“Take me with you,” she pleaded. If there were new visions of what was to come…
“Only Kharavian royal blood can visit the temple of the seer,” the commander said.
And apparently the commander, Norah added to herself in frustration. She pursed her lips. Rules didn’t apply to him.
Mikael frowned. “You’ll stay here,” he told her. He cast an eye toward Artem, then he and the commander strode out, leaving her with only the captain.
And just like that, she was a prisoner again.
Chapter fifty-five
Norah woke to Vitalia calling her in a panicked voice.
“Salara! Salara!” her maid cried. “You have to wake up. Something terrible has happened!”
Norah sat up with alarm, blinking the sleep from her eyes and trying to focus her mind. “What? What’s happened?”
“It’s Bremhad!”
What? “What about Bremhad?”
“He didn’t come home last night. Kiran found him on the workmen’s stairs, just outside the kitchens.”
Vitalia’s words came too quickly, and Norah was having trouble following. “Wait, but… is he all right? Where is he now?”
Her maid paused, swallowing, and then shook her head. “He’s dead, Salara.”
Norah clenched her quilts in her fists. A weight crushed her chest. She couldn’t breathe. Dead? Her mind swirled around her. She stumbled from the bed and let Vitalia help her with a dress. “Where’s Kiran?” she asked, her voice trembling.
“At the public mortium.”
The mortium. She felt as though a dagger had been thrust into her chest. “W-What happened?” she stammered as Vitalia quickly finished the lacing on her dress and ran to get her cloak.
“The prefect is saying Bremhad fell on the stairs and hit his head, that it was an accident.”
Norah swept out of her sanctuary with Vitalia beside her.
“But it makes no sense,” her maid continued. “Bremhad doesn’t even come into the castle, except to tend to the greens on your balcony when you’re out. He wouldn’t have been on the stairs last night.”
Vitalia led the way to the public mortium, a large stone building where Bremhad’s body had been taken. Norah followed her inside. The halls were poorly lit, and the smell of death hung heavy in the air. Vitalia led her down a long hall, past a series of open chambers. Pale bodies lay atop wooden tables. Norah pulled her cloak tighter. They reached a chamber at the end of the hall. Inside, a woman was weeping. Norah entered to see Kiran and an older woman, presumably his mother. They were cleaning the body of his father, who lay on a table in the center of the room.
Bremhad.
And it hit her.
This was her fault. Her eyes stung. It was another message from the lord commander. He was punishing her by hurting those around her, those she cared about.
The older woman wept as she worked, sponging Bremhad’s head and gently smoothing his silver hair. Kiran looked up when he heard them enter, and his tear-stricken eyes widened in surprise. “Salara,” he said as he stepped toward her. “You didn’t have to come here, to this place.”
“Of course, I did! Kiran, I’m so sorry,” she cried, tears streaming down her own cheeks.
Suddenly, Kiran’s eyes moved over her shoulder to someone behind her, and she turned to see Captain Artem.
Kiran bared his teeth with a ragged breath of wrath. “You did this!”
He rushed the captain but was caught by two of her Crest guards.
“You did this!” he thundered at Artem. “I know you did this!”
“Kiran!” Norah cried as her guardsmen dragged him from the room and down the hall. What was happening? She could only stand in horror as Kiran’s bellows echoed through the mortium. She gaped back at Artem. “Did you really do this?”
“The prefect has ruled it an accident,” he answered calmly.
That didn’t answer her question, and horror struck her. Kiran’s roars still echoed from the hall. “Where are they taking him?” she demanded.
The captain looked at her with gloating eyes. He didn’t answer. Then he turned and left the chamber.
Norah stumbled backward in disbelief but caught herself against the wall. Vitalia stepped forward and clasped her arm. “Are you all right, Salara?”
She’d forgotten her maid was even there. She looked back at Kiran’s mother, who stood frozen, still grieving her husband and frightened for her son.
The woman swallowed back her emotion to give a small nod of her head, and whispered, “Salara.”
Norah’s heart burst into pieces. Everything inside her hurt. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. She looked at her maid. “Vitalia, please, stay here. Help her.”
“Of course.”
“Anything she needs—help preparing the body, money. Anything.”
Vitalia nodded. “Yes, Salara.”
“I have to make sure Kiran’s all right.” She cast one last apologetic look at the woman. “I’m so sorry,” she breathed again, then she turned and left the chamber.
It was everything she could do to not fall apart as she stepped out of the mortium. Bremhad’s death was no accident. She wanted to blame the commander—it seemed fitting. But the commander was with Mikael. That didn’t necessarily absolve him. He could have ordered it.
Kiran had accused Artem. Maybe it was only his grief lashing out. Or perhaps he was right. Maybe Artem was punishing her. Did he know Bremhad was Kiran’s father? Perhaps Artem was punishing Kiran for his defiance in her sanctuary.
She scanned the grounds for the captain, but he was nowhere to be seen.
“Where is Artem?” she snapped back at the Crest following behind her.
“He may be in the forces office,” her guardsman Sonal told her.
“Take me there. Now.”
She followed him to a building beside the soldiers’ barracks. Inside, Artem stood with another soldier. The soldier bowed and left as she entered.
“North Queen,” Artem greeted her coldly.
“It’s Salara,” she cut back. She wasn’t going to let two assholes get away with that. “Where’s Kiran?” she demanded.
“He’s been detained.”
“Where?”
He cast her an annoyed eye. “Where we detain men.”
In the dungeon. “He’s a member of the Crest!”
Artem snorted. “No longer. He falsified his documents and attacked his superior.”
Superior. Artem was anything but. “You can’t do that!”
“I’m captain of the Crest. I can.”
His cool tone infuriated her. She’d thought she couldn’t loathe anyone more than the lord commander. She’d been wrong. “I order you to release him.” She may be a prisoner, but she was still queen.
The corners of his mouth turned up in amusement. “I answer to Salar.”
He was such a smug bastard, so confident that Mikael’s attention was focused on the threat with Aleon and that it would bode unfavorably for her. She was starting to understand the want for blood. If she had a dagger in her hand…
She wouldn’t let him get away with this. Without a reply, she turned and stormed from the office and back to the castle.