When the messengers had arrived, breaking their exile and offering the Hawks their place back in the palace, he had imagined taking up his blue tunic once more. He’d imagined sauntering into the palace, reveling in the look on his parents’ faces when they realized he was back. Imagined what it would feel like to atone for the mistakes he had made and buy himself another chance.
But now those thoughts filled him with a rumbling unease. This entire court was rotten, and that must surely include the people who had given him life.
He gripped the tight muscles at the back of his neck, anchoring himself. He needed to stop thinking about Pellin and Revna. Had to stop imagining their dubious approval. He should have cut them out of his mind as easily as they had cut him out of their lives, but he hadn’t, and now he was on the cusp of finally ending any chance he ever had of returning to the palace.
Strategy had always come naturally to him. Planning each step. Predicting the unguarded flank or the unwatched pass. That had been his role in the Hawks—setting the pieces into exactly the right positions so that moving one meant all the others fell into place, one after the other.
Now, standing in the courtyard, the water of the fountain tinkling behind him, he was one final move away. About to set everything in play so that the pieces could fall. And they could fall in either direction—depending on which way he pushed. He could betray Nim in truth and be richly rewarded by Ballanor, promoted back into the Blues, perhaps as captain. Maybe even get his family back, exactly as he’d wished for. Or he could turn his back on everything he’d worked so hard for—accept that he would never again be welcome in his home or family, that he would always be the failure, the child who disgraced their family name and was disowned as a result—and try to save Nim and Val.
Honestly, there was only one possible choice he could make. Only one choice he was ever going to make. No matter what it cost him.
He followed the path Keely had taken and then turned to the side when he reached the open doors to the great hall, to hide in the shadows once more.
Keely had been locked in chains, and yet she had glowed with fire and life. While here he was, watching from the darkness, palms sweating as he gripped the tunic he had worked for years to earn.
Inside the hall, the music faltered and the crowds fell deathly silent, Ballanor’s voice rang out clearly in the oppressive hush. “I told you you’d get on your knees for me eventually.”
There was only one person Ballanor would be talking to—the woman dragged before him in chains. Keely. Gods.
Seconds later, Queen Alanna was shoved into the hall by her own set of brutal guards. One side of her face was purple and swollen, her lip split. Had the king done that to her? Had she always seemed so exhausted? So alone?
Tor closed his eyes for a moment, but it didn’t help the disgust rising through his belly like vinegar. Disgust at Ballanor. Disgust at Grendel. Disgust at himself and just how much he’d missed.
He opened his eyes again and paced further away from the door, wishing he could escape the horror unfolding inside the hall. Wishing he could be anywhere else in the kingdom. Wishing he was not about to walk into that hall and declare his support for Ballanor.
He was going to look Nim and Tristan in the eye and make them believe it too. Fuck.
He had frightened Nim before, with his anger and his judgments about her brother, Val. Now he was going to convince her that she had been betrayed by the man she loved.
It was going to hurt. But it was the only way to save them.
Keeping his mouth shut in Gatehouse Prison, taking his beating in silence, and meekly following orders—none of it had helped. They had dragged him to the Constable’s Tower and he’d been recognized by the guards. Even before Grendel had arrived to interrogate him, the Lord High Chancellor had known exactly who Tor was. There was no way to hide it.
Instead, Tor had spent the time in his cell working on a plan. The only plan he had to save them all. He would have to take on the Blue and convince Tristan to leave Nim with Grendel and Ballanor so that they could come back later and free her. Her and Val. The friend they’d all abandoned. Whose torture the other guards had been only too willing to discuss in all its awful detail. Yet another failure on his record.
Maybe, just maybe, there was a chance. They would free Nim and her brother, and one day Val would forgive him. Tristan too. One day, Nim might understand that he was doing the best he could to get them out.
He was dead to his parents and his brothers—never to be loved by them again, never to see them ever again. The only family he had left was his squad. And if they sent him away, he had no idea what he would do.
Gods.Please let this work.
He had wandered far enough that the words in the hall were muffled by the pouring fountain, and there were long quiet moments when he heard nothing over the water, when he could only imagine someone was speaking too quietly to be heard. Val, perhaps.
Tor groaned. As much as he didn’t want to face the nightmare in the hall, he couldn’t hide any longer. He had to know what was happening. He stepped up to the door and looked in just as Keely lifted her chin and set her gaze on Ballanor. “Val ismylover. We planned the massacre at Ravenstone together. The queen never had anything to do with it.”
Alanna tried to stop her, but Keely continued as the court watched in riveted, appalled fascination. “It was me. I hated this kingdom, and I hated this court. I’ve detested every minute of the time I’ve spent here.”
Keely was magnificent. A true warrior. When the time came to face his own end, he hoped he would have half the conviction, half the bravery that she did. And he couldn’t blame her for her bitter hostility; he was starting to hate Ballanor’s court himself.
He wished he could have known her before. Wished he had spoken to her, even once, before the world came crashing down.
Then he heard the words he had been dreading—Ballanor’s prepared speech. “Traitors die. And their loved ones are purged from the earth. Lovers. Fathers… even sisters. Let this be a lesson to you all.”
That was his cue. As agreed with Grendel.
Tor’s boots clicked on the marble floor, loud in the silence, as all eyes watched him striding forward. Eyes filled with fear. Hatred. Suspicion. And a few gleaming with jealousy and their own plans for seizing power in this corrupt court.
He couldn’t help looking over the crowd until he found them. His parents. They were watching him with stoic faces but an aura of approval. As if they knew what he’d offered the Lord High Chancellor. The bargain he’d made. As if they were glad he would denounce Val and sacrifice Nim. The thought churned through him, filling him with conflicted horror—he had come from that family.
