“Where are my father’s men?” she asked the guardsmen flanking the steps.
“They are in the cells on the next floor, Your Highness,” a gray-haired guard informed her. “The rest of the prisoners on that floor were moved to keep them isolated.”
Ignoring the way her fingers shook as she gathered her skirts, Carys turned and climbed the stairs. The rotting smell grew stronger the higher she climbed and even worse when she took a lit torch from the staircase and started down the hallway next to the cells. Each cell had a thick wooden door with a window made of iron bars. The first two cells were empty, but a face looked back at her when she peered into the third.
“Your Highness,” the man said as he stood and walked toward the door. In the light of the torch, Carys saw the man who spoke for the other men at the castle’s entrance looking back. “Your father would not want you to be here.”
“There is much my father didn’t want that has happened today,” she answered. “I wish to know why.”
“I told you why.”
Not all of it. Because she’d seen her father up close, and when the initial shock faded, she had seen clearly what had killed the King.
“We both know you lied,” she whispered.
“I did not lie, Your Highness.” The King’s Guardsman pressed his face close to the bars. “There was an ambush.”
“The King and Crown Prince always travel in the center of the King’s Guard.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“And that’s where they were when the ambush came?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“If my father was surrounded by his Guard, how is it that he never had a chance to grab his sword and was run through from behind?”
The first was a guess. The second was less of one. The damage to the leather tunic and the bloodstained tear in the back of his cloak were evidence enough of her theory. But it took the man flinching behind the bars of his cell to confirm fully that it was true.
Her father had been attacked in the center of men who were supposed to defend him. The only explanation for him not drawing his weapon and fighting off the enemy was that the attack came from directly behind. From his own men.
“Why?” she whispered.
The man glanced in the direction of the rustling coming from the cells down the hall. “Your Highness, you don’t want people to know you were here.”
“What people?” The sound of boots against stone echoed in the hallway. Someone was coming. Carys stepped closer to the cell door, gripped the torch tight in her hand, and hissed, “I will help you escape. If you tell me the truth, I will give you your life. I will find a way to get you and the others out of here.”
She had no idea how, but that was less important than learning if there was someone else behind her father’s and brother’s deaths. If the rest of her family might be threatened. If she could be in danger.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw the freckle-faced guard emerge from the staircase. “Captain Monteros is on his way, Your Highness. He will be expecting to find you waiting downstairs.”
“Then that is where he will find me,” she said, looking back at the iron-barred window. The man’s face had disappeared back into the shadows. But she’d return later.
She replaced the torch she’d taken and had reached the bottom steps moments before the door of the North Tower swung open and Captain Monteros appeared. Carys didn’t wait for his instructions. Instead, she walked toward the area the guards used for questioning prisoners and unfastened her cloak. She would not show fear. She would not cry. Her mother had told her that in order to protect her twin Carys would have to embody the virtue of strength. It was in these moments that Carys knew her mother was right.
It took strength to unfasten the back of her dress without letting the captain see her hands quiver. It took great resolve to shift the fabric to expose her back as she pressed herself up against the wall.
“Perhaps you should talk to the Queen,” Captain Monteros said from behind. “Explain that you were upset about the death of your father and brother. I’m sure she’ll reconsider this punishment.”
If only that were true. But it hadn’t been before and today would be no different. And if she tried, her mother might not listen when she explained about the King’s Guardsmen in the cells above and the truth she was certain they had yet to speak.
Carys glanced over her shoulder. While she was as tall as her brother, Captain Monteros was far taller than she. And stronger. “The sooner you begin, captain, the sooner this will be over.”
“If you are certain, Highness. The Council has determined there will be three strokes.” He picked up a wide, leather strap.
Carys laughed. “They are in a merciful mood. Do your best to be quick.”
She kept her eyes open, even though she couldn’t see anything with her face pressed against the stone. Closing them felt weak. Her legs trembled. Her stomach curled. She exhaled to loosen her muscles because it was worse when she tensed up. But she couldn’t stop herself from flinching as she heard the whistle of leather passing through the air then . . .
Pain.
She dropped the front of her dress and grabbed the handles on each side of her head to keep from collapsing as icy hot agony pulled the strength out from under her. Her heart pounded. A whimper stuck in her throat and she braced herself as the whistle of the strap came again and with it fire as it cracked across the small of her back.
Her fingers clung to the handles. She clenched her jaw, refusing to make a sound when all she wanted to do was sob from the throbbing ache.
One more. She would survive one . . .
She gasped air, lost her grip, and slid down the wall to the musty floor as tears flooded her eyes. It was over.
Not that bad, she told herself as pain flashed and flared.
“It’s over, Princess,” Captain Montoros whispered. Then he raised his voice so that anyone might hear. “Your penance is served. The seven virtues have been restored.”
Carys cursed under her breath. The virtues could be damned.
The biting wind was welcome when she stiffly stepped from the tower. Cold air on hot, shrieking skin. The pain was duller now than it had been only minutes ago. Still terrible, but bearable. It was amazing what a person could tolerate.
