Chapter 32

 

“Zara, wait!”

But she was already running, bare feet slapping viciously on smooth gold. Her heart thundered, a wild drumming of anticipation, drowning the shouts echoing behind her. It sang with an elation that coursed through her very marrow.

Magnus.

It had to be Magnus. Who else from the north would come? They would have no reason, but he’d come for her. She knew it. She knew it with a driving passion as strong and heated as the emotions threatening to consume her.

She rounded corners, taking each one with a reckless spin that kept clipping the damn wings. The hindrance made her want to tear them off, but even that would take up time she didn’t want to waste. She tried to ignore them, tried to take wider turns, tried to suppress the tears of frustration blurring her path, especially when she was so close.

The dim corridors brightened at one end, a sharp carpet of spilled sunlight glinting off the shiny surfaces. The towering doors loomed vast and sprawling, open to the world outside. Beyond it, she could just make out the steep plunge where the stairs began. She reached them, forcing herself to skid to a stop before tumbling over the edge.

Below, beneath the piercing halo of sunlight, she saw the cluster, the group of half-naked men surrounding a solitary figure in their center. Their back was to Zara, but it didn’t matter.

“Magnus!”

The figure turned just as she hit the bottom landing and sprinted forward.

Not Magnus.

Reggie met her gaze, his remorseful and apologetic. He tried to offer her a small smile, but even that slipped. Instead, he opened his mouth, his head spilling with all the excuses he thought he needed to make to explain why he was there and not Magnus. He didn’t know how to tell her Magnus had taken off earlier that morning and hadn’t returned. He didn’t know how to assure her Magnus would be there if he’d known where Zara was. But it didn’t matter.

Zara tackled him.

The impulse took even her by surprise, but her arms had already latched around his shoulders and her entire weight had slammed into his.

He caught her, staggering only slightly with the impact. His arms clamped around her middle. He crushed her until she couldn’t breathe.

“I’m so happy to see you,” she rasped into the side of his neck.

He gave her a light squeeze. “I’m taking you home.” He drew back slightly and peered down into her face. “Whatever you have inside, leave it. Come on.”

Unimaginable joy surged through her, blinding her momentarily from reality, but reality found her with a gleeful stab.

“I can’t.”

Reggie shook his head. “Yes, you can. Just leave with me. They can’t stop you.”

He didn’t understand.

“I can’t go back.”

He straightened, his eyes narrowing in deliberation. “If they threatened you…”

It was her turn to rock her head wildly from side to side. “They didn’t.”

“Then what—?”

“I knew,” she blurted, heart breaking as she realized she had to tell him, had to watch as he—like his father—banished her from his life. “About your mother.”

She felt his arms stiffen around her, felt the tension snap through him. The muscles in his jaw flexed, a harsh twisting that reflected in the darkening of his eyes.

Zara pushed on. “I didn’t know who or when, but I knew she would … she would die.”

He averted his eyes, but not before she caught the shine in them. He ran a tongue over his lips.

“We … we won’t tell anyone,” he decided, voice hoarse. “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t do anything.”

He believed it. She could see it in his thoughts. He’d already processed the information and judged her innocent. Just like that. There wasn’t a sliver of animosity, not even a speck of blame.

“I told your father,” she murmured.

His eyes closed even as his chin lowered. “Fuck.”

A tear escaped down a path made from all the other tears she hadn’t realized she’d shed already. It caught on her chin before plummeting down the front of her dress, leaving a dark streak.

“He told me not to come back.”

He exhaled slowly and raised his face. His brown eyes peered into hers, void of all the things she wouldn’t have blamed him for feeling when looking at her.

“It’s okay,” he told her softly. “I’ll talk to him. You don’t belong here. You can’t stay with these people. They’re dangerous. You’re not safe.”

The hard urgency in his voice, the way he lowered it, lowered his face so only she could hear him struck her with a new sort of fear.

“What?”

He stole a peek at something over her shoulder. The contours of his face shifted into one of insistence that spilled onto his voice as it came out of him rapid.

“You’re the only living female carrying the royal blood line,” he hissed. “They need you to—”

“Get your hands off the princess!” Kyros had reached them with two guards flanking either shoulder, swords drawn.

Reggie never looked away from Zara, his gaze penetrating. “You need to come with me. Now.”

Hands grabbed him before he could finish and tore him away from her, scattering the thoughts she was trying to pull together from his mind. His singular need to get her to safety clouded whatever message he’d been trying to pass on, leaving her scrambling to figure it out.

