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Chapter Nineteen
Aika
The bell tolls six times, thundering through the palace courtyard. I use the distraction to climb the sprawling naked vines on one of the towers as tiny snowflakes fall around me, making the climb far more slippery than I’d prefer.
No sooner had the seamstresses removed my last gown, than Mother was privately ushering me out the door.
She’s concerned about the arrival of the Jokithan King. Maybe I’m not the only one who suspects he knows more than he lets on about Zaina’s death.
One of the frozen vines breaks off, and I barely grab the sturdier one at the center to avoid falling sixty feet or so to the ground. I clutch the vine with fingers that are growing increasingly numb and take a shaky breath before continuing.
In the warmer months, the palace is easy to sneak into, with all of the green vines and cherry blossom trees and lush gardens of the courtyard to hide behind.
But that isn’t the case right now. The entire trek up the tower is one bated breath after another, trying to make it to the top before the guards spot me.
Fortunately, their collected attention is on the palace gates.
Once I’ve climbed as far as the vines will take me, I use the small notches in the bricks to finish my way up to the turret roof to overlook the grounds below. Then I wait.
If I hadn’t known Einar was arriving today, I might have missed it entirely.
When a runner comes to announce the imminent arrival of the royal party, a hush falls over the courtyard. There hasn’t been a single visitor from Jokith in nearly twenty years.
He doesn’t come with the usual fanfare of a king, even if the horses pulling his carriage are twice the size of the Corentine destriers. There’s no contingent accompanying him, only two guards, one as dark as the other is fair. They both move with the fluid grace of highly trained warriors.
More intriguing still, one of them is a woman.
He’s either cocky or stupid, coming to a foreign land with so little protection.Or both.
My eyes scan the vast welcoming crowd as the carriage rolls to a stop. Even the Corentine king has come personally to greet King Einar, though he leans heavily on a golden cane. His wife Queen Katriane is at his side, wearing an expression of sympathy before the Jokithan King even steps out of the carriage.
No sign of my future husband, though. He’s likely too busy being fed from a golden spoon and trying not to run from his own shadow.
I watch with the rest of the crowd as a footman opens his carriage door, then promptly skitters back. Almost immediately, I’m compelled to reconsider my earlier judgment.
The next thing out of the carriage is an enormous feline of some sort. Not quite a tiger — not like any I’ve seen, at least — with its shimmering white fur, tall, pointed ears, and navy stripes lining its entire body.
It’s beautiful, and terrifying, and I concede that the king needs no more protection than the creature offers.
The king himself follows. I can’t help but hold my breath, like I can unravel the mystery of the last few months just by looking at him.
He is a beast of a man, taller even than his guards, with massively broad shoulders. He wears an axe at his back that I’m willing to bet is for more than show, and on his white-blond braids rests a silver, pointed crown. Not that he would need it, necessarily.
He looks every inch a king, even without the accessory.
I examine his features for signs of cruelty, but he almost looks warm from this distance. There isn’t a single visible hint about why this man drove my sister to want to die rather than spend a lifetime at his side.
Then again, what did I expect? A confession nailed to his head?
I glance at the other two guards. In their body language with each other and the cat and even the king, it’s apparent that there is a camaraderie between them all. Did they feel that way with my sister, too?
It’s unexpectedly painful, looking at these strangers and knowing she spent her last few months in this world with them. I shove the feeling down, searching for some level of the numbness that has gotten me through the past few weeks.
The guards unload a nondescript trunk from his carriage, something I wouldn’t have looked twice at were it not for the oddity of the situation.
There are footmen waiting to do that, which would keep his guards free to defend him. The palace staff offer to take it from them, but when their hands stretch out, the giant cat snarls softly.
Einar shakes his head, directing them to the trunks on the outside instead, and the whole affair is forgotten as King Jean clasps wrists with King Einar before directing him into the palace.
Forgotten by them, anyway. But I need to know what’s inside the trunk that’s worth shielding when he didn’t bother to protect his own wife.
I’m left with no choice but to visit the palace this evening.
