I don’t know how to take that. I guess he’s never met a commoner bold enough to touch him before.
But when the king calls Elianna’s name, the prince steps closer to me instead of backing away.
“Should I call a healer?” His voice is a murmur, oddly intimate in the crowd, and I’m sure only I hear him, since everyone else is listening to the sorcerer respond to Pallan.
“It’s not that serious,” I whisper. “I’ve had far worse.”
Kaelen starts to reply, but the king’s voice lashes out.
“Stand ready,” Pallan orders.
The soldiers step back, revealing a line of water-filled wooden buckets.
“The amulet,” I whisper through desert-dry lips. “No. He can’t mean to make us touch it.”
“He won’t, if I have anything to do with it,” the prince says. “The vilest of the criminals—or at least the strongest—should be the ones.”
The strongest? I remember what he said about me not surviving a journey and flinch. Whatever Kaelen’s motivation is right now, I seriously doubt protecting me has anything to do with it.
Neville, hand on his sword, steps over to stand next to Kaelen. “You won’t have anything to say about it, son. You or me, either,” he mutters.
Neither seems to realize that a mere soldier just called the crown prince of Valourianson. We’re bound up in far more important matters than etiquette now.
“Bring up the rest of the nobodies,” the king calls out.
Bern leads a still-sobbing Lil to stand next to me, and I hear others filing into the throne room from the main door behind us. I also hear the clink of chains, but I don’t turn to look. I don’t want to see the faces of anybody else in danger of dying.
At least they spared Lil and me the chains.
I force myself to smile at her. “They could have given us dinner first.”
I’m filled with sudden, painful regret about leaving the plum pie in the pocket of my dress, now lying on the floor in that anteroom. It may be the last pie I ever had the chance to eat.
Lil is beyond my pitiful attempt to lighten her spirits. As she stares at the king, she stops making any noise, but tears still stream down her face. Bern looks almost as young and scared as she is. He can’t be over ten and eight himself.
“The box, please,” the sorcerer says, her voice cracking with strain. She’s changed into formal robes and a silver diadem, a sign of her magical rank. She glances over at me, and the sorrow in her eyessomehow makes everything more real.
I’m really here in the throne room of the king of Pyrrh.
I’m really standing next to a prince who seems to care what happens to me.
I’m really about to die.
But the next voice I hear can’t possibly be real, because it’s Trick, and he’s calling my name.
I whirl around and see my only friend in the world standing behind me.
And he’s in chains.
His brown eyes are wide with fear, his tawny hair a tangle around his face. He stands in the center of a chained line of men and women, all wearing expressions of bewilderment and terror on their faces.
“Soli? I thought that was you. Why are you here?”
“What?No!” I lunge toward him, but Kaelen has an iron grip on my arm.
“Stop,”the prince says.
Neville moves subtly to block my view of Trick and cuts his gaze toward the king. I’m horrified to realize I forgot about Pallan, the amulet, Lil, and everything else when I saw my friend. I slowly turn back toward the king, wondering if my breach of etiquette is enough to earn me the execution I feared mere minutes ago.
