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She faltered, glancing at her hand, her smile failing, and she twisted Sion’s ring around her finger. “You will be executed. Burned. In the sun. As I told the soldiers this morning, this ring means I’m in command now,” she muttered, half to herself. “But they didn’t like keeping secrets from the other soldiers. I said to them, ‘We don’t need to leteveryoneknow before we start, do we? We let them know only when it’s too late to stop it.’ I want everyone to see you when you’re burning, so they know the Keeper of Relics was wrong. I’m the important one. They must understand the role fate has written for me, to be queen of Gwethel. And when they watch the Underworld Queen burn, they will understand they were all wrong, and so was the Keeper, you know? They are so superstitious.”

“Keeping secrets?”

She held out the ring again. “Sion gave it to me to issue orders, but the six still didn’t listen to me. I had to teach them a lesson.”

My pulse quickened. “What six? The six soldiers who arrested me?”

“They said my ring wasn’t good enough. They didn’t understand why it must be a secret. Because Seneschal Aelius, you see…Aelius is a traitor, and he never liked me. You killed Bran, the king’s best friend, and still, they wanted to wait. But the king needs rest, and that’s why I’m in charge!”

She hardly made sense, but there was enough there that I was getting a clearer picture of what was happening. And for the first time in days, I actually had hope.

“Am I to understand,” I rasped, “that only the soldiers who arrested me know I’m here? And they refuse to execute me until Sion gives the order in person?”

“Those six had to die. They weren’t listening.” She smiled down at me. “Six soldiers of the night, armored in silver, believing themselves unbroken. But the thorned flower of the fae does not bend to fangs. Do you know the tale of the hawthorn tree?”

Her scent—sickly sweet as decaying roses—coiled off her, reaching me down in my cage.

“What happened to the six soldiers?”

“The hawthorn, how it cuts, its bite so unforgiving, even to those of silent hearts, those who died long ago.” She chuckled softly, the sound as brittle as dry winter leaves. “This morning, when the sun kissed the earth, I lay their six sleeping bodies out beneath the flames of day. The secret died with them. No one knows you’re here except me and Sion, my lover.”

I leaned forward, staring at her. “You burned them.”

Her eyes gleamed. “They defied a king.” She giggled. “AndIam his queen. He gavemehis ring.” She looked up at the night sky through the oculus. “He always lovedme!”

Her scream echoed off the stone.

And then I recognized it. The wailing I’d heard through the castle walls. Rowena’s voice.

I slumped against the iron cage. “You’ve captured Sion, haven’t you? You took his ring against his will.”

She gripped the edge of the pit, all amusement falling from her face, replaced with fury. “I already explained it to you, you filthy little animal,” she snarled. “You’re a dog in a cage. Sion lovesme. And now, you wretched reaper, I’m going to leave you down here tothink.In the morning, I’ll drag you into the light myself. But until you burn, you think about why someone as miserable as you will never be good enough for Sion.”

“Wait!” The word ripped out of me, but I stopped myself. I couldn’t ask her. Couldn’t ask her about Leo. She’d use it againstme if she knew how much I cared about him. She’d murder him in front of me.

So, instead, I swallowed my fear and whispered, “Just tell Sion I’m sorry.”

But she was already gone, her footsteps fading into the silence above.

CHAPTER 32

Ilet my head fall back against the cage, the temple’s chill sinking into my muscles. Rowena wanted me dead, but Sion? I wasn’t sure yet.

Everything around me felt hard, sharp, digging into my sensitive skin. I found myself missing the feel of Sion’s soft, velvety magic, which had so often wrapped around me like a soft cloak.

Exhaustion pulled at my limbs as I slumped lower in the cage, but I didn’t give in to it, instead closing my eyes, imagining the way his magic had always felt intertwined with mine.

A fragile spark of hope had flickered to life inside me.

I thought back to that day in the forest, to that first time our magics had combined. If he wasn’t really involved in my arrest, could I use that, summon him with it?

If I let him know I was down here, would he come for me?

Lying flat in the cage, I sent my magic out, tendrils of death energy wending through the stone corridors of the castle above me, searching, seeking, hoping to feel that connection.

In my mind, a vision flickered—Sion and me, dancing in a moonlit forest. He whispered poetry about kissing my naked body, and I wrapped my arms around his neck…but that was alifetime ago. I could almost feel his body moving against mine, arms wrapped around my waist…

I tightened my fingers around the bars of my cage beneath me. Was I losing my mind? That wasn’t a memory at all, it couldn’t be—it was just a fantasy.