Chapter 10
Aknock jerks me from sleep. I bolt upright, sucking in gasps of air, and press a chained hand to my chest.
I study the room—the tall, wooden posters that make up the bed. The light sneaking through the drawn curtains. Four walls.
Not the cliffside cell Caelus kept me in—tortured with the ghost of my mother and hallucinations of Thea and Kressa. I swallow, rubbing my eyes against the nightmare that plagues me each time I close my eyes.
“Briar?” Julian calls from the other side of my door, followed by another knock. “Can I come in?”
I push myself to a seat and lean back against the headboard. “Yes.”
The bolt unlocks, and the door swings open. Julian steps into the bedroom, clad in his uniform, pressed free of any wrinkles. He still has that glint to his eyes—the one I noticed when I first met him in Sarenia, but it doesn’t fool me anymore. He’s not the untested soldier I thought him to be.
“I brought you some clean clothes.” He sets a pair of trousers and a tunic on the foot of the bed, then backs up a step and clasps his hands behind his back.
“Thanks.” I rattle my chains. “But I can’t get dressed with my hands chained together, can I?”
He sucks in a cheek, then leans over the bed and unlatches the cuff around my right wrist. “You have three minutes, then I’m coming back in to get you.”
My brow furrows as I stand from the bed, rubbing my palm against the skin of my wrist. “And take me where?”
“To King Golan.”
“Why’s that?” I unfold the trousers, giving my trembling hands something to do.
“I’m not told details—only to come get you.” He shifts on his feet. “And, well, I thought you’d want a fresh change of clothes.”
I offer him a tight smile. “I appreciate it.”
He nods and steps out of the room, closing the door behind him.
I make quick work of my dirty clothes, discarding them in a pile as I count the seconds in my head.
Cold air kisses my bare skin, and I slip my legs into the pants, buttoning them at my waist. Slipping the tunic over my head, I sidestep to the window.
I ease open the curtains and scan the windowsill, then the spire and the eaves tucked into the roofline, searching for a mass of black feathers. But the falcon is nowhere to be found. No letter in sight.
Letting the curtain fall, I step back and tuck the tunic into my trousers.
There’s no telling how far the falcon has to fly, and between the trip there and back, I could very well be dead before I receive Isolde’s response.
I should have added more to the note—begging her to take care of my crew, or at least set them free.
But there’s nothing to be done now.
With thirty seconds to go, I stop in front of an aged mirror propped against the wall.
Despite the lack of sleep I’ve managed the last few days, my eyes are clear, alert.
And even with the rhodium restraining my power, there’s more color to my skin than there was when I was cursed.
As if breaking it brought the life back to me.
It’s my hair that’s unfamiliar—teasing the tops of my shoulders from where I cut it before the final trial. The ends are ragged, uneven, but I comb my fingers through the strands in an attempt to tame it.
Julian knocks. “Ready?”
I stride to the door and turn the knob, pulling it open. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
He fixes the cuff back around my wrist, and I wince as it clicks into place, the metal rubbing against my sore skin. I press my eyes shut against the pain, and when I open them, I catch him staring at the wound.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
I don’t answer.
He presses his tongue into his cheek. Instead of wrapping his hand around my upper arm or pulling me by my chain, he walks beside me, leading the way to the throne room.
Elias stands outside the wooden double doors, and he tilts his chin at Julian. “I’ll take her from here.”
I trace the bruised line of skin around his throat—the imprint from my metal chain. They’re likely to scar. Fitting, considering it’ll be a near twin to the one I gave his sister.
Julian gives me a wary glance, then nods and slips through the doors.
Without glancing Elias’s way, I straighten my spine. “I’m not going to apologize for what I did at the harbor. If that’s why you want to speak to me alone.”
He scoffs. “I understand why you did it.”
My eyes widen, but I blink away the surprise. “You do?”
“When you spend ten years in confinement with only your mind for company, you gain a new perspective on life. How little and inconsequential we all are in the grand scheme of things. How needless war and death is.” He tilts his head, as if considering his own words.
“But that’s neither here nor there. I wanted to speak with you not to chastise you, but to warn you. ”
I scan the hallway and step closer. “About what?”
“You’re unprepared for what you’re about to see on the other side of this door.” A swallow makes its way down his throat. “My sister’s mind is shut tight, cutting me out completely. But my father is out of practice, and if you don’t do exactly as he says, your friends will get hurt.”
