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I hated him, hated him so much I wanted to turn my face to the wind and scream. I picked up the King of Hearts card and threw it over the wall. It fluttered and spun, whisked into the air, and then the endless winds stole it. The desert would destroy it.
I grasped the wall and squeezed, my fingers turning white. I just needed to hold myself together a little while longer. I could scream and rant later. Tonight was too important and Lark would not take my chance at vengeance too.
It was time to lure Razak away from the crowd.
“Arin? Prince Arin?”
A woman in blue swept along the walkway toward me, her hand raised in a wave. “That is you? Of course it is, dressed as you are…” Puffing, she stopped, grinned, and thrust out her hand. “My name is Noemi, I’m Justice Ines’s aide, and I really need to speak with you.”
I gave her hand a shake. “Can we walk and talk? I’m expected back at the table—”
“Yes, I…” We walked, but after a few steps, she stopped, drawing me to a halt. “Arin, actually, I believe this would be better discussed away from everyone else. Can you spare a few minutes?”
“Later, then?” I tried to smile politely, but whatever Noemi wanted could wait. “Tomorrow would be even better, as this is my wedding night.”
“Tomorrow? It’s just that...” She stepped closer and said in a hushed voice, “I’m not supposed to speak of these things without evidence, but frankly, as I was the one who spoke with Lark, I feel my witnessing his confession is evidence enough.”
“Lark?”A confession?No, I wasn’t being drawn into this. “Hm, then I truly do not want to hear what you have to say.” I hurried on, leaving her standing alone. Lark wasn’t ruining this. I wasn’t thinking about him. He had no place in my head—
“He’s not lying,” Noemi said.
I laughed. “He’s always lying.”
“No, wait…” She caught my hand in a firm, steellike grip and whipped me around. “I’m sorry, I just—” She let go. “Please, listen… He came to me, during a visit to the Court of Pain. He told me all the things you now know, about who he is. But it wasn’t a ruse, Prince Arin. I saw the truth in his eyes. He risked much to tell me.”
The poor woman. I’d been in her shoes too, so enamored and bespelled by Lark’s sweet lies that he could have told me the moon was made of cheese and I would have believed him. “Trust me, Noemi, he’s very good at making lies seem true.” I made for the hall once more.
“His hand was cut up!” she called.
I stopped.
“And he was missing two fingers, on that same hand. He’d clearly been tortured and… restrained. And there were bruises…” I turned, and Noemi touched her neck. “Here, as though, well…” Her lashes fluttered. “As though he’d been choked.” She sighed and her face fell with sadness. “He might lie with his words, but not with his body, Arin. I know what I saw, and I know Razak twisted the truths to make it seem as though they’d been his plan all along, but I suspect Lark telling me the things he did forced Razak to tell the world who Lark really is. And I think… I think Justice Ines paid the price.”
I couldn’t ignore this, or her. She wasn’t one of Lark’s flings. There was truth in her words. And Lark’s hand… I’d seen his gloves, but of course, the fingers were fake. I already knew he missed one finger, but the gloves he wore this night covered the missing digit. What else did they cover? And bruises at his neck? “What are you saying?” I returned to Noemi and kept my voice low. The feasting hall was close, and the raucous guests loud, but we might still be overheard.
“Justice Ines is missing,” she explained. “She was due back a day after me, but she hasn’t been seen. Of course, the Court of Pain claims she left there safe and well, but we only have their word.”
“And their word is worthless,” I muttered, as my thoughts shifted and realigned around Lark once more. Nothing was ever solid with him. He made information and the truth fluid.
“Yes,” Noemi agreed. “Razak has done something to her.”
“Was Ines the one who confronted Razak with Lark’s truth?”
“Yes.”
“A secret like that, the identity of the traitor’s son as Razak’s own brother, kept for over twenty years… Razak would have been furious.” I knew what that fury felt like. The scars in my side were proof of that. “If he took it out on Ines, then she is likely dead.”
“That is my fear. But there is no proof, and without proof, Justice cannot act.”
“Justice cannot, but I can.” I took her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Thank you for telling me this. Return to your table. I’ll deal with it.”
“Lark said more to me. Information that has been kept quiet by the Justice nobles. Things you don’t know.”
“Oh?”
“Lark told me Razak doesn’t want the kingdoms, he wants the crowns. I was hoping you’d know what that means.”
“‘The crowns’?” That made little sense. A crown without a kingdom was pretty jewelry. But I’d seen Razak’s face when he’d taken my father’s crown. He’d looked at it as though it held all the riches in the world. He’d taken nothing else that night, just the crown.
