Chapter 56
Kiera
I gaped at him.
For a moment—just one horrible moment—my old self lifted her head with hope. He cared.
Then I squashed that thought like the poisonous spider it was, trying to draw me back into his web of lies.
This was what he did. This was how low he would stoop to trick my mind. To win this game he played with my life.
“You lie,” I whispered as if we were playing a game of Death and Four and I was calling his bluff.
“Do I?” He wrenched Mother’s knife from my hand. “I’m leading you to see your brother and sister. Alive and well in their rooms, just as you left them.”
“Because you needed to dangle them in front of me like bait.” I lunged for my knife, but he was faster, stepping out of my reach.
He stared at the glittering weapon. “I wondered what it would take for you to reveal this, to show your true intentions.”
I grit my teeth. Was that what this had been about? If so, I’d failed spectacularly.
“Strange to think I won’t be able to make more of these, thanks to you and”—he smirked—“Mynastra. But no matter, I have more than enough weapons for whatever vengeful plans are swirling in your head, my little apprentice.”
With that, he turned on his boot heel and strode off down the hall. I followed more slowly, shaken to my core.
I’d come here with such confidence, such surety of my thoughts and emotions. That he wouldn’t be able to break me.
But he’d already cracked me open.
He walked up to Delysia’s bedroom door, where two guards stood outside. He knocked instead of barging in like I expected him to.
“Come in,” Delysia said from the other side.
I shoved past Renwell and burst into the room. And there she was. With Everett. Alive and well, just as Renwell said.
Delysia was facing the door in a plain pink dress, her face drawn and tired. But she lit up when I barreled into her, throwing my arms around her. I cried, unable to help myself. Delysia’s body, which seemed thinner and less curvy than before, was shaking.
Everett wrapped his arms around both of us, his scent of books and ink immediately soothing me.
“We thought you were dead,” Delysia whispered. “When Renwell told us of the mine, we thought you were dead, Kiera.”
I drew away, looking over my shoulder. But Renwell was gone, along with my knife, and the door was closed. “He told you about Calimber?”
Delysia nodded, wiping away her tears with a wrinkled handkerchief.
Everett kept his hand on my shoulder. “He said it’s completely destroyed. That you were likely with the rebels who did it, except no one made it out.”
My upper lip curled. He hadn’t been surprised when he saw me. Someone had to have reported our ships fleeing. He’d only said such things to hurt my siblings.
I will always hate you, Renwell.
“I thought perhaps he’d already captured you, before the loss of Calimber,” Everett said, rubbing his ink-stained fingers on his unshaven chin. “He spends a lot of time in the palace dungeon.”
I frowned. “How do you know that?”
“We . . . follow him sometimes.”
My eyes widened, and I glanced at Delysia.
She nodded. “We use the secret passages. Mostly the ones we’re sure he doesn’t know about. We were trying to see if he knew anything about you he wasn’t telling us.”
“That was incredibly brave and incredibly stupid,” I said, even as my heart warmed at their concern. “Do you have any idea what he might’ve done if he’d caught you spying on him?”
Delysia’s eyes, so like our mother’s, hardened. “We were right next to him when he paraded our father’s head and body around the city. We knew what kind of man he was during the Pravaran rebellion. We both tried to warn you about him.”
I staggered back a step. Her words peeled the thin skin off a barely healed wound.
She was right. They’d shared their misgivings several times. I’d thought they were jealous at first, that I was to train under such a powerful High Enforcer. That I wouldn’t have to fill the role Father wanted me to, as they did.
And then I tossed their worries away because I feared if I accepted them, I would have to admit my own mistakes in trusting Renwell.
But the damage was already done, and far from over.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “I should’ve listened. I just . . . couldn’t in those moments.”
Delysia’s face softened. “I know. When Renwell said you had joined the rebels who had tried to assassinate Father, it gave me pride, not disappointment, as he probably intended.”
I smiled. “I hope Mother would have felt the same.”
Delysia frowned. “What do you mean?”
I sat down on one of Delysia’s—Mother’s—settees. Everett and Delysia joined me as I told them what our mother had done, how Aiden had helped her, and how our father had covered it up.
Delysia wept into her handkerchief. Everett dashed at his eyes with the embroidered sleeve of his jacket.
“Is that why you went with them?” Delysia asked, her eyes pink and swollen. “Because you found out what really happened with Mother?”
I shook my head. “Not at first. But I knew I needed to after Arduen’s Mountain. I helped free the prisoners and destroy the mine for her. And for Rellmira. Now I’m going to do the same for you.”
Delysia and Everett shared a look. It pinched my heart that I was on the outside of it. They’d had to survive in a different way than I had. It’d clearly brought them closer.
“We don’t have anywhere to go,” Everett said, leaning back in a velvet armchair. “Renwell’s announcement of Father’s usurpation, coupled with our lack of relationships outside this palace, has truly sealed our fates here.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “You want to stay? With him? After all the warnings you gave me—”
“He doesn’t hurt us,” Delysia interrupted.
“He lies to us, keeps secrets, sure. But what good would we do on the street? Who could we trust to help us? We can trust Renwell to be untrustworthy. And we were hoping—before he surmised you’d died in Calimber—that you would come back and we could help you overthrow him.