“Hurt?”
I lurch toward the doors, but Elias throws out an arm, holding me back.
“He wants you to be afraid, Briar. People are much more malleable when they’re frightened. So instead, be angry.”
Never lose that fire.
The words Kressa spoke into my mind a handful of nights ago—when she told me to never be afraid of my anger. An ache rises in my throat, and I shake my head. “My anger has only ever led to people getting hurt.”
“That’s because you let it control you.” He rests a hand on my shoulder. “Control it. Make your anger your sword and your shield.”
“I have no idea how to do that.” My gaze finds his, and I step back, lifting a brow. “Why are you helping me?”
He gives me a weak smile, so similar to Kressa’s it makes my heart clench. It feels like a lifetime since I’ve seen one cross her face.
“Because I am not my father. I want balance in the world, where each court exists in peace. That’s how our world should be, and I know you want the same thing. I don’t need to read your mind to know your heart.”
I pause, giving a moment for his words to filter through my mind. After nearly killing him, he’s still willing to help me.
“Thank you.” I flick my gaze away. His sentiment isn’t enough of a reason to trust him. For all I know, his advice could be a means to make me weak—poke a hole in the armor I’ve wrapped around myself.
I can’t trust a mind reader.
He heaves the doors open. “Keep your shoulders back.”
Blowing out a breath, I take a single step into the throne room and lift my gaze.
My knees nearly go out from under me. My vision tunnels—black clouding the edges. In front of the dais, wrists strapped to a table, Katrina looks up at me, her coiled hair a mass around her golden brown face.
Blood drips from her split lip.
I hiss under my breath and lunge forward, my eyes locked with the one crew member who is my senior—the one who taught me how to steer the ship into a wave, not fight it. The one who bandaged my hands when I was still a child and rope burn sawed through my skin.
Katrina—the first member of my crew.
“Briar, no,” she mouths, blood pooling around her bottom teeth.
A fist meets the hinge of my jaw.
I’m thrown sideways, and my shoulder slams into the polished marble, bone and muscle rattling under the impact. But I don’t feel any pain. I twist and push myself upright, lip curled back at—
Julian.
My fight sputters, and the room snaps into place as his face comes into focus. He blinks, and his eyes soften for a heartbeat before he winds his arms under mine and heaves me to my feet.
“Good morning, Briar,” Golan says from the dais. He clasps his hands behind his back, and a green velvet cloak hangs from his shoulders.
I blow out a hoarse breath and stretch my neck. Katrina’s eyes haven’t left me—steady, as if she’s lending me her bravery. It wouldn’t be the first time.
“Golan,” I say. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
Over his shoulder, Kressa watches me. I never heard her return last night, and she has the same shirt and pants she wore yesterday—the sleeves stained with soot. As if noticing where my attention landed, she unfolds her hands and buries them into her pockets.
“One of your crew mates has escaped.”
My stomach bottoms out, skin growing tight around my bones. His advisors stand around the perimeter of the room, their gazes like pinpricks on my shoulders.
“Who?” I say.
A shrug. “The young one.” He twists his gaze over his shoulder toward Kressa. “What was her name again?”
“Inez,” she says.
“Ah, that’s right.” He stands from his throne and slinks down the dais, stopping beside Katrina. “What a coincidence, her disappearing the same night my emerald does.”
He stops in front of the table and pulls a blade from his belt. My heart rattles in my chest as he sets it on the table, his fingers teasing the handle.
“She didn’t escape,” I say, inching closer to the table. Closer to Katrina. “She was kidnapped.”
His head tilts, and behind him, Kressa turns her gaze out the window.
“Kidnapped?” Golan buries a hand into his pocket and pulls out a pair of handcuffs. “These were found in her cell. Why would a kidnapper take off her cuffs?”
He slams them on the table. My breaths quicken, and I glance to Kressa, but she still won’t look my way.
She knows we searched Inez’s cell and found nothing, but if I mention that, the king will know I was out of Kressa’s quarters.
He’d put me back in the prison, and if I’m there, I won’t have a way to receive any correspondence from Isolde. Or help my crew.
I shake my head. “Even if she managed to get out herself, she’s been in confinement for a decade. She was twelve when you captured her, and knows nothing about your emerald.”
