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Unsurprisingly, I was encased in guards again, reminiscent of the days after the fae attack before I had left the palace and ended up in Anderlane. I hadn’t liked it then, and I liked it even less now. I didn’t feel like the queen. I felt like a prisoner, a delicate, helpless flower who could not be trusted to look after herself.
“I am a trained warrior,” I muttered to Maywin. “It’s insulting that they put so many soldiers on my watch.”
“They are not only protecting you, Luna,” Maywin reminded me gently.
I scowled. “I am fully capable of protecting my child as well.”
But even as I said it, I thought of how close I’d come to putting the ebonleaf-laced treat in my mouth, and shame flooded me. Regardless, the guards would not stop another poisoning and an attack I could save myself from. I didn’t like this hoard of uniforms marching alongside me as I attempted to go about my day, and yet there was absolutely no way around it. Cade had been unrecognizable since the night of the ball, his senses on high alert, refusing to come to bed until the wee hours of the morning, pacing the halls with the Royal Guards to search for signs of threat.
“They won’t strike again with so many eyes on them,” I pleaded with him. “Please, just come to sleep.”
“I can’t sleep, I won’t!” he insisted, fueling my own anxiety.
Without him by my side, my own nights were hopeless for slumber, leaving me tossing and turning, despite the fact that I knew half the Royal Guards stood outside my door and below my window. No one was getting in our suite, my food being tasted and checked before it touched my lips, and yet I couldn’t shake the sense that the danger lingered and held all around me.
I didn’t dare ask if the warlock sat in the deep cells in the bowels of the palace. I hadn’t been told that he had been captured yet, so I wasn’t sure. The thought of him being in the same building as me—even though it was a heavily guarded palace—terrified me.
I had only been down to the dungeons once, on a tour of the palace with Cade, a few weeks after I had first arrived, and that was more than enough for me. The eerie stench of musk still idled in my nostrils, even though it had been months ago when I’d first and last seen the awful, stinking prisons which Cade assured me were barely ever used anymore.
All I could think about was Sandor, stewing as he plotted his revenge against me, furiously pacing through his little cell, where magic was abolished, the cage of magic encasing the entire basement. I could envision the old man rubbing his hands together and electrifying himself into a frenzy. I was going crazy, being kept in the dark, not knowing.
This was the third day of such apprehension, and I wasn’t sure how much more of this I could take without answers.
I needed to get some answers.
“Where are we going?” Maywin asked as I abruptly turned toward the back stairs, avoiding the main hallway, forcing the guards to shift awkwardly.
Under normal circumstances, it may have been amusing, but today, the sound of their boots on the halls only made me more irritated.
“To find my husband.” I marched toward the back steps, brushing past the many servants who tried to curtsey in the narrow, stone way, but I ignored them all.
“He’s not here, Luna.”
I stopped in the middle of the stifling stairwell and looked at whomever had spoken, a young guard, a recruit from the town who looked appalled that he had uttered words, unbidden.
“What do you mean, he’s not here?” I sputtered. “Where is he?”
“He’s gone into Ironhelm City,” Jasper explained quickly, casting the recruit a scathing look. “He’ll be along shortly.”
“Shortly? He left me here without telling me?”
“He’s… investigating the poisoning,” Jasper said nervously.
I balked at the prospect. “What does that mean, Jasper?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” he admitted. “But he did seem quite determined when he left.”
Drawing in a breath, I continued down the steps, but I didn’t stop on the main floor. Instead, I pivoted at the heavy iron door at the back of the kitchen and stared at it.
I need to know if Sandor is down there plotting my child’s death.
“What is this?” Maywin asked timidly.
“The dungeon,” I replied flatly. “I’m going down.”
“Luna?” Jasper called after me. “You really shouldn’t go down there.”
I didn’t stop, mustering my courage before throwing open the heavy door as the staff paused their work to stare at me in horror.
