“Tasch.” My heart cracks along with his voice. “Any one of them could be in on it.” His words meet their mark, and my stomach plummets while my heart stalls with tendrils of fear and dread spreading through me.
“You are not allowed to get caught by the enemy.” I take a step toward him, conveying my command through my hardened expression. “You are to return to me. Unharmed.”
His mouth quirks in the corner, though his eyes maintain the same cold focus.
“Why hasn’t the Emperor come looking for me?” I ask.
“That’s been bothering me, especially after not seeing any sign of him when I went snooping,” Lars says.
“He’s up to something.” Varic takes hold of my hand and squeezes all four pulses. “And I am hoping the Queen can provide some clarity.”
He turns for the door and my vision blurs.
“I’ll be back,” he promises.
Tears well, obscuring his form before he disappears out the corridor.
Chapter Seventy
Intelligence
Varic
My whole body shudders as it feels like a swarm of hairy spiders is climbing up my spinal column, with everything about this castle seeming stranger than usual after the explosion. The hallways that bustled with life are now desolate, filled with a solemn energy as every guard who once stood outside certain doors now hides behind them.
My pulse pounds in my ears as I scan the area, while the expression Tasch wore the moment I turned to leave flashes before my eyes, haunting me with the concern she held in her countenance, as it projects over everything while I try to scan the perimeter. The guilt and the imagery refuse to leave, no matter how often I blink. Her blue eyes were brimming with tears as we shared our fear and grief—those same emotions we have both worn outwardly as much as we have worn them inwardly, at this point.
Time passes strangely as I move toward the Queen’s suite, feeling as if I have just closed the door, while also worrying the hour has already passed. I rush down the hall, and my heart slams against my ribs when I round the corner to find four Annovian guards standing before the Queen’s quarters.
I slow my pace and walk toward them, so as not to cause alarm. “Will you please tell Her Royal Highness that Imperial Lead Guard Varic is in need of an audience?”
The Annovian guard with a thick black mustache places a strangely shaped key into the gaudy decoration behind him. Then a metallic grinding sound scrambles my mind, bouncing around inside my skull as he twists the key around.
I clamp my mouth shut when a small window opens, obscuring the sorcerer behind it with a fine metal mesh. The Guard with a black mustache whispers something, then more metal grinds together—much like how I work my jaw while I wait with impatience at how long this process is taking.
The door slides open while the guard waves me inside. My heart sputters the moment I step over the threshold with the fear I might have severely fucked up by coming here. I swallow against the tightness in my throat and pull the watch from my pocket, which claims I have forty-eight minutes before Fray is to fly her away from here. I force the round metal object back inside its compartment and let out a breath in preparation to meet the Queen after having just roughly handled her son.
Tasch’s pained expression flashes behind my eyelids again, and I shake my head at how full of sorrow and fear she felt in that moment. But she needn’t fear for my well-being. I’m the one meant to keep her safe. And I fucking failed. Again. I just hope coming to see the Queen wasn’t the worst mistake I’ve made, though I wouldn’t have come if I felt we had any other option.
Metal grinds again, and my heart hammers as the door slides closed behind me.
If I don’t ever make it to the other side of that door, at least I know they will take care of her. No. I can’t think that way. I will return. To her.
Because nothing and no one can keep me from her. Not anymore.
I vowed to protect her, and that is what I am doing.
“You may wait here.” The Annovian servant gestures to the same sitting room where Tasch had tea with the Queen.
The chair she sat upon acts as a reminder of how she was able to allow more of her real self to show, closer to the Tasch I first got to know. The same room where I witnessed a spark of joy grow in her after too many instances where she had to cower to that fucking tyrant. Those moments which broke my heart and shredded my soul, terrified that I might have been too late—that the witch I know could have already been crushed under his relentless abuse. Like my mother was. Just a shell of herself, because of my father.
The place where I observed how she can hold her own with a leader just as powerful, which was strangely healing in a way I wouldn’t have guessed I needed. How wrong I had been to think she could ever truly be lost, when she never gave up on me after everyone else did.
“I’m shocked to see you anywhere but by her side.” Prince Auden’s voice jolts me into the present, and I turn to him with my pulse pounding. He stares at me, then looks down at his hands, and I want to ask what he might have learned since we parted. But he holds out a small letter for me to take, without a wax seal to keep me from reading it.
“Would you please deliver this to her?”
“Yes,” I say without thinking, so used to complying with those in roles of authority.