“She’s been here long enough—heard enough, to know exactly how valuable something like that is.” His eyes darken, and he slips the dagger into his hand. “But if no one will tell me where she is, and if she’s not here to receive her punishment, then someone has to pay.”
He lifts his arm, and before I have a chance to scream or beg, he slams the sharp edge of the blade into Katrina’s hand, severing her pinky.
She howls, jerking against the shackles as blood pours from her hand and streams through the gaps in the wooden table. A puddle forms underneath, and I shoot forward, ripping out of Julian’s grasp.
Golan raises the blade over her other hand.
I halt, my pulse drowning out the sound of Katrina’s sobs.
“For every day that passes without your crew telling me where she went, I’ll remove one of their fingers.”
Bile rises in my throat, and I strain my hands against my cuffs, but the rhodium doesn’t give. “I’ll do anything.” My voice trembles, tears threatening in my eyes. “Please, don’t hurt them. They know nothing, I swear on it.”
“I don’t believe you.” He wipes the blade on Katrina’s shoulder and sheathes the dagger.
The information teeters on the edge of my tongue. I could tell Golan what Elayne told me—convince him to put together a search party, or interrogate women who fit the description. My gaze finds Katrina’s, and as if reading my mind, she shakes her head.
But I can’t do nothing.
“It was a woman,” I say.
Golan barks a laugh. “Well, that certainly narrows it down. And begs the question, how do you know?”
My tongue turns to cotton, and a sweat breaks across my brow as I scan the others gathered in the throne room. Advisors and guards watch me—scrutinize me, waiting for the woman who created this mess to make another mistake.
Swallowing, I shake my head. “I heard rumors from the maids.”
“Do you enjoy wasting my time, Calisdana?” Golan glares at me down the bridge of his nose. “Or are you truly so incompetent that you’d hinge information based on the maids’ whisperings?”
I press my lips into a thin line and look away. But the steady dripping of Katrina’s blood jerks at my nerves—lifting the hair on the back of my neck.
Kressa turns to her father. “Send me to go find her. The missing crew member. If she has the emerald, which I believe she does, I can bring both her and the stone back to Ignata.”
“Your place is here,” he says.
“But I have years of bounty hunting. There wasn’t a single mark that I didn’t find.” She gestures to me. “Even the princess whose identity evaded everyone. We’re running out of options, and out of everyone here, I am most capable.”
Golan sucks in a cheek, considering his words. “It would make an impression of strength to have a member of the royal family make appearances. But Elias is far too valuable to send on the ship.”
I don’t miss the way she flinches.
The king adjusts his collar, loosening it away from his neck. “Very well, then. You’ll leave after Calisdana’s execution.”
“But this is an emergency.” Kressa steps closer. “We don’t have three days to waste. I need to leave as soon as possible.”
My gaze jumps between the two of them. If there’s any time for me to plead my case, it’s now.
Elias’s words replay in my head. Use your anger as your sword and your shield.
“I want to go with her,” I blurt, then turn my attention to Kressa. “I want to find Inez just as much as you do, and I know how to navigate the waters. It’ll take a fraction of the time.”
Kressa scoffs and shakes her head. “Absolutely not.”
I tilt my chin. “Perhaps your father would like to hear more about what happened in Sarenia.”
The blood drains from her face, and Golan furrows his brow. A slow smile pulls at my lips, and the air takes on a tension—an electric charge. A thick layer of rhodium coats my wrists, but I sense a faint swell of anger rush over the bond.
Every set of eyes turns to her, waiting.
“She has a point,” Kressa says, gnawing on her lip. “When we find Inez, she can help get her back. And if the girl knows the whereabouts of the emerald, Briar can get the information out of her.”
Golan barks a laugh and turns his back to us. “Queen Calisdana will not be seeing the ocean again in her lifetime. That is final.”
My hands curl into fists, and a sour taste fills my mouth.
“Bandage the prisoner’s hand and take her back to the dungeon.” Golan points at Katrina, her back heaving on a rough inhale. “And return the queen to her room.”
Julian wraps a hand around my upper arm, and Kressa presses her lips into a thin line, watching as he drags me toward the exit. A guard unlocks Katrina’s chain from the table, and she slumps to the ground.
Tears burn my eyes, and my feet cross the threshold of the throne room. As the doors swings shut, the last thing I see is Kressa—her gaze hardened on me.