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“What are you doing, Lyrena?” I asked, settling my own hands on my hips—sans smile.

“I’m tending to the hearth,” Lyrena said brightly.

I blinked in confusion. “I told Cyara to let it die.”

“There’s no need for that, Majesty. It is little effort, little dent to my magic,” she countered. She shifted her weight forward, as if she would return to her post outside my chambers, where I’d passed Gwen a few minutes before.

“I am so sick of this Ancestors-damned fire. Its hotter than the suns out there,” I tossed my hand in the direction of the open veranda. “I’ve told Cyara a hundred times as she rubs her damn wrists, this stupid fire is not worth the cost.”

“There’s no cost—”

“Lyrena! Let it die!”

“It cannot die,” Cyara said from the doorway.

I spun, my eyes raking over her as I noted every detail. The perfectly draped white gown, the neatly braided copper hair, and the lovely wings rising gracefully above her shoulders. The feathers were smaller than they had been, less full, but the promise of healing was there to see.

As she stepped further into her room, her movements were unmarked by pain. An explosion of gratitude burst in my chest.

Ancestors, be thanked.

But that didn’t stop my terse words. “And why is that?”

“Arthur ordered it,” Cyara said steadily, holding my gaze.

I blinked. I must have misheard her. “Arthur?”

“When you emerged from the water gardens. He ordered that the hearth here always burn,” Cyara explained.

I still struggled to understand. “Why?”

Cyara’s shoulders tensed as if she might shrug, but then thought better of it with her still-healing wings. “It is charmed. A protective fire, to guard you while you are in this room.”

I laughed, a borderline hysterical sound. “Goldstones at my door day and night, my own blades never out of reach, wards on the palace walls, airborne terrestrial circling my courtyard. It’s a miracle I can take a breath without someone marking it.”

“You can’t,” said Cyara and Lyrena in unison.

Oh, fuck me.

They knew so much more than they’d ever let on. All these months I’d imagined myself working in secret, playing this cunning elemental game, and they’d known all along. At least, some part of it. And Arthur, he’d snuck around behind my back and charmed my damn fireplace. It was all a sick fucking joke.

I threw my hands up in the air and cursed filthily.

The doors behind me sprang open again. This time, a soft feline growl filled the room.

Gwen looked from Lyrena to Cyara, then back to me. Her queenly face revealed nothing, though her hand lingered on her sword belt. “I heard raised voices.”

I scrubbed my hand over my face. “It’s nothing.”

One black eyebrow rose.

They were going to drive me to distraction, one by one. “Well, since all of you are here already, we might as well summon the others. Someone fetch Arran and Parys and let’s get on with it.”

* * *

“Why am I here?” Gwen said carefully.

“Because Arran will tell you everything anyway, or try to avoid telling you, which will make you mad until you beat it out of him. This is the easier way.” I sat on the chaise in my antechamber, arms crossed over my chest, annoyance flaring in every muscle.