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Rheya exhaled with true sorrow, and I wondered if she, like Finbar, regretted her choices. If she now wished she’d exploited the fact that Finbar had given away his royal immunity and executed him after his first rebellion.

“One last question, if you please,” Arun said smoothly. “You were discovered on the Neyamay riverbank, several hours after King Erik abducted you from Banarrat. Why were you held there for so long? What did the king mean to do on that island?”

I was opening my mouth to give some slurring lie when a spectral tendril slithered around my wrist like a shackle. I gasped, trying to shuck it off, but the power held firm, applying just enough pressure that my tender skin smarted.

“Arun,” Stian warned, noticing my distress. “Lady Alissa is wounded.”

“Then she ought to answer quickly,” he replied, smiling. “Why were you held on Neyamay, Lady Alissa?”

Rheya was watching me closely now, but not as closely as the minister himself. Arun’s eyes roamed over my face, scouring for every minuscule expression, every tell I didn’t know I had. And there, at my wrist, the thrum of his specter had gone unnervingly slow—as though to better decipher the rhythm of my pulse.

The pressure of performance crept in on me, a burden I felt too limp to carry. It was amid that strange haziness that I blurted, “I don’t know. I was unconscious the whole time.”

Arun held my stare a moment longer. Then a little frown twitched at his brow. As though I’d posed a riddle he couldn’t solve.

“If I may, Your Majesty”—Stian drew away from the wall—“Lady Alissa has been extremely cooperative. As the person responsible for her care, I insist that we put the matter to rest. Unless, of course, Arun has found anything untoward in her responses.”

The air seemed to pulsate around me expectantly as Arun looked me over one final time.

Then he shook his head, frowning further. His specter unhooked from around my wrist.

“Very well,” Rheya said slowly, unconvinced. She stood, straightening her skirt. “We shall continue this after I return.”

“Return?” I asked.

She looked down at me, the sunset gilding her outline. “Banarrat is in upheaval. Thanks to King Erik’s use of Ansoran uniforms, many of the Banarrati soldiers believe that I truly ordered the attack to wrestle power away from Holden before the treaty renewal. The fact that I’ve never gifted the island with tributes has seemed only to reinforce their beliefs.”

“They’re fools,” I mumbled.

Rheya raised a brow in agreement. “Indeed. But they have spent too long heeding the orders of their generals to form their own opinions, and I wish to give them a chance to do so. Since the island is now scrambling for a new leader, I hope to convince the remaining soldiers, on a personal level, to fight under my banner without the treaty.”

I blinked up at her, awed by her resourcefulness in the wake of disaster. Erik had intended to turn the island against the mainland—his own spiteful punishment toward Rheya—and he was clearly halfway to success. But Rheya was making her own strides over whatever ground he hadn’t won, using this opportunity to get what she’d wanted from Banarrat all along: their alliance.

“Incidentally,” Arun drawled, “you don’t happen to know how General Holden was killed?”

I gulped, my mouth drying once more. “In battle, I assume.”

Rheya’s lips twitched with a knowing smile. Then she reached into her pocket and withdrew a little golden circlet, fashioned like an empty sunburst. She set it on my bedside table with so much nonchalance that I frowned.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Despite what occurred at Banarrat, you did what I asked of you. And I keep my word.” She nodded to the sunburst, which I now realized was a brooch. “Your initiation into the Ansoran Gallery is complete.”

I blinked. “Just like that?”

“Well, it’s a less extravagant initiation than I would’ve liked, but the conditions have been met. You ate the food I served you of your own free will, while others bore witness.” She looked between Stian and Arun, her brows arched. “You were watching, weren’t you, or shall I have her take a bite of the bread, too?”

Arun remained flinty-eyed, something bitter in his expression, but Stian chuckled.

“I watched, Your Majesty.” The healer inclined his head to me. “Congratulations, Lady Alissa.”

“Congratulations, indeed,” Rheya said. “You are, in effect, untouchable.”

As Arun turned for the door, Rheya’s gaze caught on my bedside table, where a gold, ruby-studded hairpin glinted under the amber light. The hairpin Keil had gifted me, attached to a master key of the estate.

“You should count yourself lucky, Lady Alissa,” she murmured, the words meant only for me, “to have the prince care for you so very deeply.” As she met my eyes, I saw in her the young woman she had once been—the woman who knew, intimately, what it meant to hold the heart of an Arcus prince. “And I would be remiss not to remind you,” she added, with a slight smile, “that our deal is now complete.”

I stared at the Gallery brooch after they left, knowing that this was as close to victory as I’d ever come. Erik had failed to operate the Unbreakable Blade, I had the protection of the Ansoran Gallery, and Rheya would sway the Banarrati soldiers to her side, refortifying the war effort.