Page 114 of Ruling the Green

Then we were running, up the stairs, down the hall to my wing.

“Serin!”

I threw open my bedroom door, making a small girl yelp and fall back, dropping the fruit in her hand, her eyes going huge.

This had to be the girl Mendalyn mentioned, right? The one Serin had been protecting. Which meant she was okay. She’d made it back to the palace. But where was she? Had she gone back to look for me?

“You’re growling,” Mendalyn scolded. “You’re scaring the girl.”

“Where’s Serin?” I asked.

“Looking for you.”

“Fuck,” I growled, whipping around.

Then there was Vishen, standing in the doorway to his room, blood covering his clothes, his eyes exhausted.

“Is that your blood?”

“It’s Nira’s,” he said, gesturing into his room where the female guard was laid up in his bed, head half shaved, a bandage wrapped around her midsection.

“Is she okay?”

“I hope so. Could use a healer, but it’s sounding rough out there.”

“I’ll get you a healer. And I’ll handle the mob. I just need to find Serin.”

“She was with Cora.”

“Cora said she went looking for me.”

“Fuck.” Vishen rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe she went to see if you were with your father?” he suggested. “I don’t think the guards would have let her back out into that mess.”

He was right.

I turned and ran back down the hall and steps, making my way to my father’s wing.

I burst into the doorway, my gaze taking in everything: Tove standing there, my father at his desk, but most of all, Serin.

She’d changed out of the gown she’d worn to the tournament. In its place was the outfit she wore when training with Nira. There was a flask in her hand. The other was hovering over a dagger at her waist.

But before I could do anything but feel a rush of relief that she was here, alive, and she seemingly unharmed, there was a thud that had all of us turning toward my father, who had face-planted onto his desk.

“What is going on?” I asked.

Tove turned and walked toward the desk, grabbing my father by a handful of his hair, checking out his face. Then, dropping him back down, didn’t even flinch when my father’s head whacked onto the desk.

“That is a question for your wife,” Tove said.

I glanced at Serin, then the flask, putting that information together with what Mendalyn had told me about Grimwood.

“Who is that?” Serin asked, glancing past me as Mendalyn moved into the room, her bow out, an arrow nocked, ready to do what needed to be done if Tove or Cass posed a threat.

“Help,” I told her, reaching out for her hand and pulling her closer to my side. “What is going on here?”

“Well, your wife just made your life a lot easier for you,” Tove said, roughly grabbing a stack of papers from under my father’s face, making him smack back down on the surface again.

Serin shot me a ‘what the fuck’ look I figured I must have mirrored back.