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TIYUNG

QALI PALACE, YUSAN

I t took a day to reach Qali because the fleet ship had to sail up to Trove in order to avoid Tamneki Harbor.

From the docks, we were placed in a carriage and brought to the palace.

We arrived in the middle of the night, and guards locked us into two holding rooms. I panicked when they separated us, but I could hear Sora next to my bedroom suite.

We spoke through the wall, Sora telling me about the Temple of Knowledge in Lake Cerome as I moved the pillows and blankets from the bed onto the floor. I must’ve fallen asleep because I startle awake when my door is opened. I look up to find palace guards in the doorway.

“Tiyung Gamesong, your father requests an audience,” one says.

“Requests” is surely the wrong word, but I’m worried about what they’ll do to Sora if I refuse. I get up. My body aches, especially my nose, but I make it to my feet and walk out with them.

I stare at the room next to my wall. It’s not a bedroom, like I’d thought, but a storage closet. They didn’t even give her a bed and bath, and she said nothing. I wait, but they don’t open her door.

“Where is Sora?” I ask.

Neither guard answers me. I stop moving, locking up my limbs.

The guards grab my arms. The older guard sighs as I struggle to get free.

But the younger one is gentler. He looks familiar.

I recognize his wide eyes and the red birthmark on his cheek.

It takes a moment, but I realize that I served with him in the king’s guard.

“She’ll meet you in there,” he whispers. “Your father wants to see you first.”

I stop struggling, then jerk my shoulders away, wordlessly demanding to be released.

They exchange glances, but ultimately, they let go of me.

I adjust my bloodstained shirt, then walk with them again, holding my head high.

I look at the younger guard out of the corner of my eye.

Beom, I think. I won’t forget his kindness.

They bring me to the gilded doors of the throne room. I’m not announced, but I don’t need to be because the room is nearly empty.

Dread pools in my stomach as I walk inside. I try to keep my chin up and my steps measured, but memories haunt me. I wish I could say this was my first disastrous trip here.

At the end of the room, my father sits on the black serpent throne. He wears imperial red and a gold, ruby, and diamond crown. It’s the same style as the Immortal Crown but far smaller. I think it’s the heir’s crown that had belonged to Euyn. I wonder where Seok found it.

My mother sits on the golden throne next to him. Her blue eyes fill with sorrow as she takes me in. Her gaze stops at the bloodstains on my shirt. She gasps, then covers her mouth with her hand.

I lock my jaw to keep from shaking. I don’t know how I’m going to speak, but suddenly, my parents both look past me. I turn as the doors open again and Sora is brought in. Her hands are still tied from when they put us on the ship.

Outrage flows through me—they left her hands tied all night and threw her in a storage closet just to be cruel.

Sora walks with her head high even though guards hold her arms. She glides effortlessly until she’s nearly even with me. I look her over, and aside from her wrists, which are red and chafed from the ropes, she seems all right. I let out a sigh of relief, though anger churns in my stomach.

“Kneel to royalty,” the palace guard on her right says.

“I will when I see any,” Sora replies.

Admiration lifts my spirits, but the guard grins and then flings Sora to the ground. Because her hands are tied, she can’t brace her fall. Her face hits the tile. When she looks up, her lip is bleeding.

Fury—the kind I’ve never felt before—bursts in my chest. I lower my shoulder and barrel forward at the guard.

I hit with enough force to knock him onto his back, his steel clanging against the mosaic tile.

Then I start punching any place his armor doesn’t cover.

My fists connect with his cheek and his eyes, his groin, but I can’t feel my hands. All I feel is rage.

Hands try to pull me off him, but I don’t care. I kick at him. He smiled as he threw a defenseless girl. He made Sora bleed. I will end him right here.

Bloodlust fuels me, and I slip from the guards. I get another crack across the guard’s jaw, but it’s not enough. I want him dead. I won’t stop until I send him to the Kingdom of Hells.

“I will smile at your pyre,” I say.

“Enough!” Seok says. His voice echoes in the room.

More guards grab me and Sora. They force us apart and both to our knees.

“Father,” I say, panting. “You wanted to see me?”

I stare at the guard I bloodied, and then I focus on my father.

Seok blinks like he’s confused, then shakes his head. I’d think it’s the change in my demeanor, but it doesn’t seem so simple—it’s something else that’s puzzling him. Different expressions cross his face until it seems like he’s at war with himself.

This is what my mother meant—he’s not in his right mind. And then I realize what’s wrong: he truly believes I died, but at the same time he knows I’m kneeling in front of him. It’s a similar look as when Sora saw me for the first time in Gaya. But this shock has a madness to it.

Cold dread seizes me. My father was ruthless under normal conditions. I can’t imagine what he is now. I hazard a glance at Sora and find her frozen with fear.

“Captain,” he says.

The captain of the king’s guard who seized us in Gaya steps forward.

“Geon,” Seok says.

The palace guard from the tower comes forward as well.

“Job well done,” Seok says. “You’ve brought in a dangerous, rogue assassin and found my son. You and your men will share a two-million-mun bounty.”

They both salute him.

“Now, lock her in Idle Prison, until I have time to deal with her.” He stares at Sora as he waves his hand.

“No!” I shout.

The room is silent as all eyes turn to me. But I don’t fear Seok. Not anymore. Or maybe I don’t dread anything as much as Sora having to endure that place. “If she goes, I go with her.”

My father grips the arms of the throne. I can feel how badly he wants to strike me with the back of his hand.

So, he’s at least somewhat the same.

I hold his stare. Come and try. I am not the same man who left Gain.

My mother turns in her seat. She clutches my father’s arm. One second goes by, two, and then he finally looks at her. She silently pleads for mercy.

She’d have better luck bleeding a stone.

But my father’s head eventually drops in a nod.

“Very well, Olivia.” Seok touches my mother’s hand, and there’s some softness in his expression. Some part of him remembers her. Then he turns toward Sora and me, his brown eyes hardening with hate. “There’s surely a better use for her.”

“You are correct, Your Majesty,” a woman’s voice says. “She is the so-called king of Gaya and Princess Naerium’s closest companion. They would do anything to get her back.”

A petite woman with blue eyes and curly dark hair steps through the side entrance of the throne room. Sora’s eyes widen with recognition.

“Gambria?” Sora says.

The woman looks at her as if they barely know each other, and then she focuses on Seok. “No harm would come to you, Your Majesty, if she is aboard your ship.”

Sora shakes her head, hurt flooding her features as her face flushes. I wonder why until I realize that this is the woman Mikail spoke of. The one he thought was Fallador’s cousin who later betrayed them for the Queen of Khitan. But now she has a trusted position at my father’s court.

Whose side is she really on?

“That is also what I observed in Rahway,” Sun-ye says, stepping into view. “They were quite the close-knit group—far too sentimental for war.”

Sora seems less than surprised to see Sun-ye.

She sighs and stares like she smells something rotten.

Sun-ye stares right back, but there’s just a slight change in her expression when she notices Sora’s bloody lip.

She cares. I’m not sure who is double-crossing whom, but something strange is going on here.

My father strokes his clean-shaven chin. “Very well. My son and this assassin will both accompany me to Gaya. They, and all the realm, will witness what it costs to rebel against the king of Yusan.”

He looks at the palace guard who brought us in—the one he called Geon. “Put them on my ship.”

Sora is pulled away first. Her gaze meets my father’s. Hate meets unbridled hate. But then Seok smiles a cruel grin. As he looks at her, I know for certain: he’s going to kill her.