also for the first time, he looked properly at Keely.
She was barefoot, wearing only a short, sleeveless muslin shift that showed the green bands of stylized Verturian knots tattooed around her biceps. Her arms and legs were bare, her red-blond hair falling loose down to her waist. Despite her athletic build, she seemed petite and delicate beside the burly guards hemming her in on both sides.
One of her guards carried a chain that led to a brutal ankle shackle. The chain clanked against the cobbles with every step. Gods. She must have been freezing in the chilly wind, nothing between her small feet and the cold, hard stone.
She looked like a sacrifice to the ancient gods, vulnerable and alone. But her chin was high, her shoulders down, and her fists clenched. Utterly defiant. And beautiful. Not with a soft, sweet prettiness, but with the striking beauty of windswept plains and stars over the ocean.
She stared straight ahead as she walked, untamed and uncowed, not looking at anyone or anything except the path ahead of her, and she didn’t see him, swathed in shadows beside the wall.
If the first flicker of feeling to break through his icy numbness had come with the chance for their redemption, this was the second. A spark of admiration flared deep inside him. Admiration—awe, even—for her strength and her fierce beauty.
The thought was swiftly followed by the unsettling realization that as glorious as she was, his family would hate everything about her. Her foreign customs, her red hair and creamy skin, her bare forearms—with no proud red-and-black tattoos to represent her family’s heritage—and her green encircled biceps. Even the way she stood up for herself and defied the fate that she’d been handed.
