“I’ll bow to my queen when she takes the throne.”
Foolish, with so many blades in this room and the tense air ringing the hall. But Silas could not stop the words boiling up, rolling over his tongue in a heated hiss, and even as the hush of steel sounded behind him, he couldn’t bring himself to regret it.
The Sorceress did not smile as she spoke this time.
“Where is your daughter, Your Grace?”
She made a vague gesture, and there was a short scuffle behind him. Edward stumbled into Silas’s periphery, either tripped or shoved.
“Adeline,” he provided, a desperate pant.
Mareda sobbed softly on the floor behind them.
“Where isAdeline?” said the Sorceress, the name tumbling strangely from her lips, tight and over-pronounced.
“Why do you want to know?”
The Sorceress laughed airily.
“Well, I’m told wherever I findAdeline, I’ll find my betrothed.”
“Your—” Silas’s heart gave an odd shiver in lieu of a beat. “Yourbetrothed?”
She did not bother to answer; just tilted her head in that soft, demanding way of hers and waited. King Cumhaill; she had to mean the Merrow King. The very same king who’d fled Eisalaan just hours ago, who had sworn to take Adeline to Dhalias, to protect her. Would that protection hold true if he learned who now held the throne?
Silas shook his head, too vigorously.
“I don’t know.”
The Sorceress sighed and pressed her fingers to her brow, massaging the smooth space between them as though warding off a frown.
“It has been a long night, Your Grace, and a tedious morning. So I’m sure you will hear me when I say this is thelasttime I am willing to extend my benignity. Your daughter is not in this palace, and she must be found. She puts the future of our kingdom at risk in her determination to draw our royal consort off course. I wish to locate them both immediately, to ensure their safety. The safety of usall.”
“I fail to see how Adeline’s freedom threatens our safety.”
Avette’s lips thinned to a taut line, and she glanced away with an irate little wave of her hand. That sharp pressure resumed at his back; not pushing this time, just announcing its presence. Oddly, the threat to his spine only emboldened him.
“Ah, I see. It’syoursafety she threatens,” he said softly. Silas gasped as the steel bit harder at his skin through the fabric of his cloak and shirt, but he went on, allowing the slightest cadence of laughter to lace his words. “The safety of your claim. One heir waits before you, pressed onto bent knees, but the other—”
Silas yelled out, buckled at the sudden prod and the searing pain in his back. He nearly fell forward with the force of the blade, but Avette raised a hand. Her eyes were dark and hard as coal, the delicate set of her jaw rigid with tightly wound rage, and yet she simply said:
“Let him speak.”
Silas glanced up, panting through gritted teeth as the pain subsided slightly, the steel still grazing his back. The blade’s owner huffed but pressed no further.
“Speak then, Your Grace,” said a hoarse voice in his ear.
Doran,he noted absently.She’s quite thoroughly won Doran’s loyalty.
“Iseult is gone, and no threat to your claim,” said Silas. He gestured behind him, to where Edward had been allowed to stumble back to his daughter, and now had her half-bundled in his arms where they both knelt on the marble floor. “Mareda has clearly been forced to bow. But Adeline had perhaps the strongest claim of all, because Selmawouldhave chosen her. We all know it, and even having been revived mere hours ago and surrounded by those who wanted my daughter gone, somehowyouknow it too. Don’t you?”
When she didn’t answer, he smiled and went on.
“Selma chose her. Eisalaan chose her.” Silas managed a light chuckle. “And the Merrow King chose her, too.”
For the first time, Avette’s lovely, cool countenance gave way to the heat of quiet fury. Her cheeks were kissed with pink, coal eyes blazing.
“The Merrow King,” she half-hissed—then caught herself, and smiled sweetly. “Is mine. The crown is mine.Eisalaanis mine,by blood and by the right of succession. And I believe you will find, Your Grace, that the loyalty of this Court is mine too. Is it not?”
