“I had not heard of this.” The thought of such an atrocity made him see red. “The king spoke of the Imperial Road in his speech as if it would unite all of Mytica as one people, and Auranians are lapping it up like cream offered to a housecat.”
“Auranians are idiots.” She cast a glance around them. They now stood on the side of a busy street, away from the swell of the crowd. A busy fruit market was fifty paces away. “They deserve a king like this forced upon them, but Paelsians do not. What else did he say in this speech?” She looked at Brion for this information.
“He announced the betrothal between Prince Magnus and Princess Cleiona,” Brion told her.
Her eyes widened. “So, the golden princess is cozying up to the enemy rather than risking a single day of her pampered lifestyle, is she?”
“She’s not,” Jonas said under his breath.
“Not what?”
“The princess is not cozying up to the enemy. The betrothal wasn’t-couldn’t have been her idea. The Damora family destroyed her life, killed her father, and stole her throne.”
“And now she’s been welcomed into that family, with a gilded roof over her head and attendants to serve her breakfast in bed and see to her every need.”
“I disagree.”
“You can disagree, but it doesn’t change anything. I don’t care a fig for Princess Cleiona. What I care about is my people-my brother, those from my village, and every other Paelsian who’s been enslaved. We must mount an attack on the road immediately! If you want to show the king that we’re a threat, as you said, that we’re a force to be reckoned with, this is how to do it. We free the slaves and destroy any progress that’s been made.”
“We?” Jonas repeated.
Her cheeks were flushed from her vehemence. “Yes, we.”
“Would you be so kind, Lysandra, as to give me a moment to discuss matters with Brion?” He nodded toward the nearby line of fruit-selling stalls. “We’ll meet you over there shortly.”
“You will take me to your rebel camp?” she persisted.
He didn’t speak for a moment, just studied this wildcat who’d saved his life and shown her remarkable skill as an archer. He wanted to tell her to go away and not cause him any additional problems-since it was clear to him that she would be difficult to deal with. But he couldn’t. He needed passionate rebels, no matter who they were.
“Yes, I will.”
She finally smiled, a bright and attractive expression that lit up her entire face. “Glad to hear it. We’re going to make a difference. Just you wait and see.”
Without further comment, Lysandra turned and walked swiftly to the market. When she was out of earshot, Jonas turned to Brion.
Brion met his gaze. “That girl. .”
“I know. She’s a handful.”
His friend flashed him a big grin. “I think I’m in love!”
Jonas couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh, no. Don’t do it, Brion. Don’t fall for her. She’s only going to be trouble.”
“I hope so. I like trouble when it looks like that.” Brion sobered. “What about her plan to attack the road?”
Jonas shook his head, thinking of the dead rebels’ blood trickling down the wooden stakes in the palace square. “Too dangerous right now. I can’t risk losing any of us until we know we have a fighting chance. What she’s proposing would mean death to too many.”
Brion’s jaw tensed. “You’re right.”
“But I do need more information-about the road, about the king’s plans. The more we know, the more we can do to stop him. And when we find that weakness, we’ll exploit it.” A fresh fire had lit under his skin at the thought of enslaved Paelsians. “I swear I’ll take him down, Brion. But right now, we’re completely deaf and blind to his agenda unless he announces everything in a speech. I need eyes and ears in that palace.”
“A few spies would be essential. Agreed. But what’s to keep them from being discovered and getting their heads mounted on spikes?”
“A good spy would have to be undetectable. A guard, or someone posing as a Limerian guard.”
Brion shook his head. “Again, head on spike. It would be a suicide mission so soon after King Gaius’s victory. Sorry.”
Jonas worked it over in his mind. An idea that had been gestating since the day after Auranos fell took firmer hold. “Then it would have to be someone already in the palace. Someone close to the king and the prince. .”
CHAPTER 6
CLEO
AURANOS
As the date of her dreaded wedding drew closer, Cleo’s anxiety grew. She dreamed of escape-of growing wings like a bird and flying away from the palace, never to return.
But, alas, she was a bird still locked tightly in her cage. So, instead of dwelling on what awaited her in the weeks to come, she focused on what she could control. Knowledge. Studies. Praying she could find the answers she sought before it was too late. She found herself moving toward the palace library for the second time that day, but this time she encountered Mira sobbing in the hall outside the library’s tall doors.
“Mira!” Cleo rushed to her and pulled the girl into her arms. “What’s wrong?”
It took a moment, but Cleo’s friend finally managed to form words. “I still can’t find my brother anywhere! They’ve killed him, Cleo. I know it!”
Cleo drew her further away from the Limerian guards that seemed to lurk in every shadow, instructed, she knew, to keep a close eye on the princess lest she stray from the castle.
“Nic’s not dead,” Cleo assured her, tugging Mira’s hands away from her tear-streaked face.
“How do you know?”
“Because if he was, Magnus would have been certain to rub it in. For me to know that Nic had been executed for what he did in Paelsia. .” Even the very thought of it was like a hot poker shoved through her heart. “He knows it would destroy me. And he wouldn’t hesitate to use it against me. I know we haven’t been able to find Nic yet, but he’s alive, Mira.” He’s got to be, she thought.
Her words were sinking in. Slowly, Mira regained control and stopped crying. She rubbed her eyes wearily, a trace of anger now lighting within them. “You’re right. The prince would celebrate your pain. I hate him, Cleo. I hate it every time he comes to see Princess Lucia. He’s a beast.”
Cleo had barely seen the prince over the week since he’d chosen to continue this horrible betrothal. It seemed that he wished to have very little to do with Cleo, which was more than fine by her. “I couldn’t agree more. Just try to stay out of his way, all right? How did you slip away from Lucia’s bedside? I feel as if I haven’t seen you in ages.”
“The queen is visiting her daughter right now. She told me to leave and return later. Of course, I didn’t argue. I’d hoped to find a friendly face in this nest of vipers. Yours is the first I’ve seen today.”
Cleo repressed a smile. Nest of vipers, indeed. “Well, I’m glad for the chance to see you. It’s the only good thing that’s happened all day.”
She stood with her friend at the edge of the hallway, sweeping her gaze over the large portraits of each member of the Bellos family, which lined the hall outside the library doors. She couldn’t look away from the painted eyes of her father. Her last memory of him was of his death in her arms from a wound inflicted during the attack on the castle. In his final moments, he’d given her a ring passed down from generation to generation in her family, a ring said to somehow help lead the way to the Kindred. He hoped, with that magic in her possession, she would be able to crush King Gaius and reclaim the throne. But he’d died before he could tell her anything else.
Cleo believed it to be the very same ring rumored to have belonged to the sorceress Eva, the ring that allowed her to touch the Kindred without being corrupted by the endless elemental power of the lost crystals. Cleo had hidden the ring in her chambers behind a loose stone in her wall, and she’d come here to the library every day since, searching for more information to help her figure out her next move. Her father had believed in her so much, far more than she believed in herself. She couldn’t let him down now.