He’s dealing with a fucking Queen.
Pinning his shoulders down with my knees, I wedge my hands under his dark mask. There is no greater shame for a royal of the Spring Realm than to reveal their face to anyone other than their fated mate. A shame he forced upon my own mate. A shame I willmakehim endure.
I push as hard as I can, but three months of consuming only rationed bread and water has made me weak. The helm inches up with agonizing slowness. Kairyn bucks beneath me. “Get off, you bitch!”
A strong chin emerges, and a desperate excitement rises. I want him to suffer as I’ve suffered.
“Get off!” Kairyn jerks his torso, throwing me to the ground. He staggers to his feet. His whole body shakes as he places his hands on his helm to wedge it back over his chin.
I draw my head back and spit. A glob of spittle lands right on his bare skin before he can slam his helm back over it.
We stay there like that for a minute: his armored body shadowing me upon the floor. In the three months I’ve been imprisoned, he’s never hurt me physically. Never used torture to get the information he wants. I wonder if this is the moment he breaks.
“Emperor, are you all right?” a guard shouts from outside the metal door. “We heard a scuffle.”
“Stay out,” Kairyn growls back. “Stay out!”
He takes a heavy footstep toward me. Then another. I shuffle backward until my spine is pressed against the cold glass, trapped between the sea and a madman.
“I was tasked with keeping you safe,” Kairyn says. “Tasked with finding the answers to my questions. If I can’t accomplish this, then you will be sent to someone who can.” He takes another step closer until I’m completely engulfed in his shadow. “Trust me, Sira does not keep her guests in such fine conditions as I.”
Sira, Queen of the Below. The arch-nemesis of my fae mother.
“So, I ask you again,” Kairyn breathes, “my three questions.”
I close my eyes.B. Bridget Jones fromBridget Jones’s Diary. C. Chani fromDune.
“Where is the moonstone necklace?”
D. Mr. Darcy fromPride and Prejudice.
“Where is Summer’s token?”
E. Effie Trinket fromThe Hunger Games.
His voice rises in pitch, growing raspy, near hysteric. “Where is my brother?”
I flick my eyes open and stare at him, bent down only an inch in front of my face. “Rot in hell, asshole.”
He pounds his fist against the glass, right beside my pointed ear. I flinch. “Where is the moonstone necklace?”
“I don’t know.” I give him the same answer I always do. In the first few months, I realized they were infusing my food with some sort of truth serum to stop me from lying. Well, the joke was on them. Just because I had to tell the truth didn’t mean I was going to tell the truth they were looking for. They’ve stopped bothering with the serum now, having realized I wouldn’t fall so easily into that trap.
And this is the truth—I don’t know where the moonstone necklace is. Caspian took it from me, and I have no idea where the Prince of the Below is. But I do know I have to do everything I can to avoid it falling into Kairyn’s hands. Whoever wears the moonstone necklace can wield the Bow of Radiance, the most powerful of all the divine weapons.
Kairyn slams his other fist on the opposite side. “Where is Summer’s token?”
“Not on me,” I growl, another truth. After Ezryn killed the Turquoise Knight up at Queen’s Reach Monastery, I took Dayton’snecklace back. How was I to know I wasn’t going to see him again? Now, I keep my gaze focused straight on Kairyn so as not to shift it to the flimsy mattress they call a bed. They didn’t know I had his necklace when they imprisoned me here. I’ve hid it in a slit within the mattress for safekeeping.
“Where is my brother?”
This question, I know, is not for Sira. This is all Kairyn. He must assume I know where Ezryn would have gone after we were separated in the throne room. Joke’s on him, again. I can’t predict Ezryn’s movements any more than I can predict the trajectory of a shooting star. So, this answer I give from my heart. “I wish I knew.”
Kairyn’s asked me these three questions nearly every day, and I’ve given him the same three answers.
What else can I do? My heart, which should be erupting with the mate bonds tying me to Kel and Farron and Ez, is silent. I have no idea where any of them are. Where Dayton is. Where Caspian is.
It’s just me and the fish.