“Let him go!” She rounded on her brother. “Release him!”

“He’s trespassing,” Kyros said simply.

“He came to see me,” she argued. “Let him go.”

He peered past her to Reggie standing rigid and defiant, his arms twisted behind him by two guards. The two clashed gazes, brown against brown, rage against suspicion. Their thoughts tangled together in a black cloud between them, both on the single mind to keep the other away from her.

“It was quite foolish of you to come here alone, Maxwell,” Kyros said at last. “We severely out number you.”

“I didn’t come to fight you,” Reggie replied. “I came for Zara.”

Kyros frowned as if confused, but he knew the answer even before he asked, “Why?”

Reggie struggled against the hands holding him. “Because she’s my sister and I’m not leaving her here with you inbred mother fuckers.”

The smirk vanished from Kyros’s face. “Bold words for a dead man.”

“No!” Zara stepped between them, but faced her brother. “Don’t touch him.”

“He disrespected our family.”

Zara didn’t budge. “Let him go. Please, Kyros. For me. A favor for me. Please, don’t hurt him.”

“Zara—”

She ignored Reggie, keeping all her focus on the man holding all the strings. “Let him leave unharmed and…” she had nothing. She had no bargaining chips, nothing she could offer in return for Reggie’s safety.

“Don’t!” Reggie growled.

But Kyros had a different look on his face, one of someone who just realized something very interesting.

“You’ll stay,” Kyros supplied for her.

It was an odd request given that she was already there and she had nowhere else to go. Staying was her only option, but even his mind seemed satisfied by that, by the assurance of her not leaving.

“No, Zara!”

Reggie tore one arm free. He drove the bunched fist into the other guard’s mouth, releasing his other arm. But that was as far as he got before he was grabbed again and wrestled to his knees.

“No!” Zara spun back to Kyros. “Yes, yes, I’ll stay, but swear to me that he will be escorted out safely, unharmed.”

Kyros started to speak, started to nod.

“Not even a scratch!” she urged, breathing hard.

He glanced from her to Reggie, then back, resigned. “Very well.” To his men, he said, “Take him to the exit and make sure he leaves, but!” he added, looking at Zara again. “If he returns, I will behead him myself.”

He meant it. She could see exactly what he’d do to Reggie given the chance.

“He won’t,” she vouched.

“I’m not leaving you here!” Reggie snarled, pulling her attention back to him.

She knelt so their faces were level. “Please,” she whispered for his mind only. “I can’t watch you die. Please don’t make me. I couldn’t take it.”

“I’m not leaving!” he hissed through his teeth, each word jagged.

“Don’t come back,” she begged, ignoring him. “I’ll be okay. I promise. I’ll get out of here and I’ll see you again.”

His chest heaved with his exertion. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

She didn’t, but it was better than watching him get hurt, or worse, get killed. She would promise Kyros whatever he wanted if it meant Reggie leaving that place unscathed.

“Promise me you won’t come back.”

Reggie’s nostrils flared. “No.”

“Reggie…”

“Okay, that’s enough. Get him out.” Brutal fingers closed around Zara’s upper arm and dragged her to her feet. “Remember my warning, Maxwell, you come back, I will kill you.”

She was pulled away from Reggie, away from the men dragging him to his feet. Kyros didn’t even let her watch them take Reggie away. He hauled her back into the castle and out of view.

“Release me!” She wrenched free and stumbled to a stop. “How dare you treat me, or the people I care about in such a disgraceful manner. You have no right.”

Kyros was slower to face her. His hulking frame towered over her, a mouse in the presence of a … dragon. Any gentleness he’d shown her during that morning had vanished behind an inky wall of impatience and rage. It vibrated around him, a solid wall of force.

“I am king.” The hiss washed over her with frigid fingers. “I can do whatever I want. This is my kingdom. These are my people and you, you’re whatever I want you to be. A princess has only one purpose. It’s up to you how you wish to serve that purpose.”

“What purpose—?”

Lae appeared seemingly out of nowhere, small hands clasped in front of her, head bowed. “Forgive me, Your Highness, but Baron is waiting in the library … for both of you.”

Kyros glowered at Zara as if she were to blame. “We will finish this later.”

Not waiting, he started past Lae, who dutifully followed at his heels. Zara hesitated just long enough for the two to reach the end of the corridor before following. She glanced back once at the doors, but knew there was no point checking for Reggie. They would have already taken him. She just prayed they really would escort him to the exit. She also prayed Reggie would stay away, which she doubted. The idea of him returning terrified her, but she didn’t know how to make him stop. He’d been so determined.

