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“This is a waste of my time,” Rei snarled as he shoved off the tree. He wanted to know what this person wanted, but he wouldn’t continue to make a target of himself. His time was better spent cuddled with his adorable vampire.
He didn’t get more than a few dozen meters, the wall surrounding the Zhang grounds just coming into view when someone called out.
“Your Highness! Please, wait!” A man’s voice. It somehow managed to be both sharp and light. He knew that voice.
“Sarya,” he hissed. He turned to face the tall, thin man as he walked out of the shadows, a sword hanging low on his hips and lips quirked in a smug smirk. Gods, he wanted to peel his skin from his face and feed it to a wild boar.
The elf was one of his mother’s many attendants. He would run errands for her, ferret out the juiciest bits of court gossip, and see to all her needs. Sarya had lasted longer than most, but that was largely because the idiot was smart at one thing—keeping an enormous distance between himself and King Ash.
The king and queen didn’t care that their spouses were having affairs. Everyone knew about them. They just didn’t want to see any obvious proof of them.
But that was all part of their twisted games. They’d engage in their lurid acts until they grew bored with their lover. Then, either the king or queen would start putting that lover in more and more dangerous situations, risking exposure at every turn.
Naturally, when the royal discovered the lover’s identity, the injured party would act jealous and wounded, killing the lover in the most gruesome fashion while the cheater professed their undying love and promised to never stray again.
Lies. All of it lies.
This was one reason he adored Yichen—he didn’t lie. Even if it hurt one or both of them, Yichen always told him the truth.
But despite all the rounds of this stupid farce, Sarya remained. He either had the luck of a cockroach or he possessed a brain that no one had ever seen him use.
“My mother sent you,” Rei stated, his tone flat and as unwelcoming as he could make it.
Sarya offered a partial bow with an extra flourish of his hand that Rei considered pinning to a nearby tree with his dagger. “Her Majesty has thoughtfully requested that I come to check on the well-being of her only son.”
A harsh bark of laughter broke from Rei’s throat, sending a few blond strands falling in front of his eyes. “Forgot about Trin already, did she? Gods, are there others still about too? I can’t be the only one left.”
Lines dug into Sarya’s face as he cleared his throat. “Yes, well, the only royal son.”
It was a battle to not roll his eyes, but Rei didn’t trust Sarya and refused to let the elf out of his sight for even a heartbeat. “Whatever. Let’s cut the nonsense. She didn’t send you here because she cares about my well-being. What does she want?”
At last, Sarya’s smile twisted into something more wicked as his eyes narrowed and his chin dipped to his chest. Yes, this was more of what he expected of the worm. “She would like to offer you her most gracious and benevolent forgiveness for past transgressions against her and the Twilight Thone.”
“Uh-huh. On the condition…”
Sarya’s smile widened until it reduced his eyes to thin slits. Rei half expected a row of sharklike teeth to fill that evil smile. “That you kill King Ash.”
Rei pursed his lips and nodded. “Okay. Kill the king.” Certainly the kind of request he expected to hear from his mother. Nothing surprising there. “Does my mother have any helpful suggestions on how to accomplish this when my father still possesses an army and I do not?”
“There’s a small human town called Coldwater. Close to the edge of the forest land and very few humans are present. The king wishes to conduct a test. He wishes to wipe it off the map and claim it for our kind. It will be the farthest he’s been from the palace since the last time you crossed swords with him, and the rumor is that he’s planning to take a small complement of soldiers.”
“When?” Rei barked. It sounded good.
Too good.
“Midnight, three days from today.”
Rei remained silent as he paced a short distance away, turning over what he knew in his head. Was this a trap? Almost definitely. But there was also a good chance that his mother was serious, in that she wanted Rei to kill his father. Of course, she could also be pitting them against each other so she could be rid of them both. He wouldn’t put that past her.
And yet, if his father was going to strike Coldwater, could they pass up this opportunity?
No. Not really.
But whether to go after King Ash at Coldwater wasn’t the only question he needed to answer.
Rei spun on his right heel, turning to face Sayra, his appearance and tone once again nonchalant. “Okay, so I kill King Ash. What happens after that?”
The weasel in courtly garb of green and silver blinked. His smile slipped from where it had been pegged to his face and he looked confused. But on the second blink, he recovered, his grin hiked to where it belonged, if a little awkwardly.
