Page 30 of The Crown’s Temptation

Hooded. Dark robes. Standing just inside the door with his arms at his sides.

I open my mouth.

The king speaks to the girl on the bed.

"Sweet daughter," he says. "There is only one way to siphon correctly."

The girl looks at him. "I do not understand."

"You are nineteen, far old enough now. You must do as a wife does," he says, "though you are my daughter."

She says it again. "I do not understand." She says it twice and her voice is very young and very calm and it breaks something in me that she is trying to be calm.

A guard comes in and binds her wrists to the bedpost.

The king continues as though she has not spoken. “If I can siphon you, you will be the hero of Yorali.” His voice remains calm. “If I cannot, and you survive, you will join your sisters in the North Tower. If you please me, you will bear my children. And if you go mad…” He pauses. “You know the consequence.”

"Please, Father," she says. "No."

The king pats her knee gently, slowly sliding his hand up her dress. Her lip trembles as she stares around the room frantically, searching for her sister who she can no longer see behind the guards and advisors.

“I have told them already, sweet Sadie, that if you fail me but manage to live, you will be in the best room of all. Do you know what room that is?”

I feel sick.

“It is the Yellow Room.”

I am already moving.

A deathmage steps in front of me.

I am now annoyed that it can see me but that Nox cannot.

I push my lightcraft at it. It does not move.

I push harder. It stands there with those gray-tipped fingers and that empty face and does not move and does not flinch.

I go left. Another one appears from the shadow by the wall. I go right. Another. They are everywhere, between me and the bed, between me and her, between me and every point in the room that matters. I press my lightcraft at each one and each one holds and I am screaming at them and at the guards and at the men who cannot see me and nothing I do changes anything at all.

Then the wardrobe door slams open.

Nox comes out with everything she has.

The room lurches. Two guards go down hard. She is at the bed in four strides and the ties are off and she says run, just that one word, run.

The girl does not run.

She stands there.

Nox screams at her. The king’s power is overwhelming, so much so that I bend over in pain. He uses it to throw Nox against the wall before she finishes the word and the sound that goes through the room makes me press my hands over my ears and it does not help.

Nox's power throws him across the room. He rises slowly.

"This is why you are my favored. You are strong." He came closer. "But even favorites must learn."

He makes a motion with his hand. A chair appears. Cuffs close over Nox's wrists. I recognize them. Aunt Petunis had taught me that the Yorali court uses dampening cuffs to mute magic as punishment.

They turn the chair to face the bed and Nox sees what is coming and throws herself against the cuffs until I can see blood at her wrists.