Page 43

A deep, savage satisfaction curled through him, and he let himself feel it for a few seconds, because the road had been hard and long to get here. Years of training in other countries’ armies to hone his military skills. Years of planning and political manoeuvring to gather supporters to his cause. Years of anguish watching his people suffer under Accorsi rule…
Now that was done.
Now the real work would begin.
Shoving aside the satisfaction, Tiberius snapped his fingers at the priest and another aide standing in the crowd clustered at the base of the dais.
‘Father Domingo,’ he said curtly. ‘If you please?’
The aide holding the heavy gold circlet carved with oak leaves that was the Kasimir royal crown handed it to the priest, who immediately came up the stairs.
There would be no ceremony, no pomp and definitely no circumstance in this coronation. Tiberius didn’t have time for any. His country needed hospitals and schools and new housing, not pointless and expensive ceremonies.
The priest intoned the words of an old prayer, then placed the circlet on Tiberius’s brow. And just like that, after twenty years of exile, the crown of Kasimir finally rested on the head of the true King.
Tiberius ignored the weight of it, and this time allowed himself no satisfaction at all. Instead, he waited stoically as the little gathering of people at the foot of the dais cheered and applauded before raising his hand. Silence fell instantly.
He was not a man to be disobeyed.
‘In my first act as King,’ he began. ‘I will—’ He broke off abruptly, the back of his neck prickling.
Ten long years of military training had given him sharp senses and a finely honed awareness of threats. He was very aware of when he was being watched, for example, and he was definitely being watched now. And not only by the people gathered in the throne room.
Below him, one of his guards shifted on his feet, boots scuffing on the parquet.
‘Quiet!’ Tiberius snapped, trying to concentrate on the prickling sensation, scanning the room while his men waited in absolute silence.
Everything was the way it had been before he’d come in here. Nothing had changed. He glanced up at the ceiling to find nothing but painted plaster. Nowhere for anyone to watch him from there, clearly.
Yet, the fact remained that he was being watched.
Like his father, he had a photographic memory, and as part of his training to take back the throne his father had made him memorise the palace floor plans. He knew that one of the Kings in centuries past had constructed a small network of narrow corridors within the thick palace walls, so his spies could secretly observe people.
Perhaps whoever it was, was in there?
Tiberius scanned the wall to his left. One of those corridors lay behind it, if he wasn’t much mistaken, and there was a door to it behind one of heavy tapestries.
Well, whoever was lurking in those corridors wouldn’t stay hidden for long. Not if he had anything to do with it.
Saying anything would alert whoever was hiding, so he didn’t speak, merely glanced at his captain of the guard and jerked his head in the direction of the tapestry. The man knew all his king’s wordless commands and instantly strode over to it and jerked aside the heavy fabric. A small, narrow door lay behind it, just as Tiberius suspected. The captain pulled open the door and disappeared into the corridor behind. A soft cry came through the doorway, then a scuffle of footsteps, and an instant later, much to Tiberius’s surprise, the captain marched a slip of a girl all in white lace and muslin out into the throne room and over to the dais.
No, not a girl. A woman. A small woman, wearing some kind of flouncy, lacy white dress with a ragged hem and covered in dust. Her hair was a pale mass of curls, half falling out of a pink ribbon and hanging down her back, almost obscuring her face, but from what he could glimpse her features were delicate, precise and sharp.
She was very pale. Was it fear? If so then sheshouldbe afraid. She might not look like an immediate threat, but she’d been hiding in the walls and watching him, and that he would not tolerate.
His captain, who was holding her by her upper arm, released her, and she made an aggrieved sound, rubbing at her arm as she stood at the foot of dais.
The oddest thought crossed Tiberius’s mind then… That she looked like a piece of thistledown coming down to rest on the old parquet of the floor. Either that or a terrified fairy—and, despite that aggrieved noise, she was definitely terrified.
Tiberius stared down at her impassively from his throne.
Who was she and why had she been in those secret corridors? Was she an Accorsi assassin, left behind to launch a surprise attack? Or an Accorsi spy, lying in wait to take back information on the new King?
Whatever she was, she wouldn’t be doing it for much longer. She would go before the courts to be tried. The Accorsis and their hangers-on would answer for their crimes. He would make them.
‘So,’ he said at length. ‘I see we have mice in the walls.’
The woman stared up at him, her sharp cheekbones pale as snow. Her curls had fallen back from her face, revealing a pair of the deepest, most luminous blue eyes he’d ever seen.