“Believe me, this isn’t how I saw my day going, either. How about you let us go, so we can all carry on with our days.”
“So you can report back to my mother and bring her full wrath down upon us? I think not.” She huffed and scowled. “But it is a difficult position you put me in. I’m not ready to unite the thrones yet and—”
“Unite?” Kat raised her eyebrows. “Bring Dawn and Dusk together?”
Sura sighed. “I forgot how impatient humans can be. Bring together… in a manner. When I take the throne, it won’t be divided.”
“You want to rule alone. You’re not going to Sleep.”
The Circle of Ash.
Hadn’t the Lady said we’d find the answers to both problems together? That meant this palace had to be Ashara.
And this had to be our execution. We knew the location of her base. It was the only logical course.
If I could make her believe we were more useful alive, that might buy us some time. But that was our only hope.
“Now, how did you find out about that?” Sura canted her head at Kat. “This is another reason to wait—I need more spies in the palace.”
More. Meaning she already had at least one. I bowed my head to hide my reaction. She must not realise how much information she was letting slip. She had been away from court for fifteen years, surrounded only by those she trusted. She was out of practice.
“Regardless”—she shrugged—“the split system is broken.”
“Why not marry Prince Cyrus, then? Rule together.”
Sura wrinkled her nose. “It had crossed my mind—a long, long time ago. But you’ve met the Day Prince. You understand why that’s not my preferred plan. Besides, there should be only one monarch. One queen. One court. One nation, together.”
Exactly the instability I feared Dawn causing with the Circle.
“Only one queen, but three heads.” I nodded towards the banner hanging behind her table, the hydra’s eyes picked out in gold thread.
She sucked in her cheeks and looked away. “How well do you really know the queen you serve, Bastian?”
Deflecting.
I raised an eyebrow, refusing to take her bait. She wanted to sow a seed in my mind, make me wonder what she might be referring to. She really was out of practice if she thought that would work on me.
“Do you understand the lengths she’d go to in order to protect herself?”
“She protects Dusk.”
Brow set in a determined line, Kat leant forward. “Are you going to just hint that she’s done something terrible or actually tell us what it is?”
“There isn’t anything,” I gritted out. “She’s trying to change the subject.”
“You wouldn’t believe me. Even if I took arianmêl, you’d say I was evading the truth.” The princess gave a humourless laugh. “Ask your father if you really want to know.”
More bluffing.
She rolled her eyes at me. “Stars above, are you predictable. Loyal to the queen. ‘She elevated me to her second in command, and all I had to do was kill my father.’ It’s so boring.”
Trying to make me angry. Almost succeeding. Maybe she was warming up.
“Since you went to such trouble to save Kat’s life, I assume you’re not going to execute us right this second. What do you want? If you get on with it, I can stop boring you.”
“I haven’t decided what to do with you two. Execution isn’t off the table yet.” She smiled sweetly. “But for now, I’ll take a bargain. My guards will take you to your room and remove your manacles. In return you and Katherine will not in any way harm me or my people for the duration of your stay.”
She’d already threatened Kat’s life if we made an escape attempt. Perhaps she didn’t trust me not to take that risk. It had crossed my mind—there had to be a way we could get out and keep her safe from the archers.
Still, bound in iron, I would only grow weaker and weaker. At least this way, I stood a chance of recovering while in our room. She had to mean cell, but I supposed this way it would be a “fun surprise” for us when we arrived.
“No manacles, no one hurts Kat, and we get a nice suite with a bed and bath—something fitting of a diplomat from Dusk.”
“No one hurts her as long as you don’t attempt to escape or unless I decide on execution. That’s non-negotiable. You want a bath, you’ll have one room. There are no spare suites.” She shrugged. “But ‘nice’ I can do.”
“You have yourself a bargain.” I raised my eyebrows at Kat, since she would be bound to it, too.
“And no one hurts Bastian.”
Sura rolled her eyes. “If it wasn’t so sickening, it would be sweet. But yes, fine. Happy now?”
It wasn’t going to get any better than that, and I intended to escape before they had a chance to execute us.
We agreed, and the princess and I sealed our sides of the bargain. Kat flinched away when she went to touch her.
“Relax, the iron nullifies your magic. Can’t you feel how wrong that is, even for a gifted human?” Sura shook her hand and spoke the words of power. “It is so.”
Kat stared, and I could see how she squeezed back. Her little exhale hollowed out my chest. Aside from poisoning Ella, this was the first time she’d touched anyone other than me in months.
And today she’d almost died.
The horror of that followed me through the corridors as guards led us away.
65
Kat
“Nice,” it turned out, was an understatement.
Our room was large and furnished in Dusk colours, with a canopied four-poster bed and sunset painted across the ceiling. Granted, it was missing a window and ivy grew in through cracks in the wall, but roses climbed over the windowsill and somehow the room wasn’t cold. Bastian muttered something about it being magically sealed. The guards removed our manacles and deposited our saddlebags—they must’ve found our stags. They left, locking the door behind them.
Bastian drew a long breath like it was the first he’d taken in minutes, and the colour flooded back into his skin.
The purple stain rushed back into my nails and fingertips, too, much less welcome.
He shuddered as if shaking off the iron’s effects, and then he was towering over me, cupping my cheek. “Are you all right? Are you sure?”
I rubbed my chest. “The healer said it just missed my heart. That’s the only reason I survived long enough to get here. But I’m fine.” I closed my fingers around his wrist. “Are you? You looked so ill.”
“A little nauseous and weak, but I’ll be fine. As long as the exposure isn’t prolonged or in the bloodstream, iron poisoning wears off eventually.”
“So… since I’m not fae, if I wore something made of iron, it would cut off my magic but otherwise I’d have no ill effects?” I felt tired and queasy, yes, but not so long ago, I’d had an arrow sticking out of my chest. I’d take queasy over that.
His expression closed down into a frown as he slid his hand to my shoulder. “Why?”
I cleared my throat and backed away, slipping from his grasp. “Don’t you want to discuss what just happened? The princess—she’s alive.”