“I can’t see either dragon anywhere.”
Skylar’s heart stops for one brief, horrible moment. She knows that voice.
Calm. She feels socalm.
Her stomach twists sickeningly. Of course she does. Because of course Axel is here—where else would he be other than by the side of his queen?
The menagerie step aside to let him past, his green gaze briefly scanning the collection of people before landing on her.
Axel. He’s Influencing them. Keeping them all calm so that Ottilie can…
“You’re a part of this?” Her voice comes out as a whisper. She shouldn’t be surprised. She knew all along, didn’t she, who he served?
His gaze holds hers, the corners of his mouth turned down. “I’m so sorry, Skylar.”
“Sorry?” She almost laughs, though nothing about this is funny. She lifts her hand, gesturing vaguely with her pin. The queen’s gaze snaps there. At her side, Astrid’s grip tightens on her arm. “Sorry for what, exactly? Did you know what she’s been doing here? Do you know what she’s doing to the Blooded—draining them?Killingthem?”
Nausea swells, as it did outside. She still can’t believe that this is what they’ve been doing to them—the Champions.
Cam was drained like that. Drained of power—to create Vitalas, to keep the royals and nobles rich in fucking electricity. Murdered. She can’t feel it like she should. Shewantsto feel it—wants the anger, the grief. To know that even though Cam is gone, he meant something.
The queen purses her lips, like the word “killing” is somehow distasteful, and a hint of something crosses Axel’s face. “I know she’s been doing what is necessary. I told you all along, Skylar—I only want what’s best for this country. This is the only way.”
“Necessary?How can doingthat”—she gestures outside the dome—“ever benecessary?” Sickness and anger curl within her. Axel frowns at her, like he’s concentrating, and the feeling ebbs, just a little.
She glares at him. “What happened to wanting my feelings to be real from now on?”
He shakes his head. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. You were supposed to kill the witch in the duel, supposed to come out as the rightful ruler of the Heart.”
“And, what, I was going to just go along with you, was I? Going to allow you to keep murdering the Blooded?”
Cam. They did this to Cam. The image won’t stop churning in her mind as she thinks of him in one of those cocoons, trapped, the lifeforce drained from him. The fear, the horror, the hopelessness he must have experienced. And for what?
“Let us go,” Zryan says quietly.
Ottilie’s gaze moves to her son, and Skylar swears she sees somethingwarmthere.
But Astrid is studying the queen. “She won’t let us go. You were behind the assassination attempts, weren’t you?”
Not the king, after all. But his mate.
“Well, not me personally. And not me alone.” Ottilie glances at Axel in a very deliberate way, and Skylar feels something cold spreading from the bottom of her stomach.
She stares at Axel, at the man she thought she was starting to know. He doesn’t even have the decency to look away from her. “You?” Her voice is coarse. “You’ve been trying to kill me this whole time?” She thinks of the night he took her out into the city, when the Levitator came for her, when she only got away because a stranger helped her. She hadn’t been bait, after all. She’d been a sacrifice.
“No, Skylar—” His voice is on the edge of a plea. “At the beginning, I thought it was necessary, but as I got to know you—”
“The ball,” Astrid whispers. “Jessa. And Quincy.” Bastet lets out a low growl.
“That wasn’t me.” Axel’s voice is firm—but how can they possibly believe him? “By that point, I thought the plan had changed. I wanted you to rule, Skylar,” he repeats. “I knew that you could.”
“Oh, well fine. You only tried to kill me twice, then—so let’s crack on, plan a first date, shall we?” Because there was another time, wasn’t there? When the assassin went for Astrid, expecting to kill them both. Fire licks her throat as she speaks and she wishes, so much, that Kaida were fully grown. That she’d swoop in right now and burn every single one of them.
Astrid looks back at Ottilie, her face deathly pale. “You killed Jessa.” And it’s true, isn’t it? She might not have struck the killing blow, but she killed her all the same. “All that time, I was sure it couldn’t be anyone in the royal family and…” Astrid swallows, and Skylar feels the pain as if it’s her own.
“Funny thing, isn’t it,” the queen says mildly, as if they are simplyhaving a discussion over tea, “that they never explicitly forbade the hiring of assassins. Then again, maybe the Covenant is stronger than I’ve given it credit for. Maybe it would have forced Vatra to cede the Heart—all speculation, of course. We’ll never know the answer to that, I suppose. Not that it matters, in any case.”
“It doesn’tmatter?” Astrid repeats, staring at the queen.
