Rylan was in the hall waiting for me. He’d been looking for me to keep his promise to go searching first thing in the morning. He didn’t comment on the fact that I’d been in Damian’s quarters alone; he merely asked if I was ready to look for Jax, and we’d set off.
We made it around the first half of the wall with no success, but then I skidded to a halt.
“What is it? Did you find something?” Rylan hurried back to my side, and I pointed.
“There, do you see it?”
He squinted through the blinding sunshine. “The broken branch?” He sounded cautiously excited as he spotted what I’d noticed. A few feet into the jungle, there was a thin branch that had been mostly broken but not completely torn off, hanging at just about the height of a man’s arm. I carefully stepped toward it, searching the ground.
“These plants look as though they’ve been pressed down, even though I can’t find any boot marks.” I pointed down, below the branch, where the ground cover did look slightly trampled, as though multiple people had walked over it, pushing it down so hard into the soil it was impossible for it to bounce back up.
“Let’s follow it for a bit, see if we can find something else.”
“We’re supposed to report back to Dam — I mean, the king — if we find anything,” Rylan reminded me.
“Once we make sure we’ve actually found something, we can report back. I’m not convinced yet.” I carefully pushed my way forward into the jungle, moving painfully slowly, scanning the soil and trees, the bushes, plants, and flowers for any other signs of intrusion or struggle.
I made it about fifteen feet when I caught sight of a partial boot print, nearly washed away. But there was no mistaking the tread mark, deeply pressed into the mud. The plant cover was thick here, thick enough that it had kept the rain from completely erasing the print.
“There,” I said, pointing. “It has to be one of the abductors’. Who else would be traipsing through the jungle by the palace?”
“And look — a smaller print, right there.” Rylan moved past the partial boot print, and I followed him to see a smaller footmark in the rich, moist soil. Just the right size for a young boy’s foot to make.
“We’re lucking out. They were careless to leave prints behind.” I straightened up, my stomach twisted with worry for Damian’s brother.
“It was dark and they were in a hurry. Maybe they figured the rain would take care of them.” Rylan glanced up at the thick tree cover, which blocked out the sunlight, casting him into shadow. “They didn’t take into account that the trees might block the worst of the rain and leave evidence behind.”
“Or else they don’t care if they are followed.”
Rylan looked at me silently, his eyes unreadable in the shade.
“Let’s go give our report to the king.” I turned around and headed back the way we’d come, my heart racing.
“And then what?” Rylan asked from behind me.
“Then we go after them and get Jax back.”
* * *
Rylan and I walked back into the palace and headed toward Damian’s office in his mother’s library, where he’d been meeting with General Ferraun and some of the other high-ranking officials from the army when we left.
“What are we planning on doing if we do find Jax’s abductors?” Rylan asked as we strode down the hallway. Sunlight streamed in through the windows, creating squares of light every few feet, illuminating the pale stones beneath our boots and making them practically glow. The heat was almost unbearable, even inside, and I could feel the hair around my temples and at the nape of my neck growing moist and curling.
“We’ll scout them out, see what we’re dealing with, and then decide. But I’m not going to make Damian choose.”
“What do you mean — what choice does he have?”
I didn’t answer, and Rylan grabbed my arm, forcing me to stop.
“Alex, what choice are you talking about?”
I looked into his warm brown eyes, so full of concern, and pursed my lips. “It doesn’t matter. We’re not going to let them dictate to us. That’s why we have to find Jax — so we can regain control and stop them.”
“What don’t you want to tell me? What is it that they want?” Rylan’s grip on my arm tightened. “Alexa, tell me!”
“It’s me, all right?” I yanked my arm free. “They want Damian to give me to them in exchange for Jax.”
Shock made Rylan’s eyes widen. “You? Just you?”
I nodded.
“But … why?”
“They didn’t say.” I turned and continued down the hallway, striding through the swirling motes of dust visible in the rays of sunshine.
“Is he going to do it?” Rylan’s voice followed me.
I paused and then kept going. “I don’t know what he’s going to do,” I said so quietly I wasn’t sure Rylan could even hear me. This morning, when Damian had told me, I’d had the same question, but he hadn’t answered. He’d just stared at me wordlessly, his face a mask. And then the general had come in.
When we reached the library, the door was shut. I knocked once, firmly, but no one responded. After waiting a moment, I knocked again. When there was still no response, I cautiously cracked the door open. The curtains were drawn; the room was dark and empty.
“He’s not here.” I shut the door and turned to face Rylan. He stared down at me, his expression troubled. I sighed and crossed my arms over my chest. “What? I know you want to say something, so spit it out.”
Rylan shifted his weight and glanced away from me. “Just … don’t be a martyr, okay?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The reason you want to find these people — it’s not so you can turn yourself in, is it?” Rylan barreled on without letting me answer, speaking in a rush. “Because I know you still care about him, even if you try to pretend you don’t. And maybe you think that would be the noble thing to do — to help him get his brother back. But he needs you, too. If these people want you gone, it’s because they want to make the king vulnerable.”