Heart a knot of anxiety, she shuffled after the pair in the distance. They rounded a corner and vanished from view, leaving Zara alone in the corridor. It was almost tempting to see if she could make an escape, but really saw no point when she had no shoes or coat, or a place to go. There was also the fact that Baron was the one who sent her to that place and she wanted to know why.

At the bend in the hall, she went wide, in no mood to bump her wings on the edge. She even glanced over her shoulder to check, and froze.

Her wings were gone. The loss of their weight hadn’t even registered until that moment. She couldn’t even be sure when they’d gone back into her shoulders, but possibly at some point before Reggie had embraced her, because she would have felt them. Maybe when she’d been running and wishing they’d go away. That made more sense. However it had happened, she was free of them and that was all she cared about.

Lae was waiting outside the library when Zara finally found them. She barely gave Zara a glance, but her inner voice was filled with annoyance and disgust.

“Some princess she is, doesn’t even know her own place. Kyros deserves better. He deserves to be happy. I could make him happy!”

Zara cut her off, in no mood for the whining. She stalked past the girl and straight into the library.

Baron beamed from his relaxed position in an oversized chair in the sitting area, facing an empty fireplace and an annoyed Kyros. His hands were folded one over the other on top of his cane, the fingers slightly interlocked around the silver handle. He lifted one and motioned Zara closer.

Kyros stood with his arms folded and his face cut deep into a scowl. He barely glanced at Zara when she took the sofa on Baron’s right.

“I’ve been waiting a very long time for this moment, for the chance to sit with you. How are you?”

For a man everyone seemed to fear, it was odd to see him so … grandfatherly. Whenever someone thought Baron, Chief Demon, there was always an image in their minds of fire, brimstones, and death. Evil in its truest form. But sitting there with him, seeing the radiating pride and pleasure at the sight of her made it hard to imagine what everyone else was so afraid of.

She sighed and looked down at her hands. “It’s been a difficult few … weeks.”

“I apologize for all you had to go through. I wish I could have saved you from that.”

“I just want to know why.” She lifted her eyes to the man who had yet to blink, as if afraid if he did, she might vanish. “Why did you sell me?”

Baron started to answer when he seemed to remember Kyros was still in the room. He turned cool eyes to the Draconian king and raised a white eyebrow.

“Pardon us, Your Highness, but this is family business. You understand.”

The look of outrage on his face would have been comical if it wasn’t so vicious. He looked to Zara, possibly waiting for her to ask him to stay, but after what he’d threatened to do to Reggie, he couldn’t get far enough away from her if he left the planet. Realizing she wasn’t on his side, Kyros bared his teeth and stomped from the room. The door was slammed behind him, making the lamps on the end tables rattle dangerously.

“Draconians and their tempers.” Baron clicked his tongue and gave a slow shake of his head. “They just don’t know how to control it. It’s in their blood,” he told her simply. “All that fire.”

Having nothing to add to that, Zara said nothing.

Baron pushed on. “I sold you for your own good, Zara. It was the only way I knew you would be safe.”

“Safe? He was a monster.”

“No, he was a very dear friend.” He paused, gave a slight shrug. “A slight monster, but a friend.”

“You’re friends with demons who rape and devour children?”

The smile started slow, then turned into a short chuckle. “I am friends with many sorts, but he did me a great favor keeping you protected, just like I promised your parents I would.”

“My parents told you to sell me?”

“Your parents knew I was the only one who could keep you away from those trying to hurt you, which I did. After Suazar’s untimely death, I had to pull a lot of strings to get you in with the oracles. They are not an easy group of women to negotiate with.”

Zara frowned. “I had to prove myself. I had to walk across the Isle of Cree, alone without food or water for four days … I was seven! Some demon woman took me to the opening and told me to head north-east, and left me there. I didn’t know what north-east was.”

“Like I said, impossible to negotiate with, but those were their terms. If you made it to them, they would take you in. There really is nowhere safer than an oracle temple.”

“I saw the priest talking to mercenaries about giving me to them,” Zara muttered.

“They weren’t mercenaries,” Baron protested. “Those were my men. They were coming to get you. They had no idea you would climb the walls and try to make a run for it.”

“I thought I was being sold … again!”

Baron sighed and gave his head a sad shake. “I told them to be more discreet. They were supposed to talk to you and explain the situation. I would have done it myself, but that much heat doesn’t agree with me.”

