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CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Tessa

Aweek after the rebellion, King Harristan shows me to a new room in the palace.

“Nothing too grand,” he says as a guard swings open the door. “As you requested.”

My eyes almost bug out of my head. It’s grander than anywhere I’ve ever lived in my life, including the small suite where I’ve been staying since the rebels bombed the palace. This is just down the hall from where Corrick sleeps, and the hallway alone is so lavish that I always feel like I need to whisper when I’m up here. The room is so immense that I can’t take all of it in at once. Glistening marble and gleaming wood and lush wall hangings and a bed the size of an ocean. It’s three times the size of the Emerald Room, where I first stayed the night I snuck in here. It’s too plush. Too big. Too much.

Definitely too grand, and he very well knows that.

Or. . . ?maybe he doesn’t. Maybe that’s part of the problem. Not just with him. With all of the elites.

“It’s lovely,” I say haltingly. “I just meant—I meant—”

“Corrick and I have been discussing the consuls and the rebellion and how we shall proceed from here. We suspect Allisander and Lissa are not the only people who were working against the Crown, so I will not be inviting the other consuls. We have not stopped a revolution yet, Tessa. We have merely . . . ?delayed it a bit.”

I stare at him. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

He’s not done. “As the consuls cannot be trusted, when you are not working with the royal physicians, I will trust you to be my personal adviser in dealing with Lochlan and the other rebels.” I blanch, and he adds, “You did request a job as well, did you not?”

And yes, I suppose I did.

Then he leaves me there in the hallway, my mouth hanging open, and he goes on his way.

“Thank you?” I whisper, but he’s already gone.

Much like the new room, this feels too big. But I wanted to be a part of the change, and I wanted to be leading the way.

I’ve been having breakfast with Corrick and Quint every morning. The Palace Master is full of gossip about the consuls and their loyalty, about Allisander and his hardly veiled insults about Harristan and Corrick, about who can be trusted and who can’t. While there’s hope in the air, there is fear, too, and it’s obvious the guard presence in the palace has been doubled.

My days are busy with meetings, but my favorite part of the day is when the sun has fallen from the sky, and I walk with Corrick under the stars, the moonlight tracing his features in shadow.

Tonight, the weather has cooled, the sky overhead deepening to a blue so dark it’s nearly black. We’re nearing the fiery arch, and sparks sizzle as they fall onto the pond below it.

I shiver, and Corrick wordlessly slips out of his jacket to drape it over my shoulders.

“Thank you,” I say.

“It suits you better anyway,” he says, and I smile.

He doesn’t.

I know he’s met with Harristan, and he says that they’re committed to making things better in Kandala. But that doesn’t mean they’ve made things better between themselves. I remember walking with Harristan in the Wilds, when he said that the king deserves no one’s pity.

I wonder if Corrick feels that way, too.

I lace my fingers with his. “You seem worried.”

“Harristan said that he doesn’t want to hide behind the King’s Justice.”

I wait for him to say more, but he doesn’t, and I frown. “I think that’s wise.”

“I don’t think he ever hid, Tessa. We never hid who we were.” He hesitates. “There’s so much at stake. Allisander and the others were going to try to overthrow him. I’m worried that if there’s no more King’s Justice, they’ll try again.”

I stop short and stare at him.

He must see my expression. “What?” he says, and he almost sounds petulant. “That’s what happened to our parents.”