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“Apologies,” he said half-heartedly. “I’m not cut out for politics.”
Wynter took a deep breath and loosed it. She missed her Aisling. The beautiful, strong presence at her side as she’d slowly gone insane. But Aisling was dead. And the person she had … was not accepted by her court. She pushed the thought of Dozan Rook out of her mind.
“You will have to try harder,” she told him, a warning in her voice.
“It’s just so hard … without Arbor. She was the politician.”
“As I well know,” Wynter bit out. Now that she had her full faculties back, she saw the machinations Arbor had played to position Wynter at the head of a cult. She didn’t miss the girl one bit, and it was difficult to keep her rancor out of her voice. “But I need you.”
“Why? No one listens to me anyway. I’m a no-name courtier at best.”
More truth.
“Because I need a reminder of my brother,” she all but snarled. “Fordham is still missing. His dragon is missing. But they both live. That much I know. The throne is vulnerable until he returns, and I need a constant reminder of who I represent. You represent him. You even look like him”—she rolled her eyes—“when you try at court.”
Prescott ran a hand back through his dark, rumpled hair. He did have an uncanny resemblance to his cousin. Not quite as terrifying or put together as Fordham, but enough for her dissenters to remember who they were all waiting for—their king.
“I’ll do better,” he said with a solemn nod. “My apologies. I am still grieving.”
“We all are,” Wynter said, trying for gentle or mild. She wasn’t sure she quite had it in her. “But I am your princess and your regent. You will do as I bid.”
Prescott’s eyes widened. Her shadows wrapped around her wrists and ankles, climbing up her body for emphasis. She was still shadow-kissed, and she could use those powers to make a point. That, like her brother and her father, she could kill anyone who displeased her and there was no recourse. She was keeping it under wraps, but some days, she understood her father. She’d never wanted the throne. She’d just wanted to be free. And somehow, she’d ended up on the seat regardless.
“I’ll do better,” Prescott insisted. Then, he bowed his way out of the throne room, a slightly panicked look on his handsome face.
A slow round of applause sounded behind her. Wynter kept her face neutral as Dozan strode into view.
“Very well done.”
She glared at him. “What are you doing here?”
“Getting into trouble,” he said with a toothy grin.
Her heartbeat raced at the sight of his stupid, pretty face. The red-threaded brown hair and too-quick honey eyes and the all-knowing smirk. The way he still wore the black and red colors that proclaimed him the King of the Wastes. It didn’t matter that his kingdom was demolished and they were miles from the city he’d lorded over. Dozan Rook had a presence. One she was still learning to navigate. Her traitorous heart was trying to forget.
“You are not supposed to be in the throne room.”
Dozan slid his hands into his pockets and ignored her. “I thought you handled that little miscreant well. Probably should have jumped behind him and scared him shitless, but otherwise …”
“I don’t need advice,” Wynter said as she came to her feet. “If you were listening, then you know I am princess and regent of the House of Shadows, and I don’t take advice from the likes of you.”
“Oh, I heard. Princess. Regent.” He shrugged. “I’m still a king.”
“Of no kingdom.”
He took a step up onto the dais that held her throne. If anyone, anyone at all, had been in the room, they would have gasped at his insolence. Approaching the throne without permission from the monarch was punishable by death.
“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”
She raised her chin. He stood one step below her and was still taller than her. She wasn’t short either. She never had been.
“You’re not supposed to be up here.”
He grinned. “We’re a bit past the formalities, aren’t we?” He took the last step up, towering over her figure.
“What do you want?”
His eyes bored into hers, and she could feel the bolt of tension race through them. The same thing she had been expressly ignoring for months. Dozan Rook was a human. He was … a street lord. He was beneath her.
He might have saved her life and given her a solution to escape her mind. But she had repaid him by getting him out of the Wastes before it collapsed around him. They were even now. They were even.
“For you to do more than be a bureaucrat.”
She bristled. “And what exactly would you have me do? Run off and find your precious Kerrigan?”
It was Dozan’s turn to balk. “This isn’t about Kerrigan.”