” Delysia smiled, a distant look in her eyes.
“Then I would run away with Henry, and Everett could be a Teacher in one of the Temples.”
I glanced at Everett with raised eyebrows.
He smiled sheepishly. “It’s what I’ve always wanted. I just never thought it would be possible with becoming king and all.”
It made sense. And judging by the ink stains on Everett’s fingers, Renwell was still allowing him to use the library. Giving Everett what he wanted until Renwell needed something in return, no doubt.
“But . . . I need to get you out of here,” I said, still surprised I had to argue with them on this. I’d thought they’d be desperate to leave. “It’s going to be too dangerous for you to stay.”
“Why?” Delysia demanded, crushing her soiled handkerchief in her fist. “Is that why you’re here now? What are you going to do?”
I hesitated. “I shouldn’t say it here.”
“Closet,” both my siblings said.
I chuckled. Mother’s large, stuffed closet had been where we used to go for private conversations because all her clothes muffled our voices.
Perched in the narrow room, amid Delysia’s dresses and shoes, I told them our plan.
We talked long into the night.
At some point, a knock interrupted us, and a guard brought in enough food for six people. Roasted chicken with seared vegetables, potatoes fried in garlic and rosemary, and fresh biscuits with a bowl of soft butter.
Delysia looked at me with wide eyes. “Renwell must know your favorite meal.”
I scowled. “I would’ve preferred my knife back.”
But I ate as much as I could, anyway. I’d barely eaten in the last week.
Delysia was excited about our plan and kept reassuring me that Henry was up to the task, even though I was the one who’d summoned him.
“And Aiden truly is a Falcryn?” Everett asked, still amazed at what Aiden had done to try to make him king.
“The last one,” I said. “He may not know it yet, but he will be one of the greatest kings.”
Delysia smiled with those sappy eyes I used to tease her for. “You love him.”
This time, I didn’t hesitate to admit it. “Yes, I do.”
“He’d better treat you well,” Everett said, his profile suddenly stern in the firelight.
“He does, Everett. I pray you’ll meet him soon.”
However this battle ended, I wanted everyone I loved in the world to be with me under one roof, even if it didn’t last.
Once we were done and had talked ourselves out, Everett and I left.
A guard stepped forward. “My lady, the king requested I escort you to your room.”
My eyes narrowed. “I know where it is.”
Renwell was undoubtedly looking forward to watching my every move from his study next door. Unless he’d moved to Father’s.
The guard, an older man who’d been working in the palace since I could remember—Pierce, shook his head. “Not your apprentice room, he said. He thought you’d be more comfortable in the room you had since you were a child.”
I pursed my lips. Or perhaps he feared my spying on him more than he wanted to spy on me.
But it certainly wasn’t for my comfort.
“Lead on then,” I said. I wished Everett a good sleep and followed Pierce to my old bedroom just down the hall.
He opened the familiar arched door for me. The scent of lilies and fresh air washed over me. I wandered inside, and Pierce quietly closed the door behind me.
It was surprisingly clean after years of being vacant. Fresh blankets covered my bed. The silk awning looked clean and smooth. My small fireplace was swept and loaded with chopped wood. Fresh purple lilies in vases on every table were an expert finishing touch.
Renwell had been expecting me, after all.
I tiptoed through my room as though I might disturb someone.
Mother was everywhere in here. My lavender walls displayed her dreamy paintings of flowers and vines. A brush still lay on my dressing table, left there since the last time she’d brushed my hair.
I opened the narrow doors to my balcony, breathing in the cool, salty air. It smelled like home. Or at least the home from my memory. Where I was happiest for a time.
My windows faced west over the cliffs the palace sat atop, overlooking the plains and the river.
I’d spent so long staring at this view, wishing I could go beyond these walls and explore the world. Ride a horse across that plain, like a driver from Winspere. Sail down the river. Stand in the mystical forest of Twaryn. Meet new people. Experience new things.
I’d done all that. Not in the way I’d always imagined. But daydreams rarely included the mess of suffering and loss.
The iron chairs and stone table on my balcony were also clean. As if Mother had just eaten her breakfast with us this morning before disappearing into her garden.
I sat on a chair and closed my eyes. Listened to the gentle breeze. And dreamed new dreams.
The next morning, I awoke to a knock. I’d changed into my thickest sleeping gown before going to bed last night, but I still threw on a dressing robe.
I knew who it was before I opened the door.
Renwell stood in my doorway, looking well-rested in similar clothing to yesterday’s. But without the crown or the cloak. A familiar wooden box was tucked under his arm.
He smiled, soft and pleasant. A lie. “Play with me?”
Memories nipped at the back of my mind. He’d asked me the same question in the same stance many times during our years of training.
But everything else had changed.
“No.”
His smile grew. “Not even to get your precious siblings out of Aquinon?”
My breath snagged. This was his plan? To get me to wager their freedom? For what?
It didn’t matter when neither of them wanted to leave just yet. But Renwell didn’t need to know that.
“And if I lose?” I asked.
“Then you will grant the favor I ask.”
Dread churned in my stomach. This was precisely what Aiden had worried would happen. “What favor?”
Renwell’s eyes narrowed with predatory confidence. “Play with me and find out.”