Page 16 of A Court of Truth and Thorns (Royal Scout #2)

KALI

T he three-day journey to River Manor is a haunting mirror of Leaf’s and my carriage ride to Delta, not the least because it is Raza rather than Leaf sitting on the bench beside me.

It takes me half a day just to push the thoughts of my sister from my mind enough to breathe normally.

I’ve been doing well with not letting the reality of Leaf’s absence conquer my mind, but my tether on that control is slipping more each day.

In place of Dansil’s lush loneliness, Everett bursts with people.

They are everywhere, crowding, bending against harsh winds, sucking air from each bit of space.

Beggars shiver in the cold. Rich, bundled-up merchants squeeze into tiny tables at busy eateries.

And stars, is it freezing. The farther we get from the Dansil border, the sharper the air’s chill, cutting like a knife into my lungs.

The last time it snowed in Dansil was before I was born.

Here in Everett, we wake up each morning to frost-covered ground, and each night we hope no snowstorm will find our caravan.

If the people and the weather weren’t enough to send my mind spinning, the parade of living crystals that streams by the carriage windows finishes the job.

Staffs, jewelry, even building eaves all shine with living crystals.

My own reserve of magic is gone, squandered in experiments and training and the occasional loss of control.

“Did you ever see Bahir siphon magic from a crystal?” I ask Alexa and Jasmine, the latter looking pale but way better than I last saw her.

The girls have taken it upon themselves to try and tune Leaf’s light and heat crystals into something I might draw magic from.

As Rune is busy being everywhere I am not, the girls are my only authority on living crystals and their magic, my only tether to figuring out what being a mage entails.

Everything that is squarely in Leaf’s area of study.

Let me get Leaf back safe, and I promise never to ignore her magic lectures again, I beg of the stars.

“No.” Alexa fiddles with a lock of hair.

“At first, we just tuned small light crystals, the little pebbles that Children sell. Then Bahir started us on more complex crystals and asked us to add triggers into the tunes so that the magic would activate on his command. The older whisperers worked on keeping the Eye of the Goddess shining bright. That was always the priority.”

Right. I finger the living crystal in my hand, Alexa’s latest attempt to tune it to my blood.

Wrapping my hand around the crystal, I feel the stinging bees beneath my palm and imagine breathing them in.

It doesn’t work. My list of what doesn’t work to replenish my magic reserves is quickly growing long enough to fill a scroll.

Holding two crystals together doesn’t work; concentrating really hard doesn’t work.

Punching a tree in frustration did work, but only to skin my knuckles.

I shake my head at a lantern hanging outside a boarding house, a light crystal instead of a flame flickering inside. “ What a waste.” I shove myself away from the window, my palm catching on an errant nail head. I feel skin tearing. “A plain lantern would prove more efficient.”

“The living crystal is a symbol of the inn’s sophistication and luxury.” Raza pulls her hood further over her mangled face. From another, the insight might have sounded helpful, but the princess has a knack for turning each breath into an insult.

I press my dress sleeve against the cut. “No wonder Everett is obsessed with the Sylthia mines. There can never be enough crystals if everyone needs to display one just to keep up their social status.”

“Are you all right, Kal?” Jasmine inserts herself into the conversation before Raza can answer. As if any amount of peacemaking could bridge the gap between the princess and me.

“I’m fine,” I sigh, holding up my hand. Stars, what I wouldn’t give for some privacy. Or to be on horseback with the men instead of trapped here like cattle. The more I learn about Everett, the less I like it.

“Will you try tapping the crystal again, then?” Jasmine asks, holding the crystal out to me with her good arm. Attempt number one hundred forty-two. Give or take a few dozen.

“Waste of time.” Raza crosses her legs. “A skilled whisperer can spoon-feed you magic through a healing crystal. And you can draw magic from stim crystals. A fact that, incidentally, you know thanks to me.”

“You want credit for trying to kill me?” I take Jasmine’s crystal, bracing myself for the stinging bees.“Stim crystals take months to make and they kill the crystals. Which I realize matters as little to you as—” I cut off with a gasp.

Jasmine and Alexa lean forward.

My hand is on fire, the magic scorching into the cut where crystal meets blood.

Breathe, I tell myself, struggling to absorb the magic instead of fighting it.

Breathe. The crystal in my hand pulsates in time with my heartbeat.

“The blood,” I say when I can find my voice again.

“The bleeding cut, that’s what’s different this time, what makes it work. ”

Jasmine’s and Alexa’s excited grins are almost as satisfying as Raza’s deep scowl.

Despite the late hour, I expect a flurry of activity to mark our arrival at River Manor, a colorful mansion with wide archways to welcome the breeze and plastered walls painted in pastel hues.

It is a summer type of place, ill-suited for the day’s chill.

Finding only a small group of plainly dressed servants makes my skin crawl.

Where is the livery, the pomp and circumstance, the courtiers who follow royalty?

Even if this is meant as a calculated message to Wil, King Owain’s personal stature—and that of his children—should warrant more crowds.

A footman separates from the group, heading for our wagon.

Raza’s hands tighten on the seat’s edge, her rapid breaths filling the small space.

I snap my wrist to drop a throwing knife into my palm, only to remember that my weapons are gone and the dress I’m wearing, however glorious, is not equipped to conceal vambraces anyway. “Who is he?” I demand of Raza.

“No one,” the princess whispers. Her back shrinks against the seat.

I grab the front of her dress. “If you don’t tell me who that man is right now , and explain exactly what threat he poses, I swear I will break you into tiny little pieces. Slowly. Understood?”

