The Prisoner's Throne (The Stolen Heir Duology, #2)(77)

“Why not suspect me?” Oak demands, voice rising.

Taryn gives a little laugh, at odds with the tears staining her cheeks. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it? I found his body,” the prince insists. “And I have a motive, after all.”

“Explain,” Cardan says, mouth a grim line.

Jude seems to sense what’s coming. There are too many people around, guards, courtiers, Randalin, and Baphen. “Whatever Oak has to tell us, he can tell us in private.”

“Then by all means,” says Cardan, “let’s depart.”

But Oak doesn’t want to be quiet. Maybe it’s the blusher mushroom in his blood, maybe it’s the sheer frustration of the moment. “He murdered my first mother. He’s the reason she died, and you both—you all—hid it from me.”

A hush goes through the courtiers like a gust of wind.

Oak feels the delirious abandon of breaking the rules. In a family of deceivers, telling the truth—out loud, where anyone could hear it—was a massive transgression. “You allowed me to treat him like a friend, and all the while you knew we were spitting on my mother’s memory.”

A drawn-out silence follows his last word. Oriana has a white-fingered hand pressing against her mouth. She didn’t know, either.

Finally, Cardan speaks. “You make a very good point. You had an excellent reason to try to kill him. But did you?”

“I urge you all,” interrupts Randalin, “if for no other reason than discretion, let us repair to the tents at Insear. We will have some nettle tea and calm ourselves. As the High Queen says, this is not a conversation to be had in public.”

Jude nods. This may be the first time Randalin and Jude ever agreed on anything.

“If my family had their way,” says Oak, “this isn’t a conversation we’d have at all.”

Then, from across the Milkwood, there’s a scream.

Moments later, a knight steps into the clearing, looking as though she’s run all the way there. “We found another body.”

Most of the remaining knot of courtiers begin to move in the direction of the scream, and Oak goes along, though he still feels unsteady. They know he’s poisoned, at least. If he falls down, no one will have many questions.

“Whose?” Jude demands.

They don’t have to go far, though, and he sees the body before she gets her answer.

Lady Elaine, lying in a heap, one of her small wings half crushed when she fell from the horse that is nuzzling the end of her skirts. Lady Elaine, her cheek stained with mud. Her eyes open. Her lips purple.

Oak shakes his head, taking a step back. Hand coming up to cover his mouth. Two people poisoned—three people, counting himself. Because of the conspiracy?

Cardan is watching him with an unreadable expression. “Your friend?”

The Roach moves to Oak, puts one green clawed hand against the middle of his back. “Let’s go ahead to Insear, as the Minister of Keys said. You’re upset. Death’s upsetting.”

Oak gives him a wary look, and the goblin holds up his hands in surrender, his black eyes sympathetic. “I had no part in Liriope’s murder nor these,” the Roach says. “But I can’t claim I’ve never done anything wrong.”

Oak nods slowly. He can’t claim that, either.

He mounts up again on Jack, who has obligingly become a horse again. The goblin rides a fat, spotted pony, low to the ground. Behind him, someone is saying that the festivities can’t possibly go on as planned.

Oak thinks of Elaine, lying in the dirt. Elaine, who was dangerously ambitious and foolish. Had she told the rest of the conspirators that she was quitting and received this in answer?

His mind turns to Wren, with the vulture’s talons digging into her skin. Her blank expression. He keeps trying to understand why Wren endures it without crying out or striking back.

Does it have something to do with Garrett and Elaine being poisoned?

Oak was a fool to bring Wren here. When he gets to the tents on Insear, he’s going to find hers. Then he is going to get them both off the isles and out of this vipers’ nest. Away from Bogdana. Away from his family. Maybe they could live in the woods outside her mortal family’s home. She’d said, back when they were questing, that she’d like to visit her sister. What was her name? Bex. They could eat scavenged berries and look up at the stars.

Or maybe Wren wants to go back north, to the Citadel. That’s fine, too.

“How long have you known?” the goblin asks.

For a moment, Oak isn’t sure what he means. “About what Garrett did? Not long.” Above them, the black bees of the Milkwood buzz, carrying nectar to their queen. Late afternoon sunlight turns the pale trees gold. He sets his jaw. “Someone should have told me.”

“Someone clearly did,” says the Roach.

Leander, he supposes, which hardly counts. And Hyacinthe, although he didn’t know the whole of it. Oak doesn’t want to blame either of them out loud, not to someone who will carry the tale to his sister. He understands what the Roach is doing, getting him alone like this, understands it well enough to avoid the trap. He shrugs.

“Did you poison him?” the Roach asks.

“I thought Garrett poisoned me,” the prince says, shaking his head.

“Never,” says the goblin. “He regretted what he did to Liriope. Tried to make it up to Locke by giving him his true name. But Locke’s not the person to trust with that sort of thing.”