The freckle-faced guard appeared beside her.
“I’d like to be alone,” she said.
The young guard looked down at his boots. “Captain Monteros told me to escort you to your rooms, Your Highness.”
“Well, that’s a problem,” she said, wincing as she started forward. “Because I’m not going to my rooms.” There were two things she needed to do first.
Balling her hands into fists, she dug her nails deeper into her palms with each step to keep herself from giving in to the pain. The cold eased the heat of the welts, but after the first soothing moments it made her huddle deep in her cloak to try and halt the shivering. Each shake of her body made her clench her teeth harder as she crossed the courtyard and entered the castle. The freckled guard followed.
Lights glowed in the halls and she willed herself to walk like the princess she was through the castle to the chapel. Inside the high arching space filled with benches and statues representing each of the seven virtues twinkled hundreds of flickering candles, symbols of the time before the virtues were the guiding principle of the kingdom.
In the front, as she knew they would be, the silhouettes of two bodies were laid on white stone benches.
“Excuse me, Your Highness.” Elder Jacobs rose from a bench in the shadows near the back of the chapel, making Carys jump at the sudden movement. “I didn’t mean to startle you. With the excitement at the gates earlier, I never got the chance to extend my sympathies for your loss.”
“I appreciate that, my lord, but I am here to grieve and ask—”
“I am also sorry I could not intervene on your behalf.” His dark skin blended into the shadows, but his eyes reflected the candlel
ight, causing them to appear to glow as he walked slowly toward Carys. As he moved, his long braid undulated in the shadows, making it seem almost alive. “It was a shame you had to endure more discomfort on a night filled with such sorrow. The North Tower is not a place in which a princess of the realm should ever step foot.”
“If you hadn’t noticed, Elder Jacobs,” Carys said, “I am not the fainting type. A trip to the North Tower is never pleasant, but it didn’t kill me.”
“I’m glad for that. But you should be careful, Princess Carys. Just because a moth flies close to a flame and lives doesn’t mean the next time it won’t catch fire.” He pointed a long, dark finger down at a gray moth lying on the ground. “These are dangerous times. I said as much to your brother a few minutes ago.”
“Andreus was here?”
Elder Jacobs nodded and a shimmer of relief pushed aside some of Carys’s aches. The attack had passed. Her ruse had worked.
“As was Lady Imogen. They paid their respects to your father and brother and left together not long ago.”
“I see. Now, if you don’t mind, my lord,” Carys said, trying to stay still as the aching and throbbing grew, “I would like to be alone with my father and brother so that I, too, might pay my respects.”
“Of course, Princess,” he said smoothly. Then, with a perfectly executed bow, Elder Jacobs headed for the doorway. When he reached the arching entrance, he turned and looked at her, then disappeared, his dark, thin braid slithering behind him.
For a moment, Carys stared at the entrance, wondering at the meaning twisted in between Elder Jacobs’s words. He always played the mediator—brokering compromise between the Council and the King, or the King and the High Lords of the Seven Virtuous Districts. But rarely did his mediations create anything other than disillusionment and dissent. What dissent was he trying to create now?
Without an answer to that question, Carys turned back toward the front of the chapel. She felt her heart tighten as she walked up the center aisle. Hundreds of flickering flames were arranged on and around the white stone bench her father’s body was laid on. The soft glow of candlelight illuminated her father’s face. Even in death he was handsome, with his golden hair and beard that someone had cleaned and combed so he appeared more like himself. Only now he was still. And pale. Now that the streaks of blood and dirt had been washed away, it was obvious that the man she’d always thought was undefeatable was gone.
Carys reached out to touch his cheek as she did when she was very small and still allowed to crawl onto his lap.
Ice.
And despite the new clothes they had dressed him in and the ceremonial robe draped around his shoulders, he would never be warm again. She shivered. Maybe she wouldn’t be, either. Not after today.
She heard the young guardsman shift in the back of the chapel as she walked the ten feet between where her father lay and her brother.
Micah.
The next Keeper of Virtues. Guardian of the Light. Ruler of Eden.
To her he’d always looked like a younger version of their father—without a beard. Perhaps that was why they were always at odds in recent years. Both were leaders. Neither liked giving way to anyone. Now someone had forced them both to do exactly that. The question was who? Was it really the Kingdom of Adderton or had someone else orchestrated their murders?
Carys ached to bury her head in Andreus’s shoulder and weep. For him. For her. For the pain streaking up her back and slowly eating away at her heart. Her stomach twisted. Her hands once again shook as she unfastened the deep blue tunic her brother had been dressed in. She tried not to look at his face as she worked. Pretending she didn’t care. Even though she did.
Micah never stood up for her. He often wanted her punished more harshly for her actions. He would assert that she caused embarrassment to the crown. But he was always at her door bringing her sweets or a kind word when the punishment was over.
Spreading the tunic, Carys looked at her brother’s hair-covered, muscular chest. As on her father’s body, there was only one wound. A knife had been driven into the base of his throat. A place the chain shirt he wore did not cover. Carys started to roll him over, and this time she couldn’t stop the moan of pain from escaping her lips and the tears from burning the backs of her eyes.