A drumming had begun at both temples, an erratic patter that made her eyes water and the pit of her stomach froth. It was unclear which of those felt worse, or what exactly was the cause. Maybe the fact that her entire life had been a play, a theatrical performance orchestrated by a man she hadn’t known existed three days ago. Maybe it was the knowledge that her parents had entrusted him with her safety after her own grandmother wanted her dead. Maybe it was knowing that it wasn’t over. Whatever the conclusion, it never altered her reality, which was that Magnus hadn’t come for her. Reggie had cared more that she was gone than the man who was supposedly her mate. But she was beginning to realize that was just her life. It would never be fair.

“How did my mother die? Did Tiana kill her?”

Baron splayed one hand. “Honestly? I wouldn’t have put it past her. Richella’s death never made sense, but having a demon child and contaminating the royal bloodline was an embarrassment Tiana wouldn’t have put up with, and I think a large part of her was tired of having to conceal Richella’s … indiscretions. She was very…”

“Liberal?” Zara offered, using Kyros’s term.

Baron chuckled. “That’s an appropriate term, yes. She was not short of male companionship, but your father loved her and she loved him as much as a married Draconian princess could love a demon. She could never leave Skyes—Kyros’s father. Tiana never would have permitted it, and she’d already had one other child by another man.”

“Liam’s daughter.”

Baron nodded.

“So, there really is another child.”

“Oh, yes, but it was so long ago and the child has been missing for just as long, much too long for Richella to have killed herself out of grief. No, I think if she really did take her own life, it wasn’t over the first child. I think it was over losing you and your father.”

“But why sell me? Why not...?”

“Keep you?” A humorless little grin turned up the corner of his mouth. “I couldn’t risk anyone knowing about you, Zara. Your father was my heir. You falling into the hands of an enemy was too dangerous. I couldn’t risk anyone finding out who you were to me. The only one who did know was Tiana, and I knew she would die before telling anyone. So, I made her an offer, I would take you, keep you hidden, and no one would ever know what Richella had done, while keeping my promise to your parents.”

All her life, Zara had wondered why she’d been given away. Everything from them being dead, to not wanting her had crossed Zara’s mind, but never once did she think it had been done to protect her. Even having it explained didn’t fully explain why it had to end with her getting sold to a carnivorous monster. She wondered if it mattered anymore. Her parents were dead and she really had no one to confirm Baron’s story with. Plus, what difference did it make now?

“I have other questions.”

Baron nodded. “Unfortunately, the answer to those ones require that His Highness return.” He sighed and pursed his lips, not in the least bit pleased about this fact. “Would you mind, my dear? Winter does awful things to my joints.”

She really didn’t want to bring Kyros back into the conversation, but she rose anyway and crossed to the door, not at all surprised when she opened it and found Kyros and Lae already standing on the other side waiting for her.

He stalked in with the fury of an enraged bull and planted himself in front of Baron, practically vibrating in his anger. “What are you playing at, old man? What makes you think you can break into my castle and then kick me out of my own—”

“Calm down, Kyros.” Baron smoothed a dismissive hand down the front of his coat. “Don’t forget who handed you this castle. You would still be at the mercy of the Maxwell’s, possibly already dead, if I hadn’t saved you. So, why don’t you have a seat and be a bit more grateful.”

Kyros hesitated just long enough to make Zara almost think he would tell the other man off. But he sat with a disgruntled huff and continued to glower at Baron. There was no need to read his thoughts to know he wished he could snap the older man in two.

Baron, if he sensed the Draconian’s thirst for his blood, he never let on. “Now that we’re all present, it’s time we discuss our next course of action. Zara, what do the Maxwell’s plan to do? Are they going to betray me?”

The turn in conversation, the topic pinned Zara to the stiff cushions of the sofa. It gripped her a long moment while her mind spun with disbelief.

“You want me to tell you what they’re planning?” Outrage lanced through her hiss. “You want me to betray them?”

“It’s only betrayal if you still had loyalty towards them,” Baron clarified simply. “Which I’m sure you don’t given what they did.”

“Magnus is my mate. I won’t betray him.”

“Mate?”

Both Baron and Zara ignored Kyros, both locked in a silent battle of wills.

“Your mate allowed his father to remove you from your home.”

“Magnus didn’t know.”

“And has he come looking for you?” Zara hesitated just long enough for Baron to find his foothold. “You are not one of them, Zara. This is your family. This is where you belong.”

