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All three sets of footsteps halted.

“Yes.”

“Then why did you sanction such unceremonious and indecorous behavior in my Queen’s bedchamber?” I couldn’t see Cyara’s wings twitching, but I could certainly imagine it.

“We bear urgent news for Her Majesty,” Gawayn said gruffly.

“Normally you at least manage to knock before barging in—”

“It’s the Offering,” Lyrena interrupted, earning irritated exhalations from both. But her footsteps were towards the corner. Towards me.

“It has been set for tomorrow,” she finished softly.

“So we have heard.” Parys sank back down onto the bed, the rushes inside the mattress shifting under his weight.

“Why the haste?” Cyara wondered aloud, closer to me now.

A sudden burst of heat, and the flame beneath the teapot leapt to life. From the corner of my eye, I watched Cyara rub at her wrists. The aches she always felt there… most likely the cost of her magic. And yet, she never hesitated to expend it in my service.

I pushed back the guilt and ground harder.

Carly pulled her fingers from my hair, her work done, as I added the tea mixture to steep.

“Esa must be insisting,” Parys said.

“But why would she? The longer the Joining is delayed, the longer the Royal Council can hold on to power.” Cyara wandered back toward the center of the room. A bit of pressure in my chest eased.

“The Brutal Prince did not appreciate being made to wait outside the goldstone palace overnight. She is attempting to appease him,” Gawayn offered, his voice tight. Cyara must be standing close by. They were always ill at ease with one another.

Parys laughed, acid coating each syllable. “He’s the Brutal Prince. He is not famed for his patience.”

I knew what they were doing. These conversations should have been conducted in whispers, or not at all. They were none of them courtiers—except Parys. But I’d always thought his noble birth the least interesting thing about him.

They were trying to engage me. Trying to make me care.

But they—my handmaidens, my guards, the nearest things I had to friends—they ought to have known better than anyone that I was far past being interested in petty court posturing.

“Nor his mercy,” Gawayn added.

Lyrena began giggling again.

“It is hardly a laughing matter,” Cyara chided. As she spoke, a frigid wind swept through the room, threatening to smother the flame that heated my tea.

I moved instinctively to protect it with my wide body.

“On the contrary,” Lyrena snickered. “I will be using this morning’s scene to lift my spirits for years to come.”

Another icy blast. Then a wave of heated flame and a very unattractive grunt—from Evander.

“What happened?” Cyara asked, her voice carefully neutral.

Gawayn answered before Lyrena could. “He seemed to think Evander did not need his sword arm.”

I turned quickly from my hiding spot in the corner, disbelief choking the scoff from my throat.

Evander stood at the door, his short-cropped dark hair disheveled but otherwise the rest of his armor and clothing in place. Except for his arm. His arm was missing, taken from just above the elbow.

My surliest Goldstone Guard glared as all eyes in the room turned to him.