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“Maybe.”
A guard dressed in crimson blocked their path.Muscles bulged from her uniform.They wouldn’t be going through her.Except the woman clenched her weapon as if it was the only thing grounding her to reality.Her gaze bounced from one wall to another.
Vori didn’t want to scare the woman into fight-or-flight mode because this guard looked like she could tear apart a tank.“What is it?”
The guard stared at her, not meeting her eyes but fixating on the crown.“P-Princess.”She put her fist to her heart.Some of the strain in her braced arms and clenched jaw eased, but not much.Something had happened.Something awful.
The air here thinned as if they stood on the top of the castle’s mountain rather than inside it.Where had all the oxygen gone?Was it her imagination, or had the castle contracted like a pressure chamber?One problem at a time.“Why are you guarding the king’s rooms?”Or at least these had been her father’s.
The guard snapped her head to the side as though she was about to look over her shoulder before remembering not to turn her back on royalty.She flicked another glance at the golden crown.
“You can tell me.”Vori fought to balance reassurance with royal command in her voice.
“It’s the k-k-king,” the guard stammered, the consonants coming hard and fast in a frightened misfire that loaded and reloaded.“H-He’s dead.”
Vori’s thoughts blanked, a numbness descending that threatened to smother her as though the guard had delivered a one-two punch with those giant biceps.
“Take us to see him,” Perry said.The guard hesitated.“I have experience in murder investigations.”
She looked to Vori.“Princess, it’s horrific.”The scared stutter was still there but less prominent.
“Please.I need to see my uncle.No matter the circumstances.”
“Let them pass,” Mykata called from the open doors to the king’s suite, a hollowness in her tone that hadn’t been there before.Not until her sister had questioned Jura, until the mention of the other royal, until the king’s murder in a castle under the captain’s protection.She had switched to human skin.Maybe it was easier to mask her feelings in this form.But her eyes—the depth of churning emotion there—that turmoil couldn’t be hidden.“You’ve been warned.”
Inside the king’s room, claw marks ripped the bedding and rugs.Chairs lay toppled on their sides.Vori took a deep breath to prepare herself and regretted it.The metallic scent of blood mixed with the stink of sweat and urine.Her stomach did somersaults against her ribs, and she fought to contain the sick, resisted the temptation to run.
Murdered?More like mangled.The killer had torn the king apart the same as she had her human victims.Carved among the slashes on Uncle Lenneck’s green face?A bastardization of the wicked crown.Gold-and-silver blood pooled beneath him.
Royal blood.
It seeped into the floor as if the castle soaked that magic as she did Perry’s powers.She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t.“My poor uncle.”Slipping skins, she shrank to human form.
“He struggled.”Perry rounded the bed and crouched close to the body.
“Prince Consort?”Mykata snapped.
He glanced up.“If you’re worried about preserving the scene, it’s a little late for protocol.”Bloody footprints tracked across the carpets and stone.
“Securing the room was priority.”The captain’s tone went defensive.“But the killer was gone.”
Perry ignored the captain, staring at the body.“If your laws hold true, we know he was killed by a royal.”
“The laws are true.”Mykata pressed her lips together.“The mad king tested the theory.”Her flat tone suggested she’d witnessed it firsthand.
Vori’s gut twisted.She glanced away from the gruesome scene to the captain’s crimson uniform stained with blood.Probably where she’d tried to wipe her hands streaked in the same silver and gold.“Has your sister been notified?”
“I sent a messenger.She should know by now.”The benefits of goblin speed.Mykata held her bloody palms upward.“I tried to put him back together.I know it’s stupid, but I thought for a moment, if I could undo it…”
“Shock.”Perry stood.“It makes us do crazy things.”
The woman nodded, but there seemed to be more to it.Perhaps she felt guilty for failing to protect the royals in her care, for allowing a murderer among them.Except the captain curled her lip.
“I hated him,” Mykata whispered.“He and the mad king killed my parents, my baby sister, Phaedra.Her shiny red curls, chubby cheeks, and her little giggle that tinkled like a bell?Her innocence meant nothing to those butchers.All they saw was her silver-and-gold crown.”She swallowed as though physically pushing past the child’s memory.“They came for me, and I ran.Coward that I was.Look what they did to Artanya’s face when she dared to protect our sister.And then Lenneck took her for a consort.A union to seal the peace.”Each word snapped like a crack of frost-covered glass.“I wanted to be the one who killed him.How dare someone take that from me?”
The disgust was palpable.Vori struggled against the instinct to back away from the captain’s fury.
“How many royals remain?”Perry asked, sending a silent look to Vori.