Everyone kept telling her that. This is your family now. This is where you belong. But no one ever seemed to mean it. At the first sign of trouble, she always found herself alone and abandoned.

Plus, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be part of Kyros’s family. Or Tiana’s. Neither one was very trustworthy. She’d barely been there a full day and already she wanted to leave. Kyros had proven to be a bully, a manipulator, a monster. He reminded her of a child given too much power. Whatever his reasons were for wanting her to stay in that gilded cage, she knew she wouldn’t like. And it wasn’t because she was family.

Then there was Baron, a man who swears he’d put her through hell and back to protect her, and maybe he did, but he was also the man who ordered Kyros to kill Kyaerin, knowing how it would affect her relationship with the Maxwell’s.

But there was something else, something that only just occurred to her.

“How did you know Liam removed me from the manor? I never told anyone that.”

Baron paused, a subtle little falter she didn’t miss. “You mentioned it, of course.”

Zara poured over that a long moment, going over her conversation with the man, with Kyros even, just in case she really had said something. But she hadn’t. She was sure of it.

“No, I never said…” she let herself trail off, her mind working too fast to speak and think all at once. “I want to see Magnus,” she blurted, a need she hadn’t even realized she’d been thinking, but the urgency behind it was frightening.

Kyros scoffed, draping his massive frame back in his seat. “He won’t come here.”

“Then take me to see him.”

Something shifted behind his perfectly poised expression—annoyance, maybe.

“No.”

Zara stiffened. “What?”

“What Kyros means to say is,” Baron interjected smoothly. “That, after everything that has happened, he won’t see you.”

“He will—”

“No, he won’t,” Kyros cut her off sharply. “I killed his mother and you came to me the very same night. What do you think he’ll think when he finds out? That you’re a spy. That you helped me.”

Horrified, Zara could only shake her head in wild denial. “No, I … he wouldn’t…”

“He won’t believe you. You know how Magnus is.”

She did, and he was right. The second Magnus found out where she’d been and with whom, he’d stamp her as a traitor. A spy. He’d hate her.

Suddenly, it all made sense. Everything. From the moment she’d been taken from the temple, she’d been a pawn.

“You knew,” she croaked, turning to Baron. “Everything you did, it wasn’t to protect me. You were keeping me hidden until you needed me.”

“Zara…”

She shot to her feet, limbs trembling. “Those men who took me from the temple, they put me in shackles. Why would they do that? Then you sent Magnus to find me, knowing he would bring me to his home…”

It was all unraveling faster than she could piece together. Everything he’d ever said, everything she’d seen and heard, it was all falling into her lap in jagged shards.

“You used me!” Her cry broke with her rage. “You knew, all along, you knew I would be the perfect eyes and ears. Keep me in their midst, a wolf in the chicken house—”

“Coop,” Kyros supplied.

She ignored him. “Gathering information for you until you could send your … your goon in and have them turn on me, cast me out. That’s why Jacinda was already waiting for me. That’s why you brought me here! You don’t care about me. You don’t care about my parents. This is all about you winning your war.”

Silence plummeted through the room, broken only by her every ragged breath. She stood, rigid in all her pain and rage. Her balled fists trembled at her sides with the force of her hatred. She seethed as she stared the man down, daring him to deny her accusations.

Baron didn’t. He lowered his eyes to his lap where a tiny piece of lint had caught the corner of his coat. He picked it off idly and flicked it over the armrest of the sofa. It drifted to the ground and lay motionless on the worn Afghan.

“You clearly misunderstand my intentions, Zara,” he began in that inky smooth tone he’d been using throughout their entire conversation, the tone of a concerned and loving adult who only wanted the best for her. Only she was wiser now. “This isn’t my war. It’s everyone’s war. Demons and veil creatures alike. I am fighting to better our situation. Why should humans get all this freedom when they squander their lives? Why must we protect them when they spend all their time killing each other? The angels want us to be their prisoners forever, their cattle. Why? Because we were born in the darkness? Who left them in charge?” He paused to let that sink in, and when she didn’t answer, he went on. “I have been more than fair to the Maxwell family. I have gone out of my way to give them everything they wanted and needed. I made them, and they betrayed me. Does that seem right to you?”

Zara refused to be swayed by the silky charm seeping from his mouth. She refused to let him blur the picture she already had of him.

“You killed Kyaerin and Imogen.”

