Your highness.
That honorific had felt like a dagger to the heart when he’d said it. Or a thorn.
I was anything but a prince right now. Instead, I was killing members of my own Court, feigning loyalty to a madman all in an effort to bring back something I wasn’t sure could be saved.
My fingers curled into the wood of the desk in front of me, my rage so acute it was as though I could tear the entire palace down. I felt the urge to conjure my magic, to bring forth as much of it as I could to create a jungle of vines and thorns and wild things filling the River Palace. But when I reached for it, only the curl of a thorn grew from the desk, the pathetic symbol of my anger.
They had taken a forest from me and left a single leaf.
If I could just get to crown, I might be able to turn the tide of this war.
I snorted to myself. It wasn’t a war if one side was completely decimating the other.
It was annihilation.
But at least with the ancient Queen’s power in my hands, we might be able to fight back.
A knock sounded at the door and a rebel guard who looked barely old enough to wear his uniform entered my office.
“Yes?”
“You asked to be informed when the Viceroy returned, Captain.” He looked as though he was about to pass out; sweat beaded across his brow and a flush crept from his neck. The general probably thought it was a lark, assigning such a soldier to me. But he was from the Court of River at least—not a Salt soldier. The jasmine stamp on his neck signified him as such.
I rubbed the shadow of my own mark on the back of my neck, remembering the shape of it before Reza had burned it off.
This boy would feel that pain soon—Salt didn’t like their soldiers wearing River marks for all to see.
“And? Has he?”
That seemed to shake him from his nervousness, and he stood upright. “He sends word from the battlefield he’ll be returning by the next moon.”
“In time for the Salt festival,” I muttered.
Not enough time for me to do what I needed.
I nodded at the boy and slipped the churail’s ring onto my smallest finger.
“You look familiar,” I said, eyeing him. He was avoiding meeting my gaze. He had pale hair, like many peris in River, and quite a slender frame for a member of the guard, but his features were strong, and his eyes bright and wide.
“Where are you from?”
“I...” he choked the word out, as if his mouth were stuffed with cloth. “From the other side of Tirich Mir, sir. A village at the other end of the Khangar Pass. But there’s no Red Jasmine presence there. No sign of the insurgence that far, sir.” He nodded emphatically, his voice shaking.
I doubted that, since I knew members of the insurgence had gone to every single village in the Khangar Pass to drum up support.
But I wasn’t about to argue about the footprint of a rebel group I was a part of myself. Instead, I held up my hands to silence him. “Be at ease. I’m not going to investigate you for rebel activity.” I took in his features again—behind the scared look on his face he reminded me of someone. A flash of similar blue eyes filled my memory. “Did your family serve in the Queen’s army?” I asked suddenly.
He shook visibly, as if his end had come.
But he had no idea who I really was, and his fear was misplaced. I was not the one to be afraid of, at least not by him.
“Yes, sir. My father was a soldier.”
I nodded, the realization of who his father was hitting at the same time that sorrow swept over me.Hadi.
His father was a River Palace guard who’d served my mother faithfully, until he’d been killed by a golden soldier from the Court of Salt. They’d slaughtered most of the peris at the River Palace when they’d taken over.
I could almost still remember Hadi’s voice from when he would spar with me at the palace, hitting me gently with the butt of his sword when I was barely old enough to fight him and laughing as he taught me how to fight back.
