Even softer, he said, “There’s another tunnel—an old one, mostly collapsed. I haven’t found the exit yet, but I’m close.”
He glanced at the door before continuing. “I hid a Sparo in the woods, near the entrance I used. If I get out, I’ll send word. Their leader doesn’t allow guards to come and go freely. I have to be careful. But I’ll come back. Trust me.”
She stepped forward, voice barely more than breath. “How will we know it’s you? All the guards look the same.”
He set the tray down on the pallet and raised his arm. A single jade button gleamed at the underside of his cuff—small, unobtrusive, but vivid enough to catch the eye of one who’d been told where to look.
Adelise’s voice was hoarse. “What about the body?”
“I’ll move it behind the screen for now,” Haorán replied. “During the changing of the guards, I’ll slip back in and carry it through the tunnel. There’s one that leads to an underground river.”
A river. JingYi’s mind leapt to the Blackfen—the sluggish tributary that fed into Draemir Lake where she’d found thedrowned woman’s body weeks ago, drifting like a fallen blossom in the reeds.
How many bodies had Tedric disposed of the same way?
They worked together to hide the guard’s corpse behind the screen. After Haorán left, JingYi looked at Adelise. “Do you trust him? Or . . . them?”
Adelise didn’t hesitate. “I trust ShunLi.”
“But you haven’t seen him in . . . fourteen years.”
“He was sent here so young, the court practically raised him.” Her voice turned wistful. “The first time I saw him, I thought he might be the most beautiful man I’d ever laid eyes on. He made people feel seen—important. I think even my father forgot he wasn’t Tremorian.”
JingYi absorbed this. Fourteen years. A boy sent across the sea, shaped by foreign hands into a man she didn’t know.
What else had she missed?
She pushed the thought aside. There would be time for that later. If they survived.
Adelise sighed and plopped down onto her pallet. “No one ever really saw me. I was sturdy, even as a child, not the delicate kind of Omega they praised in the poems and fables. They used to call me the ‘stocky blossom.’” She huffed. “Not kindly, too. But he was always kind to me.”
JingYi sat beside her and took Adelise’s hand. “I’d rather be stocky than sickly, wouldn’t you?”
That earned a short laugh. “You must know already. Being an Omega, especially a royal one, meant you had to be perfect. Anything less was a failure.”
JingYi looked down at their joined hands, her brow furrowing. She didn’t know this gentle version of ShunLi. To her, he was a man she saw from afar, whose station was so high above her that, according to the palace rules, she wasn’t permitted tolook him in the eye. But to Adelise, he was grace and gentleness. A radiant boy-prince who had made her feel whole.
She wasn’t sure which version was real.
“We have to fool Tedric,” JingYi said, her voice dropping to a whisper. She nodded at the pallet. “When he comes, you need to look poisoned. Shallow breaths, hand on your abdomen as if you’re cramping. Your eyes should flutter, like you can’t focus. Can you do that?”
Adelise gave a confident nod. Her earlier fire returned, ready to be channeled into the performance. “I was also the lead in the palace winter play for three years running. Just watch.”
Footsteps echoed down the gallery. They exchanged a glance. Adelise quickly lay down, eyes closed, already in character. JingYi snatched a rag from the water basin and leaned over her, dabbing at her brow. Her movements were calm, unassuming—a simple healer tending to her ailing patient.
The footsteps drew closer. A moment later, Tedric appeared at the door. His mild voice cut through the stillness. “How is she?”
JingYi didn’t look up. Her hand moved across Adelise’s brow, heart thudding, silently praying Tedric wouldn’t see through their ruse. “The first bout of fever has begun.”
Behind her, fabric rustled as he leaned against the wall. “Good,” he said. “You can administer more doses to the other seven Omegas.”
Her hand froze. The rag sagged in her grip, water dripping onto the straw pallet. “But they’ve only just begun their road to recovery.”
“Precisely why now is the moment,” Tedric replied patiently, as if talking to a child. “Their bodies are strong enough to endure another trial.”
The words struck. She looked down at Adelise and thought of the others. The girl who had finally kept the broth down. The onewhose hands had stopped shaking. The faintest glimmers of life she had fought to coax back.
Now, he meant to burn it all away.
