For now.
“Did she tell you what she did?” Moros tosses a leg over the side of the throne and slouches to one side, his chin resting on one knuckle. He looks childlike. It’s unsettling. I hate it.
“Moros.” Amarantha steps over a shattered piece of glass. Warning in her voice.
“Oh, but we should wait for this conversation.” My father yawns. He never yawns.
“Where is your commander?” I ask.
“Killed him.” He blinks at me slowly. Not an ounce of empathy in his cold gaze. “The Balance is gone. Broken. Shattered. There is no point to anything anymore.”
“That’s not true, darling.” Amarantha steps up behind the throne and lays a hand on his shoulder. Her long nails dig into his skin.
Darling.
What does she mean by that? Nothing Amarantha says is by chance.
“Tell me, Father.” I don’t move toward him. Hell, I’ve barely moved at all. I feel frozen to the spot. “What did she do?”
Amarantha’s nails dig deeper. “This isn’t the time for?—”
“It’s always the time.” Moros waves her off like a fly. “Pour me another drink, Kestra.”
“No.” Kestra holds the cup behind her back.
“Stubborn girl.” He almost smiles. Almost. “Your mother was stubborn.”
“Don’t.” The word comes out of both Kestra and me simultaneously. We don’t talk about her. Not here. Not with him.
But Moros is past caring. Past fear. Past whatever careful architecture of control has kept him silent. He’s a man sitting in the rubble of everything he built and there’s a specific freedom in that kind of destruction.
“She wants me to shut up.” He jerks his chin at Amarantha. “She’s been wanting me to shut up for years. Since long before your mother died.”
“Moros.” Amarantha’s voice has dropped to a quiet and dangerous register. The voice she uses before she ruins people. I’ve heard it once. When she spoke to Finnian before dragging him to the Seelie Court.
“What are you afraid of?” I ask her directly. Let my shadows curl toward her feet. Not threatening. Testing. “What could a drunk man in a chair possibly say that frightens the great Lady Amarantha?”
Her jaw tightens. There it is. Fear. Real fear. Not performance. Not manipulation. The genuine article, sitting behind her eyes like something caged.
Moros laughs. The worst sound I’ve ever heard from him—worse than the silence before punishment, worse than the calm instructions to kill. A laugh that says nothing matters.
“Ask her why she’s here, son.” He rolls the word son around his mouth like it amuses him. “Ask her why she ran across Faerie the moment your sister put a blade to my throat. Ask her how sheknew.”
The room goes still.
I look at Amarantha. At her hand on his shoulder. At the way her body has positioned itself between him and Kestra without her seeming to notice she’s done it, as though the movement was instinct.
“How did you know?” I ask.
“The Balance moves when a king’s life is threatened.” Her chin lifts higher. “Anyone listening close enough would feel it.”
Every word true. None of them an answer.
“Anyone didn’t run across Faerie,” Kestra says. “You did.”
The silence that follows is the loudest thing in the room.
And then the door behind me opens.
