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“What is your name?”

“Orlissa, Your Majesty.”

“And what exactly is it that you want, Orlissa?”

“I want you to see your son.”

“He isnotmy son,” I hissed.

“Regardless.” Her gaze was still steady. “You are all he has.”

I weighed up my potential actions. I believed her when she said she had an attack power. My own power was…lacking. It was just one of the things Sabium liked to taunt me about. “I do this, and you swear to keep your silence. Forever.”

“I’ll swear it.”

“Ten minutes,” I said through numb lips. “I will see him for ten minutes.”

She nodded, turning and leading me to the nursery.

The nursery was quiet. Peaceful. I hadn’t stepped inside this wing of the castle since I’d been that girl who thought she might have a child of her own. My heart slammed into my ribs.

Orlissa’s neck was very white. Her pulse throbbed evenly. I could likely slit her throat before she could reach for her power.

“He’s had a fever for two days,” she whispered, leading me close to the bed.

The boy was so small. I’d forgotten just how small he was. When he was toddling through this castle as if he owned it, that laugh bubbling from his chest, he seemed larger-than-life.

“Where are the healers?”

“They have visited and tended to the worst of it. If they were to heal every childhood fever, his body would not learn to heal such things itself. He will have to endure it for a little while longer.”

“Perhaps it is better to put him out of his misery.”

A simple twist of the wrist and his neck would snap. Life was suffering. Ending his would be a mercy.

Orlissa paused. “I’m going to pretend I did not hear that,” she said.

Despite the situation, my mouth twitched.

She seemed to be waiting for me to do something.

“Speak.”

“You should sit on his bed, Your Majesty. Try to comfort him. Can I trust you to be alone with him?”

“If I kill him, I will die in agony directly after,” I informed her. “Regner will ensure it.”

Her lips thinned, but she nodded.

“Do you need anything?” she asked.

I’d forgotten his name. If I asked it now, Orlissa would make me pay somehow.

“No,” I said. “You may leave.”

After a moment of hesitation, she whirled and strode out the door.

I examined the sleeping child. He had ludicrously long eyelashes. His face was pale, except for his cheeks, which were flushed. And he let out a whimper in his sleep.