Page 72 of Sworn to the Shadow Throne

“Fuck off, Reina,” I said, sounding as pathetic as a youth experiencing his first hangover. I tried but failed to snatch my sheets back from the ribbons of her magic. She was stripping my bed.

“Camrick told me you were a mess about the woman who saved you…but this?” She made a sound of feminine frustration my hollow throat could never have hoped to replicate. “Up!”

She raised her hand to slap me again, but my own shadows whipped out to form a shield.

Putting in the effort to defend myself seemed to be enough to satisfy her, because her magic disappeared, and she gave a resigned huff. “Your friends are shitfaced because they’ve been debating which of them would have to do what I’m doing right now. So I’ll say it one more time to get it through your thick skull: Your brother, your king, is unable to rule. You have to show your face.”

Realization stopped me cold.

“Our healers aren’t making any progress,” she clarified. “The court is starting to get nervous about the succession.”

Anyone who didn’t know her well would’ve heard dire concern for her king in her voice. The truth was every bit of her emotion was for the upheaval his death would bring. She was quiet for a long moment. Then she said, “He’s as pale as a freshly shorn lamb.”

Fuck. Reina wasn’t an alarmist. She wouldn’t have told me they were talking about the succession unless it was serious. I’d spent a week drowning in a loss that felt like the entire world crashing down. And, apparently it had been.

Without any further discussion, the door swung open, letting in a dozen servants carrying steaming pails of water.

It seemed I didn’t really have a choice. Not that my fraternal guilt would allow me any other option but to get off my arse and see what difference I could try to make.

Reina’s slap had jolted me back to reality, though my nerves were still on edge. Half of me wanted nothing more than to climb back into bed, while the other half wanted to fight the first person who looked at me the wrong way.

Camrick and Nisien stumbled out of the room, hopefully to sober up and Reina left once she saw that I would do as she’d bidden. Once alone, I turned the servants away, asking them to take my filthy tunic with them for cleaning. Long overdue, I scrubbed myself until I bled in spots, but no amount of scrubbing could wash away the memory of her scent on my skin.

This was the kind of grief that wouldn’t wash out. The kind of hurt that made you cover it up with clean clothes and a smile, hoping to convince everyone you were the same person as before. The prince in the mirror looked gaunt, eyes flat, and much older than his years. But the clean clothes would be enough to pass for functional if no one looked too close.

The court had accepted worse from me because when the work is done flawlessly, the misery behind it becomes invisible.

I didn’t want to step into the role of prince again. But wanting things had never been enough to change them—I’d learned that the hard way.

I could fall back into ruins again later. Now I needed to see what was ailing my brother before I lost myself entirely.

Chapter 22

Lunette

The pounding began before dawn.

For one impossible, foolish heartbeat, I thought it was him. I reached for the empty side of the bed without thinking.

Then the pounding came again, and I realized it was a demand come knocking. Muffin squeaked, scrambling off the bed to hide in the rafters. I dragged myself upright, every movement sluggish, my limbs full of gravel.

Sun isn’t even up, and I’ve already been proven wrong about today being better. My eyes felt swollen and my throat ached from crying.

When I opened the door, there were three women on the porch. Lana was at the front, leading the charge. Each one had expectant, bloodshot eyes. They clearly hadn’t slept.

“We thought you needed to know about the soldiers,” Lana said, already stepping inside as if the cabin were a public gathering place. “If they can get past the wards, so can raiders!”

The woman behind Lana joined her across the threshold without waiting for permission. The last one in shut the door behind them with a slam. “We’ve children!”

I hadn’t noticed.

They’d mentioned it only every third sentence for the last decade. Done, of course, to highlight my lack.

Three skirts crowded me until I had to take a step back.

I realized with a dull sort of detachment that the village had sent women because they believed I would soften for them. As if I had some attachment to them just because of some sense of shared womanhood. It might’ve worked once. There was a version of me that would’ve scrambled to make them tea. But they had spent years making certain I understood I was not one of them.

It was really remarkable how clearly you could see people once you stopped needing them to be something they weren’t.