“Let me, Highness.”
She hadn’t heard the young guard approach and started to order him away, but she couldn’t. If she spoke, she’d cry. And she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stop.
Nodding, she allowed him to help her turn her brother’s body.
He had scars along his back from years ago. A pink, mostly healed gash decorated his shoulder. A souvenir from his efforts on the battlefield to the south, she guessed. But the knife puncture in the throat was the only recent cut. She took each of his hands in hers. Turned them over one at a time. Calluses. Nails trimmed nearly to the quick. But no cuts or scrapes.
Micah, who trained for hours every day with his guard so he would always be better and stronger than his enemies on the field, had been struck down without evidence of his having defended himself. Maybe one of them might have been taken off guard during the attack, but both her father and Micah?
It seemed impossible.
The King’s Guard had lied. Perhaps Adderton soldiers had ambushed them, but there was more to the story. And she would learn what that was.
“Roll the Prince on his back.”
The guard did as she commanded, then started to redress him.
“I can do it,” she said quietly. “I need to do it.”
Her shaking fingers made it hard to get the tunic straight and fastened. The guard stood beside her the entire time. She thought about sending him away, but there was comfort in having him near. Perhaps because he was warm and breathing when she was surrounded by death.
When she was done, she leaned forward, not caring about the way her body protested the movement, and pressed a kiss to her brother’s forehead. Then she turned and did the same with her father as the soldier stood silently behind her—watching.
Then Carys pulled her cloak tight around her, swallowed down the knot of sorrow and anger, and turned her back on death.
She headed to her rooms, each step more painful than the last. Twice she had to stop and put her hand against the wall. Each time it was harder to convince her body to keep moving. And it would just keep getting worse as the welts swelled and the bruises from the strap deepened.
She had to get to her rooms.
Andreus would be there. Waiting with willow bark tea and salves and cool cloths to reduce the swelling and ease the flames in her back. She would be stiff tomorrow. But it would be better with Andreus’s care.
Carys made it to the doorway of her rooms before her legs gave way. She grabbed the doorframe for support as the young guard opened the door and stepped out of the way so she could walk in. A fire crackled in the hearth of the sitting room. Carys expected to see her brother in one of the high-backed blue velvet-lined chairs or at the windows that looked out onto the mountains beyond the plateau.
The room was empty. Carys looked toward the bedroom door at the far end of the room as it opened and felt her heart leap, but it wasn’t her brother who appeared. Juliette, Carys’s dark-haired maid, hurried forward.
“Your Highness, I am sorry for your loss. I have tea ready for you and a meal if you think you can eat.”
“Tea would be fine.” The mere idea of food made Carys’s stomach rebel. Eating was the last thing she needed. “Has Prince Andreus been here?”
“No, Princess.” Juliette moved to a table near the fireplace to pour tea. “No one has been by.”
Not her mother, who knew her punishment. Not her twin, whom she had just stood up for.
Maybe Andreus didn’t know she had returned.
“Juliette,” she said, wincing as she grabbed hold of the back of a chair. “Ask the guard stationed outside to go to Prince Andreus’s rooms and inform him of my arrival here.”
“Y
es, Highness.” Juliette hurried toward the door. Only moments later, the maid returned. “Can I help you change into something more comfortable, Your Highness? Something softer perhaps?”
She’d heard about the strapping. Everyone must have by now. Castle gossip spread like fire in a straw hut. But even though changing into a robe that was soft and loose sounded like heaven, Carys said, “I will be fine. And you can go for the night.”
Only family would see her scars. Ever.
“But . . .”
“Go.”
Juliette twisted her hands in front of her, bobbed a curtsy, and promised to return in the morning. When the door opened again, Carys wanted to weep at the appearance of the guard who appeared.
“I’m sorry, Highness. Prince Andreus did not answer.”
Disappointment flooded her. “He must not have returned to his rooms as of yet.”
The guard looked down at the light brown carpet. “I believe he was there, Your Highness. But he wasn’t alone. I heard two voices before I knocked. Perhaps that’s why he chose not to answer.”
“Two voices? Was one my mother?” she asked. That would explain his absence.
The guard shifted and his freckled face heated with color. “The other voice was female, Your Highness, but I am fairly certain it was not the Queen inside.”
“I see.” She just wished she didn’t. “You can go now.”
“Yes, Princess,” he said with a bow. When he was gone, Carys turned and walked to the door with slow, deliberate steps. Then, summoning the last of her strength, she left her rooms and walked the length of the hallway to her brother’s rooms. The guard was right about the voices inside. She leaned her ear against the door and heard sniffling and the sound of her brother’s voice soothing the woman inside. Then she heard him speak the woman’s name.
Imogen.
The seeress who failed to see the King and Crown Prince’s deaths. The woman who Andreus watched with fascination even as he vowed to care nothing for her. And now he was with her instead of being with Carys.
The pulsing pain in her back grew stronger with each step back to her own rooms.