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They had Arin. They had suspicions but no proof. I’d go to the council, I’d be Razak, and if they’d hurt so much as a single hair on his head, I’d fucking butcher them all.
CHAPTER18
Arin
Purple silk drapedfrom the ceiling in wide strips, like curtains. An image of four interlocking circles adorned the chairs and curtains. I’d seen the same design elsewhere in the court, subtle, yet obvious. Pain’s courtly insignia. I’d imagined Pain would have chosen a scythe or a lightning bolt to represent it, something more pain-like than circles.
I’d been told to dress, then rough-handled here and shoved into a chair in front of a long table, as though I were to be judged, but this was not the Court of Justice.
Although I’d never seen Razak’s council, the people staring from behind that table were surely them. All but one appeared much older. They’d probably served as advisors for Razak’s father, King Umair. If they were anything like Ogden or even my own father, then I was already the foolish Prince of Love who’d led to my court’s downfall. Were they complicit in its downfall? Did they know Razak’s plans?
“How did Razak come to capture you, Arin?”
“PrinceArin,” I corrected the older woman.
A sharp smile flashed across her lips, there and gone again in a blink. She studied me, and with each passing moment, her glare pushed me deeper into the chair. “I’d assumed, as Albus’s son, you’d be intelligent enough to recognize when you’re not in a position to make demands.”
“And I’d have thought you’d be intelligent enough to realize capturing and holding me in such a fashion will incite Ogden’s wrath. I am of War’s court. Kidnapping me warrants retaliation.” My words barely ruffled her curled white hair, bunched atop her head and pinned there in strict fashion.
“Ah yes, the joining.” She said it as though she’d tasted something foul. “So like a child of Love, to assume the shatterlands revolves around you.”
This woman wouldn’t know love if it smacked her between the eyes.
“Ogden will not come for you, Arin,” she added matter-of-factly. “You are a prince without a court, and frankly, it is only your warlord husband keeping you from being tossed into the sands and left there to desiccate, like the rest of War’s rejects.”
I’d known I was little more than a name, but it still stung to be so easily dismissed.
Her gaze skipped over my shoulder, fixing on someone lurking behind me. I twisted, to get a look, when a fist slammed into my jaw. Fire flash-burned up my face, knocking me sideways and almost off the chair. Blood pooled under my tongue.
They hadn’t needed to strike me. I wasn’t resisting.
They’d torn me from a bed, flung me into mismatched clothes, and brought me here, already their prisoner.Noneof this was necessary. Unless it wasn’t about me.
I licked blood from the inside of my cheek and spat.
“It is not Ogden we’re interested in, or you,” the cruel woman explained, then leaned forward over the table, trying to force me deeper into the chair under her icy glare. “How did Razak capture you? I’m intrigued to know the logistics.”
This was about Lark. Did they not believe his act, was that why I was here? “Ask him.”
The woman’s hollow eyes sucked what little warmth there was from the room. “He’ll be along in a moment,” she said. “We’d like to hear your account first.”
Then Lark was coming here, and whatever I said, they’d ask him the same, searching for inconsistencies in our replies. They clearly suspected not all was well with our performance. Yet, if they knew Lark was pretending to be Razak, he and I would already be dead.
Wherever Lark was, he had better have the crown and a plan for how to get us both away from Razak’s council.
All I could do was delay them.
“I don’t know what you expect me to say. The last few hours in War were chaotic. Razak poisoned the wine. He was discovered, arrested—”
“Where’s Zayan?” she snapped, not interested in my play-by-play account of events.
I dabbed at my sore cheek. “Who?”
The second blow was no less painful for being expected. Blood swelled, and this time I spat it onto their polished black marble floors instead of swallowing out of politeness. I eyed the bastard with the fists, but he was careful not to meet my gaze. He had orders to look away, like everyone else in Pain.
“Your fool,” the woman explained. “Or have you forgotten the spy who assisted in the destruction of your court? Razak’s brother. He attended your joining alongside our prince.”
“That fraud,” I snarled. “What of him?”
