Page 108 of His Realm

“And now you have Keres.”

“No,” Isabella told me. “You have Keres, and she will protect you as she used to protect me. She will be your new courtier, will she not?”

I nodded. “I told Ødger she was, and we’ve sealed the deal since.”

“That’s excellent,” she said happily, turning to Keres. “Thank you for using your gifts to take care of my Jason and Cirillo as well. The Lady Carice⁠—”

“Is a mother with a mother’s care for her child, my queen. Look on her with more compassion. Just as she did not wrong Nerilla, neither did she wrong you.”

After a moment, Isabella tipped her head, and Keres did as well.

“Jason, perhaps we can secure that bath,” Isabella suggested again.

“And one for me as well,” Keres chimed in. “For all of us.”

“Is Emil here with you?” I asked Isabella, my train of thought returning. I felt unsteady and had no idea why.

“No, he had to stay at the palace to watch over my courtiers. I don’t like to leave any of my people unattended at any time. My champion must always be guarding them.”

Of course she would insist on that. She’d learned her lesson with Leda.

And speaking of champions… I looked for Zev, saw him talking to Kaan and the king’s guards, pointing, directing, and realized that Varic probably had him giving orders because Zev used to have Kaan’s job. Alrek was with Varic, who’d added my guard to his, so I couldn’t call them away. Cirillo was with Carice. She had him wrapped up in blankets and was watching over him as though he were her child.

I felt like I was going to throw up. I was the only one guarding the queen, and more importantly, I didn’t feel like myself.

“Jason,” Isabella said gently, moving closer and taking my hand. “Darling, whatever is the matter?”

“Perhaps the prince’s consort is having a delayed reaction to the drugs we all inhaled in the room before we ran,” Keres suggested. “It was quite potent, and he is merely human, after all.”

Merely human. How many times had that been said to me? Living in a world of vampyrs, I was the weakest one, but somehow, I was the lone soul with the queen. Well, me and Keres.

“Also,” Keres added, “my consort may have been dosed twice, as he was the only one who drank water.”

It had never occurred to me that they might have drugged my water, but that made sense with how strange I felt.

“This is what he wanted,” I husked, feeling the panic rising. “He deliberately diseased his sons and all the nobles who followed him. He has them all rotting from the inside out, inflicting this terrible horror on them so Varic would have to come.”

“Jason?” Isabella said my name, reaching for me. “We need to get you to another room so you can lie––”

“No,” I gasped, not wanting her to go anywhere private. Alone, she was even more vulnerable than she was now. “Don’t you see? He kidnapped me so you’d come. He knew you wouldn’t be able to resist coming to get me and bringing me out of here, to safety, just like you did with Leda.”

“Dear heart,” she said, taking my face in her hands. “I think you’re overly tired, and you really need to bathe,” she said playfully but insistently, “and eat and sleep. Let me⁠—”

“He let his own sons die slowly just so he could take his revenge.”

“Love, I promise you, I’m⁠—”

We all heard it then, the roar, and suddenly the people gathered in the hall to see Varic all started running as Ødger appeared like the beast he was, enraged, looking like something straight out of a horror movie and barreling down on Varic.

I wasn’t afraid for him; he was stronger than Ødger. Instead, I was looking around for Decimus, knowing in my heart what was happening.

He hated her more than anything else.

All this, all his plotting, had been done to lure her back to Ophir. Everything he’d told me in the room before Balon tried to kill me, what he’d said about his sons, his reasons for keeping them here, the entirety of his confession, was a lie.

The men who came to the palace in the guise of assassins, Sorin’s sob story afterward, my decision to help, the ruse he played with the king that included me—everything, from the start, was all for Varic…and Isabella. Decimus had to get Varic to Ophir so he could watch me die, along with his mother.

He had manipulated the narrative to make Isabella feel like she had to come to the place she freed Leda from. And now here it was, the plan in motion, the culmination of all his machinations. He would kill Isabella and make Varic weak in front of all the Noreia, unable to save his mother, just as he’d been too late to save Cassius.