Chapter 61
“What is the meaning of this?”
The King’s voice roared across the chamber, rattling the leaded glass windows. The lords, their eyes still swollen and heavy from sleep, lowered their heads in shame.
“My two daughters. Two! They were attacked in their very beds, and where were any of you?” he demanded, his finger snapping through the air to point directly toward Meera and me.
I turned my gaze toward my sister.
She was still sitting with her feet drawn up onto the velvet chair, hugging her knees tightly against her chest. Her hands were still stained with Corian's blood, and her hair hung in a tangled, wild mess around her pale face.
“Where is Sanaedeo?” the King shouted, turning his fury upon Faran.
Faran looked up at him from beneath his heavy brows, his expression hooded. “The prince left the court a fortnight ago,” he said, his tone almost mimicking sadness.
I narrowed my eyes at him. Leaning forward, I placed my blood-slicked hands flat onto the dark oak table, lacing my sticky, stained fingers together.
“Instead of protecting his sisters, he disappears to do heaven knows what. From this moment on, he is to remain confined to the court,” the King declared, slamming himself angrily back into his chair.
He wrenched the silver wine pitcher toward himself with such brute force that the liquid spilled across the wood, before he threw the entire vessel aside, spilling what little he had in his glass.
I could feel the heavy sapphire pressing against my thigh through the fabric of my pocket, almost as though the stone were burning a hole straight through my skin.
I bit the inside of my cheek, tasting copper, and licked my teeth as I stared back at Faran.
He had been staring at the overturned cup on the table the entire time, refusing to meet my eyes.
“Father.”
Every head in the room snapped toward me as I rose from my chair, tightly wrapping the heavy woolen blanket around my body, the one a guard had thrown over my shoulders when we had first encountered the living soldiers in the lower corridors.
“It is entirely clear that this was an inside job. Not only did half the guards who were supposed to be on duty tonight vanish without a trace, but the mercenaries themselves behaved as though they possessed one specific goal“
I paused, letting the silence hang as I looked at my father. His tired eyes moved across my blood-spattered body, but it was almost as though he couldn't bring himself to look directly at my face, splattered with gore and still hungry for more.
“And that goal was to slaughter our knights. One of the killers even said so himself!” At that exact moment, my gaze shifted directly to Faran. His long fingers began tapping rhythmically against the armrest of his chair.
“Our knights nearly surrendered their lives for us, yet it seems that our own safety was never truly in danger at all,” I said, my voice cutting through the damp air.
Father drew in a deep, ragged breath. “Daughter, that makes no sense. We are eternally grateful to them for their defense, but your knights are utterly expendable compared to the two of you,” he said, his hand idly nudging the broken cup on the table.
“I am only implying that—” I began, but Faran suddenly turned his head, his sharp gaze interrupting me.
“Sister, I find myself with a wondering question,” he said, his cold, dead eyes piercing straight through my skin. The hairs on the back of my neck rose instantly, my skin prickling beneath the venom of his gaze.
“And what would that be, brother?” I asked, forcing my voice to remain steady, fighting to appear as casual and untouchable as possible.
For a heartbeat, he narrowed his eyes, calculating. Then he straightened his spine, licked his lower lip, and flashed a slow, serpentine smile. “Forget the thought.”
He simply turned back toward the King, but a sudden surge of adrenaline and raw courage compelled me to press further. I licked my lips, tasting someone else's blood upon them, and tightened my fingers around the hidden sapphire.
“It seems, brother, that the greatest tragedy in this room is that our knights actually survived. As though we are currently standing on trial simply because they refused to die.”
I raised a single, judgmental eyebrow, and he only let out a soft, mocking chuckle.
“Sister, is there something you would care to ask me?”
A suffocating silence settled over the council room, and every pair of eyes shifted toward me. The lords tightened their grips around their goblets, while only Meera broke the quiet, resting her forehead against her knees and weeping softly.
“No, brother. Of course not. It seems I am only shaken by the fact that I drove a blade through a man’s spine tonight,” I said, pressing my lips into a thin line and raising my brows innocently.
“Settle your mind, then. Luckily, your knights were within your private chambers to defend you,” he said, and my stomach twisted into a violent knot. Yet he, the ever-better player in our deadly games, immediately turned his attention toward Meera.
“Sister, how fares Ser Corian?”
She merely lifted her swollen eyes, her nostrils flaring with unadulterated hatred, before lowering her gaze back to her lap.
“Fortunately, Ser Corian survived, though the maestar claims his wounds are of very great danger,” one of the older lords spoke up, and I nearly hurled my goblet at his head for the senseless intrusion.
“Ah, then we must thank the heavens,” Faran said, his eyes locking onto mine. And then, in that exact moment, as my heart skipped a beat and a cold sweat broke across my skin at his words, I understood completely what the dying mercenary's words had truly meant.
I rose fully to my feet, yanking Meera up by her forearm, and turned toward the King. “Father, allow us to visit the infirmary. Ten guards are waiting outside to escort us, and my own Ser is quite badly wounded. I wish to see to his condition personally.”
The King, whom I could finally accept was a good, just man, but also incredibly naive and utterly blind to the vipers nesting within his own court, nodded, muttering promises that he would unearth whoever had orchestrated this treason.
I offered him a tight bow and turned toward the heavy stone doors.
“Take care, dear sisters!” Faran’s voice called out behind us.
Meera walked ahead of me, escorted by the guards, while I paused for only a single fraction of a second in the shadow of the corridor.
I pulled the small sapphire from my pocket and tilted it toward the torchlight. I ran my thumb across the flat bottom of the gemstone where, like every precious stone refined within the boundaries of this realm at one of its three official refineries, the origin mark was permanently engraved.
“3SS,” I whispered under my breath.
Finally, the final pieces of the puzzle slammed into place.
Three Stags.
It was the infamous city east of Sea Port, the city renowned for possessing the most decadent brothels, filled with the youngest and most exotic women, the city of limitless wine, dark alleyways, and the wealthiest gambling houses in the realm.
The city only Faran ever visited.