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Laughter bubbles forth, but I don’t care. Cyrus doesn’t dare glance back.
“He wanted to use me. He convinced me that he cared and wanted me to becourageous,but he lies between his pearly white teeth.” Tonight has been a reminder of how different I am. Beyond my Sight, beyond my dark hair and eyes, beyond the scowl etched in my face, I clawed for my place here. I have nothing unless I take it.
The crowd delights in this dressing down, because they’ll take any entertainment they get. They don’t look charmed anymore; no, this is merely what people are like—frivolousand wolfish and uncaring of truths. They just want something worth talking about.
“He just pretends to be Prince Charming, but you all know better. You’ve heard the rumors of how he’s a scoundrel. Well, he wanted me first.” I don’t care if anyone believes me, but I will get this last word, just for the spite of it. I don’t care what the witch will do to them afterward. They can all burn. They can all rot. “He kissed me in my tower and then some, then tried to force me out of the kingdom because of it, because he knows I’m a threat to his reign. And maybe you don’t care. Maybe you think I deserved it. But know that whatever I’m guilty of, he’s guilty, too!”
As I take another breath, an order from King Emilius emerges from the din, heavy with a sigh.
“Remove her from my sight, quickly.”
I’m locked in a spare guest room. A comfortable prison, but a prison just the same.
I pace around on the rug, carving a path in the spotted fur. I can’t calm down and I won’t calm down. The future, the past, all my mistakes, all that’s left to come, they fill my mind like bramble, leaving no space for thought.
It’s not even difficult to sneak out. The room is on the first floor with wide windows I could squeeze through. But what could I do if I escaped? Go back to my tower, sulk there instead? Guards are swarming, and running away will only make the accusations worse. Make people think I truly have something to hide.
I’m trapped by what they think of me. That’s the bullshit part about this.
The guards outside my door—ones I recognize from Cyrus’s personal unit—gave me a carafe of wine and a tray of food meant for the banquet. I’ve laid them out on the bed and I pick at the crackers, thinking of what one of the guards said when they dropped it off.
“His Highness is soft. This is more than you deserve. Witch or not, you are shameless.”
Not too long ago, being driven out of the only home I’ve known sounded like the worst fate I could meet, but I was terribly unimaginative. Having Cyrus humiliate me in front of the entire court and make people suspectI’vebeen behind the witch’s schemes—that’s much worse. That’ll haunt me for another lifetime.
A sharp rap at the door. Cyrus barges in, his eyes darting until they find me.
I set down the food and march over to him.
“Violet. I—”
He brought no guards inside, so I can do whatever I like, and I start by shoving him as hard as I can.“Fuck you.”
He grabs my wrists before I can rip the collar right off his shirt. He dares to lookdistraught.“My father’s coming soon—”
The door opens and slams shut again. King Emilius is the only one of us who still looks meticulous in his attire, like he ought to be at a wedding banquet and not reprimanding misbehaving children. He folds both hands over his lion-headed cane, which he settles on the spot between his feet.
The king has never been outwardly angry toward me, but I can see the seams of it now—the flexed, jerked movements of his chin, the fury under his breath. The trembling is not his disease, but his anger. “I don’t know who I’m more disappointed in. What were you thinking, Cyrus? Do you understand the consequences—”
“I do.” Cyrus frees himself from me and meets his fatherin the middle of the room, shoulders square. “Now you can’t use her either.”
I choke out a laugh. So this is his chivalry. Ruin me so I can never work as a Seer again, no matter which king I serve under. Gods—he thinks he’s done me a favor.
Cyrus blocks his father’s expression, but I can see the clench of the king’s fist, mottled with red and white as skin tightens over knuckle. I expect shouting; I brace for it.
He strikes Cyrus across the face.
The rings on the king’s fingers cut a line across Cyrus’s cheek, blotched from the hit. In his next motion, with startling strength, the king swings his cane and strikes Cyrus in the ribs. It happens so fast—a crack, then Cyrus crumpling to the floor, face bloody—that instinct propels my body backward before I know to react. I clutch the nearby vanity for an anchor, throat too dry with shock to cry out.
“You rely too much on your good looks.” The king nudges a groaning Cyrus with his cane. “You should learn other tricks.”
Blood flecks the rug as Cyrus coughs.
King Emilius lifts his eyes—cold, pale green—toward me, and I flinch. “Is it true? Are you involved with my son?”
“Does it matter?” I realize I’m shaking.
“Hmph. You are right. It does not matter. How do you plan to fix this?”