Baron huffed. “Kyaerin was already scheduled to die. I know you know that. Now, at least, she died with a purpose, a warning to her family not to break their promises. And I have no idea who Imogen is.”

“Well, you killed them for nothing, because I don’t know anything.”

Deliberation pulled the bit of skin between his eyebrow together. Suspicion took hold of his eyes, darkening the blue. His chin lifted and quirked to one side.

“You’re lying to me, Zara.”

She felt the sharp jab of his prodding slam into the door containing her thoughts. The frame rattled beneath the assault, but held firm.

“I still won’t tell you.”

The push was harder the second time, a violent ram that sent cobwebs of pain splintering down the back of her skull and along her entire spinal column. Zara winced and bore down, nailing her resolve into maintaining the shield.

“You can’t fight me,” he warned her coolly. “I’m much older than you, which makes me more powerful. The only thing you’ll accomplish is hurting yourself.”

“You don’t know how much I can take,” she ground out, jaw clenched. “I’ve been blocking people my entire life.”

Baron sighed and the prodding stopped. “This isn’t how I wanted to do this, Zara. I want you to trust me.” He pushed to his feet, putting all his weight on his cane, a frail old man. “You think you’re loyal to them right now, because you haven’t had time to realize it’s misplaced. What you need is something to root you here, to this life. Your new life. But don’t worry, we will try again.” He turned away from her before Zara could ask what he meant by any of that cleverly disguised threat and met Kyros’s gaze. “Why don’t you show me out, Your Highness.”

Kyros didn’t seem thrilled at the non-request, but he rose and followed Baron out, leaving Zara alone in a room surrounded by a million books and a strange coil tightening in her stomach. She wondered if she should try leaving. It had been dark the night before, but she was almost certain she could find the path again. If not, what was the worst that could be out there? It couldn’t possibly be worse than that place.

“Miss?” Lae was back, hovering small and uncertain on the threshold. “His Highness has asked me to take you back to your quarters.”

Zara didn’t move, not because she was feeling particularly defiant, but because she was still trying to make up her mind about leaving. She certainly couldn’t tell Lae about the idea. The girl would be obligated to run to Kyros and Zara didn’t feel like spending the rest of her life in a prison.

“Miss?”

“What if I said I didn’t want to go to my quarters?” she cut the girl off. “What if I wanted to explore this place more, or wanted to go for a walk?”

Lae faltered. “Uh … His Highness…”

Resolute in her decision, Zara marched past the girl. “You can tell His Highness that I will be exploring the gardens, and if he wishes to drag me back to my room in chains, that’s where he can find me.”

She almost felt bad when she left Lae shrinking behind her, mouth open and shutting rapidly, but the feeling evaporated almost as quickly and Zara found herself sprinting through the corridors. Her feet closed all the unnecessary spaces dripping in one of the most precious metals in the world, searching for the first set of doors leading out. It didn’t even matter where as long as she was on the other side of those walls.

She quickened her pace, her heart in her throat, the anxious panic of a hunted rabbit. The sweat on her feet gripped the floor, causing her to stumble. The world tipped before she caught herself on the corner of a stand. She paused to catch her breath and steal a glance back, half expecting Lae to be chasing after her with manacles, but the corridor remained perfectly still, quiet even, except for her panting.

Abandoning her place, she pushed forward, trying to remember if the entire place was a giant circle, if she would eventually hit the entrance again. There were so many turns, too many corridors and doors. If she could just find something familiar, she’d know if she was going the right way.

“Hey!”

Zara yelped at the shout. She spun on her heel to face the guard standing at the end of the hall, looking directly at her. There was no need to read his mind to know he’d been given orders to bring her back and keep her in her room. It was swarming around his head, an obsessed nest of bees buzzing, but there was also that glimmer of recognition, of needing it, of being praised by the king and possibly earning a prominent position on the guard. He was already seeing himself next to Kyros, head of his army.

Zara wanted to roll her eyes, but there was no time for that.

She turned and ran. The flowy skirt swirled around her legs, billowing behind her as she flew from passage to passage, diving between pillars and down a series of stairs. At the back of her mind, she knew there had been no stairs leading her to the main doors, but it was a possible escape.

The guard tore after her, his body built for speed. He was barely winded when he twisted his hand into her hair. The strands caught on the anchor and her whole head snapped back. Her neck wrenched. Her body jerked, lifting her feet off the floor. The ground vanished and the corridor tilted. She barely had time to brace when she struck. Her head made a sickening thud colliding with the floor and everything went black.