If the rest of the room is dark and cold, King Tor is practically luminescent. White hair tumbles over his shoulders like sheets of snow beneath a full moon’s light. He wears enough gold to make him sink to the bottom of the Varenholm Ocean, and yet even in the shadows his jewels manage to shine. But it’s the irritation in his eyes that makes him glow the most. His eyes are like two roaring bonfires in the middle of the night, their scorching beauty daring every moth to chance getting closer, only for his wild flames to engulf them.
He looks as deadly as he did the day I first laid eyes on him, all those years ago.
The prince and his guards give us a forceful shove until all three of us are clambering at the bottom of the stairs before the king. The guards stand somewhere behind us, out of sight but surely not too far away to intervene in case one of us gets a wild idea. But the prince continues his graceful stride up, never once glancing at us as he takes his place beside the throne.
He doesn’t glance at his father either, I notice.
“I’ve been waiting over an hour,” the king mutters, idle fingers drilling against the obsidian armrest.
The prince folds his arms behind his back, gaze fixed forward. Although I don’t hear a response from where I’m standing, his father’s head jerks, and I know that whatever the prince has said beneath his breath isn’t something that most people would get away with saying to a king.
King Tor’s glare burns into the prince’s face for a long, long moment, before he finally returns his attention to us.
Beside me, the young man they’d grabbed from the other cell, the one who’d been traveling with us to Nigh in the cart, cowers under the king’s brutal glare. On my other side, Elison, too, bows her head. It’s so unlike her that I’m left dumbfounded for a moment. She is normally as sharp and as lethal as any of the bolts she ever made for me. She’s always possessed the bold spirit of an undefeated bull, a woman who would stand her ground and fight whomever—even if the odds were stacked against her.
To see her cower before anyone leaves me unsettled.
From behind her lowered lashes, those sky-blue eyes cut in my direction. A warning that takes me only a moment to remember.
I follow her lead—albeit a bit delayed—and throw my head forward like I’m chucking an anchor overboard at sea. I can all but hear the hollow sound of my failure as it plummets into the dark depths. Already, I’ve failed my task. I entered this room with the confidence of someone who is capable rather than someone who’s fearing for their life.
But I can still try.
I owe myself that much.
“This is all?” the king asks, the disappointment in his tone palpable.
“No. There are others in the dungeons. But I wanted to deliver a sampling of them to you first, knowing that the other hunting parties were nowhere near as successful as ours was.” The arrogance in his voice, the pride, it makes me sick. “Allow me, Father.”
My curious gaze can’t help but wander up as their footsteps flit down the stairs to examine us. Like we’re cattle being brought to the slaughter.
“This one, they call Dunce.” The prince gives the young man beside me a hearty pat on the shoulder that makes his knees tremble. “Though, I hardly say that’s a fair assessment of his character. Of all the heartbeats we gathered from Gravenburg, he’s the only one who’s been wise enough not to undermine authority. Of any kind. Even between his cell brethren.”
“Mmm.”
The sound the king makes could either be one of agreement or one of contempt. It’s difficult to tell with him.
But the prince seems to register it as something positive—or at least the closest thing to approving that he’ll get—and moves on.
They slide over to me. My heart thrums like a wild beast trapped beneath my bones.
But to my torture, the prince keeps walking.
“We’ll come back to you later.” He winks at me as the king and him slide over to Elison instead. “I present to you, Elison Wade. It’s not often we learn their surnames, but, for such a feisty thing, she was quite willing to divulge an unthinkable amount of information about herself when we found her.” Leaning closer into his father, he cups one hand over the king’s ear, but I wouldn’t call what he does with his voice anything close to whispering. “She’s with child.”
The king’s pale flesh takes on an eerie glow. His eyes shine and I quiver to think of what vile kind of hunger has just sparked him back to life.
“Or at least”—the prince continues with a carefree shrug— “that’s the impression we’ve been given. Holding her belly when she sleeps. Vomiting in the mornings, even when she hasn’t eaten for days.”
“Is this true?” the king asks her.
When his crooked finger reaches out and coils around one of Elison’s bright and wild curls, the façade of the scared, placid girl she’d so perfectly crafted shatters. Elison jerks her head and her hair out of the king’s grasp, baring her teeth.
“Don’t touch me.”
His eyes become alight again. “It’s true then. You have the fight of two inside you.”
Her lip trembles, but it’s more like she’s biting her tongue than about to burst into tears.
