Page 196 of The Throne Seeker

He snapped out of his daze slightly. “Help?”

“I need to find those men,” she stated, not beating around the bush. “I can’t leave without an answer this time.”

He straightened as his expression hardened. “That’s the only reason you came back, isn’t it?”

Rose’s eyes shifted with guilt. “It’s important.”

“I told you I couldn’t tell you, even if I wanted to,” he said, his voice cold yet hurt at the same time.

“I think you could if you let me in,” she said, intertwining her hand with his. “Please, I have no idea what’s happening to me, what it all means. These men could give me answers. Answers I need. Answers that could save thousands of lives.”

She struggled to locate the magic she knew had to be lingering somewhere inside of her, fumbling for it like she’d lost something small hidden in the shadows. It took her a moment to find the source, wrangling it into something useful. Her siren, in kind, prodded her to let it take over.

Cautiously, she let the magic fill her. She dragged him down into her sea-green eyes, her siren reaching out to his subconscious, comforting him—easing him into a false sense of security. The walls protecting his mind cracked as her siren’s claws snaked their way around his mind, gripping it.

“Where are they?” she asked.

He swallowed, beads of sweat forming at his temples as he struggled to answer. “I…” he tried to say. “I can’t tell you.”

“Yes, you can,” she encouraged, hovering closer to his lips, squeezing her grip tighter.

He struggled against her pull, the magic embedded within him fortifying his thoughts. But her siren persisted, squeezing the answer out of him—another large crack formed in the wall.

She despised the feeling of invading his mind, but she was desperate.

She won the battle as the last of the barricaded wall crumbled and he let out a painful sigh. “Last I heard, they had made camp just outside of Carnthe, close to the northeastern border, but that was some weeks ago.”

Her heart leapt. Finally, something they could use. “How many of them are there?”

“Not many. I’d say no more than twenty.”

She raised an eyebrow in surprise. How could that be? How could so few do so much damage? Overrun cities? Kill all those innocent people?

“What were they looking for?” she asked, wanting to know more.

He struggled a great deal more with this one, his face twisting in pain. “They were… looking… looking for a girl.”

Thatcertainly wasn’t something she would have ever guessed. “A girl? What girl?”

Moretti swallowed hard, still wrestling for words as his face flinched. “A girl named Rosalie Versalles.”

A chill swept through her—even her siren quivered.

“Did they ever find her?” she asked, her voice deathly still.

“Yes.” He struggled for breath as if she were holding him by the throat. “She’s at the castle.”

Shock hit her like she’d just been dunked into icy water. “How’d they find her?”

“Because I told them,” he answered, at least having the decency not to look proud of the fact. “It was the piece of information I leveraged to save the city. I know Prince Tristan well. He often came in place of the king for meetings during the war. He was the one who told me about her. Just the way he spoke about her—I could tell she meant a great deal to him. He told me her name was Rosalie Versalles. I thought nothing of it until the men asked if I knew anything about her. So I told them.”

She processed the information with a pause. “What did they want with her?”

“They didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.”

She believed him.

They knew. Whoever these men were, theyknewher. But how? And why were they looking for her? And if they alreadyknew she was at the castle, why had they not shown themselves? Were they connected to what happened to her in the third trial?