Jax puts his fist through the wall.
I rip the curtains off the room’s only window and shred them with my bare hands, tearing my fingernails in the process until they’re bloody.
Jax snaps the legs off the table that held the drinking glasses and uses those to make more holes in the wall, showering us in chunks of plaster and wood that make me cough as I breathe in some tiny pieces.
I kick over a potted plant, grabbing heaping fistfuls of dirt from the shattered vase and throwing them everywhere.
Jax shreds the plant itself, the dark juice in its stems running thickly down his hands.
A healer emerges from behind the white doors, poking her head out to see what all the commotion is. She quickly retreats, gasping at something. Maybe it’s the sight of my bloody hands, or the bloody footprints all over the tile where I’ve stepped in glass, or the crimson knuckle-prints all over the walls from Jax’s fists.
Whichever the reason for her startled look, it only fuels our rage as Simeon continues to read without glancing up once. I wish he’d join us.
It feels good, breaking things. Destroying a little bit of the world that seems bent on destroying us.
***
The next day, with guards stationed outside every occupied bedroom in the palace, we pretend to sleep. With guards watching closely over our breakfast, we chew tasteless food that’s been tested for poison first by some poor soul.
With guards breathing down our necks, we mourn.
Still reeling from the previous night’s tragedy, Valoria returns to the throne room to ponder how to prepare her unhappy people for an invasion that now seems inevitable. At least she has Devran to communicate some of her subjects’ wants and needs and pass messages between the palace and the city. Just yesterday, before the wedding ceremony, he came back around to having citizens join her council and agreed at last that the subject of the Dead could wait for now.
Simeon won’t leave Danial’s side, and Jax won’t leave Valoria’s even when she’s in meetings, which means it’s up to the guards to search the palace for the poisoner and interrogate the arsonists in the dungeon to see how much they know about lady’s lace. I wander the palace halls alone in a daze, looking for the escaped spirit around every darkened corner, and only visit Meredy’s bedside once before she’s back on her feet. She’s so determined to find the culprit behind the poisoning and stick them full of arrows like a giant pincushion that she comes to my room to talk through potential suspects just five days after the wedding that broke so many hearts.
“Is it possible Devran could have done something like this, and his cozying up to Valoria, compromise-is-the-way routine was all an act?” Meredy asks as she sits on the rug covering part of my floor. Already, there’s hardly any scratchiness left in her voice thanks to Danial’s quick actions a few nights ago. “Who do we know who would have access to a plant like lady’s lace? It’s not in season right now.”
Lysander, guarding the door along with Nipper, growls at the distress in her tone.
“Too hard to say,” I sigh. “For all we know, it could be an Ezoran assassin who managed to sneak into the palace somehow. But more than likely, it’s a friend of those scumbags in the dungeon, someone with a background in smuggling, perhaps.” Or another faction that wants to see someone other than Valoria in power. It’s certainlynotthe loose spirit—how would they be able to find and pick up that plant if they aren’t back in their body? And yet, the possibility lingers in the back of my mind.
I know Jax and Simeon didn’t want to trouble Valoria with the fact that we went to the spirits’ world recently, or what we found there, but I’m sick of keeping a secret from her and it’s only been a few days. I need to get it off my chest.
Excusing myself from Meredy, I head for the throne room—the most likely place to find Valoria these days. Nipper’s claws skitter across the palace’s tiled hallways as she follows at my heels, startling a few people along our path by swatting them with her long, pointed tail.
Somewhere between the kitchens and his room, I cross paths with Karston, who seems to be sleepwalking, he’s wandering so aimlessly, and I don’t have to wonder why: Noranna.
“Hey.” I almost reach out to touch his shoulder but think better of it. Startling him won’t do him any good. When he blinks and meets my eyes, his are damp, wide with a mixture of sorrow and fear. I know something about that. “I’ve been where you are,” I tell him softly, over the sound of Nipper cooing in concern. “If you need to talk, or even if you need to sit in total silence and throw shit at the wall, I’m here. If you need to punch someone, I can take it. Just don’t...” I hesitate, not suredon’t make the same mistakes I didis the right thing to say when his grief is eating him from the inside. “Just know you’re not alone. Not at all,” I finish lamely. He still hasn’t said anything. “I’m on my way to see Valoria—want to come?”
Karston shakes his head. “Thanks, though,” he rasps. It’s only when he nudges my shoulder and says, “Wolf pack forever, right?” with a shadow of the grin I’ve come to recognize that I feel like he’ll be all right, eventually.
“You’re coming to training this afternoon, right?” I press. “It’s more important now—”
“I’ll be there,” he promises dully.
“Good.” I shoot him a look. “If you’re not, I’m going to let Nipper drag you to the grounds, and trust me, you won’t enjoy it.”
Karston blinks at Nipper as if just seeing her for the first time. He’s really out of it. He’s played fetch with her more times than I can count. After making him swear on Vaia that he’ll show up to training, we finally go our separate ways.
The guards recognize me when I reach the throne room doors and step aside to let me through, but something stops me from pushing the door open more than a crack. Valoria’s been in meetings with her council almost constantly in between planning her siblings’ funerals, but now, there’s hardly any sound coming from the room.
When I peer inside, Valoria is alone except for Jax and several guards who gaze dutifully at the floor while my friends whisper to one another.
“You should get some sleep. You never do anymore, and my studies indicate that’s not good for anyone,” Valoria murmurs to him as they sit on the wide velvet cushion of the new throne, faces turned toward each other. She lifts one of his hands, inspecting knuckles that must still be bloody from our destruction of the healer’s waiting room.
“I’m not leaving you,” Jax insists. “Not for a second. I can rest when I’m dead, but you can’t save the kingdom if you’re in the spirit world.”
Valoria frowns, raising her chin a fraction. “Fine. But so we’re clear, I’m not a damsel. I’m simply smart enough to recognize when someone is better than me at something, and you happen to have skills with a sword that would have made Eldest Grandfather shake in his boots. You can do things with a blade I’ll probably never understand.”