When Rylan stopped, his chest rising and falling rapidly, I just stood there, not knowing how to respond. Finally, I shook my head. “I’m not going to turn myself in” was all I said.
The rest of his words hung between us, but after a pause, he nodded. “Good.”
“But we need to find Dam — the king — so we can get permission to go after Jax and get him back, so it doesn’t come down to making him choose. All right?”
Rylan nodded again. “All right.”
We went back the way we came and headed up the stairs to search for Damian in his quarters. The palace was immense, and the king could be in any number of places, but I hoped since it was close to lunchtime that he might be back in his rooms, seeking time alone, as he often did before meals.
When we were halfway up the stairs, Deron rounded the corner and began making his way down.
“Oh, there you two are. Any luck?” The captain of the king’s guard quickly descended to where we were and glanced between us.
“Yes, actually,” I said. “We need to find the king and request permission to continue following what we think are tracks left by the abductors.”
“What direction were they headed?” Deron asked.
“North,” Rylan replied without hesitation.
“Toward Dansii?” Deron’s eyes narrowed.
“If they continued north, then, yes, toward Dansii.”
I was sure I wasn’t the only one thinking about the ransom note that had come — the one written in Blevonese. “Do you know where King Damian is?” I asked. “We need to follow after them as soon as possible. They already have too big of a head start on us, and I don’t want to lose the trail.”
“Lady Vera asked for a tour of the palace grounds, so they could speak without an audience.” Deron sounded slightly miffed.
“You sent some of the guard with him, right?” I asked, a sudden knot of unease tightening in my gut.
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“No, she told the king that they needed to be alone. We were ordered to keep our distance.”
My heart pounding in alarm, I turned on my heel and ran back down the stairs, without even asking my captain for permission or waiting to hear another word.
I rushed through the palace and out the first door I could find. Bursting into the sunlight, I had to stop until my eyes adjusted to the glare. I lifted a hand and quickly scanned the grounds. I heard Rylan behind me but ignored him, continuing to search for Damian and Lady Vera. I didn’t know what she was trying to do, but I didn’t trust her. No one asked to see the king alone and was granted their request, particularly someone from a kingdom that was most likely our enemy. Why did Damian agree to her request?
“Any sign of him?” Rylan caught up to me.
“No.” I could hear the desperation in my own voice. “You go that way and I’ll go this way, all right?” I pointed to my left, and he nodded. This time, we had to split up. We couldn’t waste time sticking together. How long had they been alone? I thought of the brief, calculating look she’d shared with the man in the black and white robes at dinner the night before, and acid filled my stomach, burning as it churned.
I took off at a jog, the relentless sun bearing down on me, oppressively hot. I ran past the empty training ring toward the newly demolished breeding house and the tent city, where women, the former prisoners of the breeding house, milled around — some doing laundry in large buckets and others preparing food over a fire. A couple of women stood together, cradling babies in the protective curves of their arms, smiling at one another as they talked. Black smoke curled up lazily toward the sky. One of the women lifted an arm at me, and I paused, squinting. She handed the baby she held to a younger girl standing next to her, then started toward me. As she drew closer, I recognized Tanoori. She looked healthier, her bones no longer stood out so prominently, and her face had filled in slightly as well. In her clean dress and with her hair pulled back into a simple chignon at the nape of her neck, she looked quite pretty. It was hard to believe she was the same woman who had attacked Damian so many months ago — or the girl I’d once known in our village years before that.
“Alex, what’s wrong?” Tanoori’s glance strayed to my scars but quickly darted back to my eyes.
“Have you seen the king?”
Tanoori nodded. “He walked by here about ten minutes ago, heading toward the old gardens.” She pointed past me, around the ruins of the breeding house to the older section of the palace where there had once been a massive garden with winding paths surrounded by large bushes. As long as I’d been at the palace, it had never been anything but a mess of weeds, unkempt bushes larger than most men, and half-strangled flowers, but I had heard stories about how gorgeous it once was — when Damian’s mother was alive.
I turned to go, but Tanoori touched my arm softly. “Have you seen Eljin?” she asked me.
“No, not since last night. Why?” I didn’t have time to waste talking to her, but I didn’t want to brush her off rudely, either.
“He was supposed to meet me for lunch — he was going to bring a picnic. But he never came. It’s not like him to forget.” She glanced away, a blush staining her cheeks.
If I’d had time, I would have questioned her about her involvement with Eljin, but I had to find the king before it was too late. “I’m sorry, I haven’t seen him. But if I do, I’ll remind him to come find you.”
Tanoori nodded and stepped back. “Sorry to keep you,” she said, and I waved at her as I turned and ran toward the dilapidated gardens. When she’d asked if she could stay at the palace, Damian had given her a position as overseer for the displaced women and babies. She was in charge of keeping them fed, clothed, and taken care of, and she was surprisingly good at it.
