“What do you mean, Your Majesty?” she asked, using every possible ounce of her willpower to keep her voice at its proper pitch. “We made a deal and I kept up my end of the bargain.”
“Did you?” His voice was slightly higher than it had been. He lifted his hand toward a door on the opposite side of the room. “Because when I make a bargain, I keep it.”
Aizel’s heart dropped before the door even opened. Something was definitely wrong. She hoped against hope that Celesta would walk into the room as a guard opened the door.
The only other person it could be was Erich.
But there was no way the king had already discovered Erich was still alive. He was in hiding, making his way back to Iseldis. If the king had found him, he would be dead or in chains.
A familiar figure entered.
And it wasn’t her sister.
Prince Erich strode into the room. His dark gray uniform held his shoulders in a stiff position. His eyes were dark and his mouth was pinched. He quickly scanned the room, lifting his eyebrows when he saw her. He looked exactly like the same spoiled, distant, coldhearted boy who had scoffed at her in the underground cellar room by the sea.
He hadn’t changed at all.
Anger erupted inside her. He had been toying with her all along.
Of course he had.
He was one of them. He was literally wearing the uniform of a Quotidian soldier. Why had she ever allowed herself to trust?
From the corner of her eye, she saw two guards approaching. One was holding out a white ribbon. The gem was bright green—not the gray riverbed rock.
Aizel kept her gaze on the front of the room. “Traitor!” She screamed the word in her mind, hoping it came out in the angry glare of her eyes. He was no longer worth her concern. She had no time to fight him.
“Where is Celesta?!” Aizel yelled.
“Gareth, what is going on?” Erich asked at the same time.
The two guards were standing at her side now.
Inhaling a large breath, Aizel briefly heard her words colliding with Erich’s off the stone wall, reverberating through the room in a dissonant jumble of sound.
Opening her mouth, she shouted out the first notes that came to her mind. They were dissonant and minor, building off the echoes of sound that were climbing higher up the cavernous ceiling.
King Gareth clutched the armrests of his throne, his eyes going wide. The advisors beside his throne leapt back against the wall, putting as much distance as they could between her and themselves.
Erich whipped his head from Gareth to face her, awe and fear in his eyes.
“Be afraid, traitor,”she thought, increasing the volume of her voice so that she was practically yelling.
Then the pain hit her.
It felt as though someone had stabbed her in the back. But rather than concentrated pain in one area, it spread throughout her entire body, intensifying as it went.
Her breath left her body. She couldn’t even scream.
She fell to the floor as her legs collapsed under her.
The two hooded figures who had been standing at the back of the room had stepped forward, their hands outstretched and their long, pale fingers twisted and bent as though they were grabbing the air itself.
Aizel had seen this happen before, although she had been fortunate to never have felt it.
It was Quotidian magic. The taskers had used it when a Majis showed any sign of using their magic outside of their approved work.
She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe.
