Page 29 of The Crown’s Temptation

"I remember."

"I mean it."

"I know." He refilled her cup. "I am not complicated, Nyara. I am just here."

She looked at him.

"Good," she said.

The carriage to the palace was quiet. He was charming at low volume and she let him be and watched Alarna go past the window.

When they arrived the doors were already open.

She knew before she stepped through them. A guard stood too still. A servant had stopped in the corridor with a tray in her hands and was not moving.

She went to Petunis's rooms because it was Tuesday and that was what Tuesday evenings were for.

The door was open.

Uralish was at the far wall. Three cracks in the plaster, gold still fading at the edges. Syle sat in the chair by the window, his face the wrong color entirely, his golden eyes very still. Enovar stood beside him, his face cold in a way she had not seen before.

Petunis stood in the center of the room.

She looked like something had been taken out of her and had not been replaced with anything.

Nyara stepped inside. "What is going on?"

Petunis turned to her.

"Asharin has been murdered," she said.

CHAPTER 3

The Bloody Sheets

King Orsin’s Castle

Ivanoxa is younger than I have ever seen her. Her pale gold eyes wide in a face that has not yet learned to keep everything out of it. She is talking to the girl on the bed in a low voice. Something reassuring. Her hands are in her lap.

The girl is young. A woman, barely. She has Nox's coloring, the same gold eyes, the same dark hair, but everything else about her is softer. Where Nox is sharp, this girl is open fear. Her hands grip the bedsheet and her eyes keep moving to the door the way eyes move to doors when you are waiting for something you do not want to arrive.

"Nox," I say.

She does not look at me.

I cross the room and put my hand on her arm. She does not react. Does not turn. I am standing beside her with my hand on her arm and I do not exist to her.

I pull my hand back.

The girl does not see me either.

I look between them. The same jaw. The same way they hold their shoulders. Sister. She is Nox's sister.

I am here and I am not here and I do not know what that means and I do not have time to work it out because the door opens.

A man walks in surrounded by advisors, a crown on his head. He is handsome. Advisors follow behind him. A sentinel, guards lining the walls. He is clearly the king. A seer trails in behind them with cold eyes. She moves to stand over the bed and begins to speak words that make no sense, a low rhythmic sound that fills the room in a way that makes my skin pull tight.

Then another man.