Page 176 of Sworn to the Shadow Throne

I scooped him up to offer what comfort I could. Anne came to stand beside me, her body tensed as if ready for a fight.

Lord Coryanthus’s expression shifted into the false sort of warmth that men like him used to disarm. Years of barely veiled contempt had honed my ability to discern just how insincere he was instantly. He was judging me for so obviously sleeping in Owain’s bed.

Where and how I spent my time was none of his concern. He was just the type of man who thought everyone and everything around him should bend to his sense of morality and to what he wanted.

Well, he was willfully oblivious to the fact that I wanted absolutely nothing to do with him.

“My lady.” He inclined his head. “His Majesty requests the pleasure of your company. In your rooms, if you would.”

“In my rooms…” I repeated. Calling this a request was almost laughable.

“He was most insistent.” The manufactured sincerity in his expression didn’t waver.

Owain wasn’t a paranoid man. He wouldn’t have put so many guards around me if he didn’t think there was a valid threat. My gut was screaming at me that leaving his room was wrong. But what choice did I have if Berian ordered it? He was the only one with the authority to override Owain.

“Why are you the messenger?” I asked, Muffin still tucked under my arm. Anne had gone very still beside me, watching Coryanthus with a focused hostility I wholly approved of.

“His Majesty granted me an emergency appointment as Regent of Magical Affairs.”

The alarm bells tolling inside my mind grew louder. If there were a cabinet of magical affairs, I surely would’ve had to meet them at some point. At the very least, Owain or Reina would’ve mentioned it by now. Whatever this last-minute change meant, it wasn’t good news.

Muffin, for once, didn’t squirm. It was as if he knew something was wrong. I turned to Anne, my voice bordering on a plea. “I’ll take Muffin with me so he can use the balcony. Will you wait here to pass along my excuses?”

I’d spent so long pushing back against her well-intentioned bullying that I hoped this sudden docile change would signal my desperation. I needed her to witness that I was being taken against my will so she could call for Owain.

She nodded then sank into a curtsy that was much deeper than usual. Her eyes never left mine as I followed Coryanthus out the door.

Stomach rising into my throat, I reached for the mate bond. Owain was still there, his intense focus betraying no fear, only a profound sense of worry. I chose to take comfort in that.

The guards at my door were not the ones Owain had stationed there earlier. They were also wearing the red and yellow of Lord Coryanthus’s house. I looked down the hall and saw more of the same—too many of them.

Coryanthus swung my door open with an air of entitlement, gestured for me to move, and followed me inside.

The fire was lit. The room smelled faintly of the untouched bread, butter, and jam that had been delivered as a snack earlier, even though I’d been in Owain’s room. Everything was almost as I’d left it.

Except the air felt…pressed. As though too many people had taken the oxygen from it before I stepped inside.

Berian occupied my favorite chair by the hearth. His tired gaze fixed on me the moment we entered. Even in his fatigue, it held a motionless intensity that reminded me of a snake poised to strike.

Seeing him there—even though it was a violation—should’ve brought a sliver of comfort. He was proof that this whole thing wasn’t a lie Coryanthus had made up. But the sight of the man wearing white robes in the chair beside him obliterated the illusion that this could be anything less than extremely dangerous.

Holy gods, they’re working together.

“Your Majesty, Grand Magus Thibault,” I said, performing a sloppy curtsy because they could both go to the Otherworld for all I cared.

Yet even in my anxiety and mounting disdain, I couldn’t turn off my healer’s impulses.

Berian should not be upright.

I knew that grayish pallor all too well. It was the color of a body carefully rationing its remaining vitality. I’d poured magic—my own lifeforce—into this man. Had coaxed his lungs and heart back into steadiness, and now he sat in my chair by my fire and looked at me with those flat, assessing eyes as though I should be the one asking for permission to be here.

Berian coughed once, wetly, as he dismissed his two guards to stand in the hallway. Thibault gently thumped his back.

Whatever this is, I hope you all pay for it. Especially Berian. He had to know by now that his brother cared about me.

Coryanthus’s hand closed briefly around my elbow and steered me, with gentle inexorability, to stand in front of the king. I wanted to slap his touch away then scrub my skin from the contact. But I was stuck.

Coryanthus’s guards followed me.