“I am glad you are still alive. I will enjoy watching you die.”
Chapter 63
Robin stumbled forward. She had no plan. But she would not do nothing.
To her right, the door to the tower burst open and Onric ran into the room, sword in hand.
He took in the situation and immediately threw himself at Gareth.
The deranged king accepted his new attacker with a gleeful smile. “I will enjoy watching every one of your family members die. You can stand in the way of my plans no longer. You cannot stop me. You cannot kill me.”
Ian slumped against the chest behind him. “Onric, leave,” he called out, breathless. “It is too dangerous.”
Robin ran behind Gareth and Onric to reach Ian, stepping nimbly across the glass beads that littered the floor.
Ian attempted to stand, digging the tip of his sword into the floor as he leaned his weight over it.
Robin steadied him with her arm, wanting to pull him right back down onto the chest.
Erich ran through the open door, his sword also in hand. Aden was behind him.
They both joined Onric.
But that was not all. Aizel and Ashlin backed into the room, carrying something heavy in front of them.
“Leave! All of you!” Ian yelled. “We cannot kill him.”
No one was listening.
Stepping further into the room, Aizel and Ashlin pulled along a stretcher. King Frederich lay on top of it. The other end of the stretcher was supported by Queen Cara and Isa.
They set the stretcher on the floor near the door.
“What are you doing?” Ian asked, his voice frantic. He walked toward them, stumbling slightly as he skirted the still-active skirmish between Gareth and his three brothers.
Aizel knelt beside King Frederich, sitting back on her ankles. “I am going to try to heal him the same way we just healed Robin.”
“It is the only harmony magic we know,” Ashlin said. “And we know it works. Maybe, we can create enough harmony in the room to dispel the chaos.”
Ian turned to look at Robin, hope and confusion warring across his face.
“It is a good plan,” Robin said. She did not feel the need to state that it was the only plan they had.
She turned toward Gareth, clutching at her dagger. As the only person in the room who was not a direct member of the family, she felt like the best contribution she could make would be to keep Gareth’s attention focused on her while the rest of them worked together to enhance Aizel’s harmony.
But she felt eyes on her, and she looked up to see Queen Cara moving around Frederich’s stretcher toward her.
Despite all of the exhaustion and pain that Robin had endured that day, it was not until that moment that tears stung the corners of her eyes, unbidden.
Cara subtly opened her arms from across the room.
Robin ran around Onric, Aden, and Erich—who were still doing fine with Gareth—and threw herself into the older woman’s arms.
When Robin’s entire life had been destroyed at the age of fourteen, this woman had quietly welcomed a scared and angry young girl into the sacred circle of her inner family.
At the time, Robin had not realized how significant that gesture had been. Cara had instantly been a loving presence, never inserting herself into a mother’s place, but always making sure that Robin was seen, cared for, and had the space she needed at the busy castle.
It was not until much later that Robin realized how generous the queen had been in those early days. Cara had always fiercely protected a particular salon in which only members of the family were allowed to enter. From the moment that Robin arrived at the castle—after her maid’s deception had been uncovered—she was welcomed into that inner sanctum despite the fact that her presence altered the family dynamic in the one space they had to themselves.
