Chapter Thirty-Three
The chaos only multiplies.
Some call for Gustav to step down. Others call for his death.
Even more call for the return of King Stova’s daughter. They demand that Gustav share my whereabouts at once, but he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know where I am.
That I am here, held captive by his king and dearest friend.
“No! I’m here!” I shout, twisting around, but then Anton is there, his hand gripping my upper arm. But I have to get free. I can’t let Gustav take the fall—
“Vasalie,” Anton says, pulling me with him, “we should go.”
“How could you say that?” I grab his arm, pleading. “Anton, they are revolting because they think you are dead! But you aren’t. You are here, right here, and so am I—”
“This is not my fight. Gustav brought this on himself,” he says coldly.
“Do you hear yourself? Fates, Anton, will you really condone the blood of your own people? They won’t stop with killing Gustav! They will root out anyone who supports him! People are going to die!”
He attempts to tug me with him, but I rip from his grasp as another voice calls out from the other side. “King killer! Kidnapper!”
“Traitor to the crown! To us all!”
I have to get out there. Even if Anton does nothing—Fates, I want to strangle him!—I could help, perhaps convince them of the truth. But even as I think it, I know it’s foolish, reckless, hopeless.
Through the glass, I see more and more pushing against the guards, trying to get to Gustav.
It happens in a blink. Some lord draws a dagger, strikes at Gustav’s right cheek. The skin flays down to his jaw, blood welling—
I wrench from Anton’s grip and run toward the tunnel entrance we passed, because I can’t do nothing. I have to help. Somehow.
Strong arms wrap around me. Lift me up.
Then all of a sudden Anton is dragging me through the tunnel, away from the throne room.
“They’re going to kill him!” I scream at the top of my lungs. I don’t stop there, my voice fraying with my shrieks. I thrash against him, flail—
Anton pushes me up against the wall in the room just outside, his hand coming to cover my mouth.
I am caged between his arms, and all the while, I hear shouts of triumph. Of chaos. Calling for more of Gustav’s blood, for his death.
I gust hot air against Anton’s palm, red sparking across my vision like the spit of a furnace. Once more, I try to get free, but he does not waver, pinning me against the wall even as the pandemonium echoes. Something crashes, the sound of glass shattering.
“Let me go,” I plead, though my lips barely form the words under the heat of Anton’s palm. “If you are going to stay here and do nothing, the least you could do is allow me—”
“You are not about to go out there and get yourself killed.”
“What does it matter?” I cry, wriggling again. “Even if they do, I will end up back in Moranya’s Lair!”
“That does not take away the pain of death, Vasalie. Or should I call you Vastianna Stova, the kidnapped daughter of Maksim Stova, who will surely be apprehended and returned to him the moment she makes an appearance?”
I freeze in his arms, meeting his eyes at last. “You—you know who I am?”
He scoffs. “You think I didn’t put two and two together? I knew you weren’t a mere commoner. I can tell within a few minutes if someone hails from my country, and you most certainly did not. I also noticed the way you layer your food—a very Brisendali trait.”
Even so, that isn’t enough to peg me as the general’s daughter. It doesn’t add up, but I don’t have time to dwell on it, not when the court is in full pandemonium. Not when I realize that maybe…maybe there’s another way I can convince him, now that he knows who I am.
I swallow and look into his eyes, green as a copper sulfite flame and blazing as bright as the aurora itself.
I clutch the seam of his jacket before he can pull me away. “Your people cannot survive without you, Anton,” I say. “Can’t you see that? If it’s a kingdom you want, you already had one, if only you dare to reclaim it. You are beloved—”
“We will not discuss this, Vas—”
“And if that isn’t enough, so be it,” I say.
“If your kingdom isn’t enough, I offer you mine, too.
Marry me, Anton,” I say, pressing a hand against his heart, pleading with everything I have.
My eyes swell with tears that burn hot in my throat.
“My father has claimed me, and his wife died without an heir. I will inherit his throne. Help me kill him. Place a ring on my finger and I will lay the Brisendali scepter at your feet. We will unite both Miridran and Brisendale, and they will be yours.”
I wait for his reaction, and yet he just…watches me, inscrutable. And with every second that stretches, so too does the distance between us, a gap that is far from physical but all the more painful.
The words “I love you” fall from my lips. Soft and broken. Pitiful, even.
I don’t expect him to love me back. Even so, I whisper it one more time. “I love you, Anton.”
More shouting echoes from the throne room—cries even—but my eyes can’t seem to leave his. Please.
“Vasalie,” he says, and his voice is so full of pity it tips my tears over the edge.
“How can you ask me that when you have yet to be honest with me?” He looks between my eyes as he speaks.
“You wish me to trust you, to take your hand in marriage, yet you worked for the very man who wished me dead. You were my brother’s Jewel. ”
My heart lurches. He found out about Illian. “How—”
But then I think of the way he was when we first arrived in Ansa. In the workshop. He’d been more solemn than I had ever seen him. Angry, almost.
Had Sundar told him? Had someone else recognized me and told him the truth? But then, wouldn’t the curse prevent that? My tenure as Illian’s Jewel was relevant to the Gathering, but it happened far before.
Unless Illian told Anton himself. He would do anything to prevent Anton from getting attached to me, I’m certain.
Shouts splice into the moment, cutting it apart. “Quick! Bring him this way!” someone says.
They’re in the tunnels.
“Call for the physician! The regent is badly injured—”
Anton scoops me off my feet.
Then he’s marching me in the other direction, away from the voices, winding through the tunnels that lead back into the eastern wing—and I realize he means to return the both of us to the decrepit Lair of Moranya. He means to do nothing.
“How could you,” I sob once more—a last desperate plea. “I am offering you everything you lost, and I am offering you myself.” Everything I have to give.
He doesn’t even pause, the rejection splicing deeper into my heart than even a knife could manage. And it isn’t just me he’s rejecting.
“If not for me, for them,” I cry. “You don’t have to ever love me. But your people deserve their king. They deserve protection. They need you with them!”
But I get no response. Not even a glance.
Hope leaves me, turns to sludge in my throat. Sobs that claw their way up, messy and wet and sluicing over his tunic as he carries me through yet another hidden corridor.
“Leave me,” I rasp through another turn. “If you won’t help me—or the millions you will let suffer—the least you can do is let me go to my friends!” Again I thrash.
“I will do no such thing,” he says, the chapel above ground coming into view.
If the prophecy will come true, this is how it will happen.
By his refusal to act. Over and over, I try to wriggle free from his hold as he descends the stairs, but he proves just how strong he is—and how small I am in comparison.
His large arms, corded with muscle, encompass me with an unyielding grip around both my legs and my shoulders.
My vision is tear-streaked. Fatigue presses in like a cold, sick clamor.
Stars filter into my sight—hundreds of them.
Thousands.
My body goes limp.