Raza shoves me away. “There is no threat,” she hisses. “ Not to you.” A trickle of blood spills from her lip where her teeth bit skin.

The man’s hand reaches for the door and I growl.

“Oh, stand down, wildcat. He’s just a footman.” Raza finally meets my gaze. Silver lines her one remaining eye as she struggles to cover her face with her hood. “What do you think is wrong? Or have you gone blind?”

Oh, stars. Reaching past Raza and her vanity, I unlock the door myself.

“I know you want to kill me,” Raza hisses at my back. “You think I’d mind? You think I want to face my parents as I am? You think there is anything for me in Everett now?”

“I don’t think about you much, one way or the other,” I say over my shoulder as the door opens and hands reach out to help me to the ground.

I hold my skirts up as I descend, the hard-packed ground for once kind to my silver slippers.

Wil finds me at once, the way he’s done each evening when the caravan stopped for the night. Tonight, however, he offers me his arm.

I raise a brow and Wil blushes. “Seemed like a princely thing to do,” he murmurs, his gaze pinned on the man and woman standing on the manor steps. “I think that’s them .”

I think Wil’s right, though the king and queen are difficult to make out from this distance. Rune, on the other hand, is impossible to miss.

Still in his Everett uniform, his silhouette stands tall in the setting sun.

The red sky beyond him frames the deadly grace of his movements, the gentle swing of his sword as he takes slow, deliberate steps toward the man and woman standing on the River Manor steps.

The parents he left five years ago. The king and queen of a kingdom that called him a martyr.

Raza hurries to fall in step beside Rune .

They are ten paces from the steps when the man and woman turn their backs and walk inside.

“Might we escort Your Highness and his guests to their rooms?” A pair of servants has appeared beside Wil and me. “We’ve arranged a set of suites for the Dansil delegation.”

My gaze skids between the servants and Rune, still standing tall before the now-empty steps.

In spite of everything, I want to go to him, to put a hand on his shoulder.

I’m no longer angry that the gesture would be unwelcome—just sad.

I think that if there were no Prince Rune, if the man standing there were still Trace, things would be different between us.

Reality, however, is as inconsiderate as ever. He is Rune. And he is taking his rightful place as heir to Everett’s throne.

Turning to the servants, I force a smile to my face. “A room sounds most lovely. Please, lead on.”

The open-air corridors are as empty as the courtyard was, the servants few.

A maid scurries about to place fresh-cut pine branches into vases plainly designed for summer flowers, and the fireplace in our sitting room has clearly been dormant for some time.

“I’ll have your dinner brought up,” the maid says, showing herself out.

“No welcoming banquet, it seems,” says Wil dryly, sitting down on a woven chair.

I sweep the rooms, a set of three bedrooms adjoining a common room that the six of us—the extent of the Dansil royal court, with the exception of Violet—now occupy.

More woven furniture stares back at me, dusty with disuse and bearing thin flower-embroidered cushions.

Plainly, we’ve not traveled to where King Owain happened to be when he received word of our presence, but rather to a place he specifically relocated to .

“Why are we here, do you think?” I ask, walking back into the common room.

Calvin moves closer to the fire, holding his weathered hands near the flames. “A more accurate question is: Why are we not elsewhere?” he says, rubbing his lip. “What does this River Manor offer that is not available at, say, the royal palace?”

A knock at the door heralds a servant with a tray of bread, cheese, fruit, and mulled wine. She sets it on the table and departs with a bow. Somewhere along the road to Everett, I painted our arrival as a loud, energetic achievement. A solution. I might as well have dreamt of touching clouds.

I sniff the bread. It isn’t stale, but it isn’t freshly baked either. As if it was brought to River Manor, not baked here. “Expediency and discretion would be my guess, Master Calvin.”

The man nods. “Discretion about what?” he says, turning his palms to the flames. “That Prince William is seeking an audience?”

“I see no need for discretion on that account,” says Wil.

A corner of Calvin’s mouth twitches, pleased with the answer.

“You’ve worked this out, haven’t you, Master Calvin?” I say, raising a brow. “You are asking questions to which you already know the answers.”

He shrugs. “Perhaps. I do find it better to know the answer before the question. Professional habits are difficult to break.”

By the next morning, Wil has nearly worn a hole in the rug from pacing .

We eat breakfast in tense silence, and right when I’m worried that the prince might do something rash, there’s a light knock on the door. Wil leaps up to answer it, finding a servant on the other side.“His Majesty King Owain requests the pleasure of your company, Prince William,” the servant says.

My heart stutters. This is it, the capstone of the only chance we have. The hope that’s kept us moving farther from Dansil every day will either flower or die in the next hour. I imagined that more flair would accompany this moment. A grand throne room, fancy clothes, grave-faced guards.

I imagined Rune standing beside us.

Wil holds his hand out to me. “If you will join me, cousin,” he says formally for the servant’s sake. “I feel that both representatives of Dansil royal blood should attend His Majesty.” The servant, who knows protocol when he hears it, bows politely and motions for us to follow.

I memorize the layout of the manor as I walk beside Wil toward a downstairs room, each step filled with increasing tension.

More woven chairs line our passage, and large windows with sheer curtains.

Even with a fire burning in every hearth, the halls are too cold for comfort, especially in my low-necked dress.

The prince’s pounding heart echoes through the hand I rest on his elbow. My own pulse keeps pace with his.

The servant stops before a half-closed door and opens it onto an empty sitting room.

Warm air escapes from inside. “Please make yourselves comfortable.” He makes no effort to hide just how little our comfort truly concerns him or anyone else.

“His Majesty will join you shortly.” The door shuts behind us with a sharp click.