A dozen men took up position along the wall next to Roa’s bedroom door.
They needed to do this quietly and covertly. They couldn’t draw any attention from the commandant or her army, who would be fully occupied with Firgaard’s security on the eve before the Relinquishing. They needed to take the palace one step at a time.
Rebekah drew her dagger and pressed it to Roa’s throat. “Call them,” she said.
Roa hesitated, wondering what Rebekah would do once Celeste and the others entered.
Rebekah pressed harder and Roa felt the sharp steel prick her flesh.
So she called.
But nothing happened.
Several heartbeats passed and... silence.
“Again,” Rebekah commanded.
Reluctantly, Roa called for Celeste, and then Saba, and then Tati. Wishing there was a way to warn them.
Again, silence answered her.
Rebekah motioned for someone to go look. One man opened the door and stepped out, then came back in.
“There’s no one out there.”
The hair on the back of Roa’s neck rose. Her guards never left their posts. Safire would dismiss them in a heartbeat if they did.
Something was wrong.
But even as she thought it, a tiny spark of hope flared to life inside Roa. If her guards weren’t here, Rebekah’s men couldn’t hurt them.
Rebekah lowered the blade from Roa’s throat and went to look. The moment she came back, her gaze fixed on Roa, and for maybe the first time, there was something like fear in her eyes.
“Where are they?”
The palace was empty. No soldats stood on watch. No servants walked the halls. Rebekah had opened the unguarded gate and let in her men without any resistance. They searched every shadowed corner and garden and hall, but there was no sign of the king—or anyone else.
Meanwhile, Roa searched Dax’s room.
All was quiet and still, the bed loomed large and empty. The faces in the tapestries hanging from the walls seemed to watch her, making her skin prickle with wariness.
The Skyweaver’s knife was sheathed at Roa’s calf beneath her dress, right next to Essie’s earned knife. Gripped hard in her hand was the hilt of her scythe. She was sufficiently armed. And yet Roa trembled as she called Dax’s name into the darkness.
No answer came.
She trod softly to the terrace. But there were only the stars, winking above her. The sky was lightening. It would be dawn soon. The day of the Relinquishing.
Once the sun set, Roa could make the exchange. She could save her sister for good.
She just needed to find Dax.
A sudden sound issued from below, like the thud of a punch being thrown. Roa heard the loud snickers of multiple men and looked down, scanning the garden.
Near the wall of the arcade, she saw their silhouettes.
Two of them had weapons drawn. They stood in a ring around a young man on his knees. The one who’d been punched.
Roa leaned over the balustrade, looking harder. She saw the tallest one start to undo the buckle of his belt. Then the buttons of his pants.