“Good luck!” Her voice followed after me as I ran around the rubble toward the overgrown gardens. What interest could Lady Vera have in any of this? The palace grounds weren’t beautiful, rather they were mostly barren, cleared to be used for functionality — for the small army barracks kept at the palace in case of a threat, for the women and babies now, for the practice rings and stables and other small utility buildings. I ran along the overgrown paths, glancing left and right, painfully aware of how easy it would be to miss them if she didn’t want to be found. If she’d done something to my king —
And then I heard her voice, a soft laugh. A sound of enticement. I paused, straining to decipher what direction it had come from. The stone paths were choked with weeds, and massive, untrimmed bushes rose on either side of me. Flowers still blossomed, a riot of crimsons, deep purples, shocking pinks, vivid oranges, and more; but vines and weeds wound around the plants, smothering them. There were no extra hands to tend the garden and bring it back to its former glory, and despite the walls, the jungle was trying to reclaim it.
When I heard the laugh again, a velvet, throaty sound to my left, I spun and swiftly moved in that direction, while trying to keep my steps quiet. The paths wound and crossed, almost like a maze. The bushes grew even higher the farther in I went. Sweat dripped between my breasts and down my spine as I hurried toward my king.
When I rounded a corner and saw them standing together not more than ten feet away, I ground to a halt. Damian had his arms around Vera, and he was kissing her neck. She had her head flung back, giving him full access to her alabaster skin. I covered my mouth with my hand to smother my cry of shock. Had it just been this morning that he’d kissed me — that he’d held me so tightly in his arms and asked me why we had to stop?
My heart pounded; I could barely breathe. I had to get out of there — immediately.
I knew in that moment that I couldn’t do it. If he married another, I was going to have to resign and leave. The reality of seeing him holding someone else — kissing someone else — was too much. A sharp pain stabbed through my skull; the sunlight was too bright. I stumbled back, and in my carelessness, my boot crunched on a half-broken stone.
Damian lifted his head, turning to look directly at me. Our eyes met and I froze. Lady Vera spun to look at me as well, and the triumph in her gaze was almost more than I could stand. I’d been envisioning all manner of horrible situations, but it had never occurred to me that she wanted him alone to seduce him — or that he would be so easily seduced.
“Alexa,” Damian said, his voice so calm it made my head spin, “did you need something?”
Jax. You have to hold it together for Jax, I told myself, even though each breath ripped through me, and my heart felt as though it were being shredded in my chest. “I apologize for interrupting you.” I made myself look to the side of them, at a particularly tall bush with large magenta flowers blooming near Damian’s head. “If I might have a word with you, Your Majesty. It’ll only take a moment.”
“Vera, would you excuse me for just a minute?”
“Of course, if you must. But hurry back.” Her voice was mellifluous, but her words felt like a command.
I turned my back on them and strode away, around the corner so she was out of sight. I kept going until we were far enough away to be out of her hearing and then stopped to wait for Damian. I squeezed my eyes shut, desperately trying to force back my emotions.
“What do you need?” His voice behind me startled me, and I hurriedly composed my face into a mask before turning to face my king. The man I loved. The man who had just torn apart my heart.
He stood there in the sunlight, so tall and achingly beautiful, and seemingly unconcerned. His eyes met mine, and I couldn’t see a trace of remorse or guilt in them. In fact, his face was devoid of all emotion, except, perhaps, for impatience.
“I found some tracks, Sire, and I am requesting permission to follow them.” I forced myself to glance away from him. I couldn’t bear to look at his eyes or his mouth and think of him holding her, staring into her eyes … kissing her. Only hours after what had happened between us in his room at dawn. This time, I had obviously hurt him too much — he’d finally decided t
o move on. To make me regret my decision to reject him.
It worked. The pain was nearly blinding.
“You think you’ve found a trail? You think you can find Jax?”
When he reached out and touched my arm, I jerked away, taking a step back. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Alex … what’s wrong?”
I couldn’t keep myself from turning to stare up at him in open amazement — and anger. “What’s wrong? Are you seriously asking me what’s wrong?”
I couldn’t decipher his sudden change of expression; he almost looked … bemused by my reaction. Did he honestly think I’d be happy for him to move on this quickly? Had I been that convincing in my rejection? He reached up to press his fingers to his temple, like he had a headache. I wanted to tell him that it might be his conscience pounding on his thick skull, but I snapped my mouth shut and refrained. I knew what an impressive actor he was, when he wanted to be. He was probably just trying to play on my sympathy. Two could play this game, if that was what he wanted.
“Do I have permission or not, Sire?”
Damian stared at me, one eyebrow lifted over his stunning eyes. Eyes that still made my belly tighten when he looked into mine, even after my having just seen him with another woman. With that viper, Lady Vera. Anger boiled up as I thought of her entrapping him in her coils. It pulsed hot in my blood, barely under control.
“Yes, of course,” Damian said. “But only if you promise to return by nightfall to give me a full report of what you find.”
“As you command, Sire,” I responded curtly. “I apologize again for interrupting you.”
“Yes. I have to get back to her.” Damian’s eyes narrowed, all emotion wiped clean from his face once more. “Isn’t that right, Alexa?”
I clenched my jaw, trying to keep my own riotous emotions under control. “Yes. You’ve made your feelings very clear. Lady Vera is waiting for you, Your Majesty.” I spun on my heel and strode away, refusing to let him know how deeply he’d hurt me.