Several bookcases were dotted around the tent, filled with peri knowledge my fingers itched to get a hold of. This wasn’t the sterile encampment of the Viceroy, nor the opulent but stripped palace he inhabited. This place felt like home, and I wondered how long this camp had been set up like this, with rebels moving and fighting and pushing back against the Viceroy.
I was naked, but I pulled the thin sheet from the bed and wrapped myself with it before walking toward a particularly stuffed bookshelf. Tucking the sheet under my arms, I went on my tiptoes and studied the books that filled the shelf.
It was a wealth of knowledge—peri plants of the River Court, history of its people, books on dialects here, and the history of the royal family. I could barely find any of these books in the palace, and I wondered if they had been smuggled out to prevent the Viceroy from destroying them as he was attempting to control and rewrite the history of River, just as the Citadel did to us.
I pulled out the largest of the books on the shelf, the one I was most interested in—the history of Kiyan’s family. Theroyalfamily.
I still couldn’t believe he was related to the ancient fae Queen whose crown we searched for. I flipped inside the book, skipping past webs of lineage and marriages and turning to a chapter that detailed the history of the family’s magic.
The flap of the tent sounded behind me, and I turned to see Kiyan standing at the entrance, a tray in his hand filled with a veritable feast—cheese, dates, pomegranate, mangoes, and plums, alongside some flatbread and a steaming pot of coffee in an indigo dallah pot.
He seemed surprised to see me, and my face turned quizzical. Then I looked down at myself and realized that I was still only wearing a sheet because I was so absorbed in the book. I could feel my cheeks flush with heat.
“Sorry, I wanted to look at some of your books, I hope that’s okay.”
“That’s perfectly fine, I just wasn’t expecting you to be up. It’s still quite early.”
“You’reawake,” I pointed out.
He flashed me a smile. “Yes, but I always wake before dawn.” He moved into the tent, pointedly not looking at me wrapped in his bedsheet and placed the food and coffee on his desk.
“I couldn’t sleep. Not with us leaving today.”
He gave a twist of his lips, and his gaze returned to the book in my hands. “What are you reading?”
“I’m brushing up on your family history.”
He raised his eyebrows, glancing at the cover of the book. “That one is a little dry. Most of it is a lineage tracing. I can tell you anything you want to know.”
I considered the offer, mostly wanting to take my mind off what was coming. But I was also curious. I knew he was in the royal family, that he was a Prince, but I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant. “Who exactly is trapped in the Mountain?”
“My mother, brother, and sister,” he said without hesitation.
“And your mother is...”
“The Queen.”
I sucked in a breath.
A memory of the jaipari came to me, the words she’d said before sinking down into the black water again.
Good luck, princeling.
I’d spent the night with a fae Prince from the Court of River and I was currently wrapped in his bedsheet while he served me coffee.
Safiyya certainly wouldn’t believe this story even if she saw Kiyan with her own eyes. But I considered Kiyan’s words and thought about what he wasn’t saying.
“No other family?”
His brow darkened. “Like my father, we had other family members and members of the Court, but when Reza took over with King Rusul’s crown, he rounded them up, drained them of magic, and executed them all. I’ve been alone for a long time.”
I processed that, thinking about the fear he must have felt as a young boy. “I’m sorry. That can’t have been easy.”
His dark expression wiped from his face, and I had the feeling he had been lost to his memories. He straightened and leaned back against his desk. “It was what had to be done. I focused on the resistance and finding a way to free my family. Working for Reza meant that I could research ways to find Azari’s crown, and a way to destroy the crown he’d melted into his skin.”
“How did you ingratiate yourself to the Viceroy? How did he ever trust you?”
He tilted his head. “The Viceroy was looking for people from our Court to work for him, especially to ferret out rebels. I proved myself useful to him, good at tracking and fighting. Moreover, I brought him rebels.”
