Page 31 of The Crown’s Temptation

Another motion of his hand, and the chair turns. The dampening cuffs tighten over her wrists.

"Originally, sweet child, the plan was only to siphon. To find the Key that keeps this kingdom safe for a hundred years." He paused. "But you interfered. So now the lesson matters more than the Key."

He turned her chair to face the bed.

"Now you will watch."

He took his time.

Nox could not close her eyes. He would not let her close her eyes.

When it was over he made a show of trying to siphon, though by then he had to know there was nothing left in her sister to take. Sadie lay in the sheets, barely conscious. There was so much blood.

"I have learned my lesson, Father," Nox whispered.

She seemed broken in a way I had never seen before.

"I fear you have not, sweet child."

He left.

She sat strapped to the chair and waited to find out what he meant.

Then the door opened, and three men filed in. Laughing, goblets in hand.

Nox screams. "Lord Varacry, Earl of Pertwin, Duke of Tinvan. All of you. All of you will pay."

Part of me knows that whatever is happening to me, I am not real. But I must know.

I throw myself at the deathmages with everything I have. Two of them stagger. I think this is it, this is working, and then the third one takes my arm and the fourth takes the other and I fight with everything I have left and it is not enough and I feel myself lifted and the door comes at me fast.

I am in the corridor.

The door is shut behind me.

I can hear Nox screaming from inside. I can hear another sound underneath it. Then Nox's voice goes out entirely and what replaces it is worse than the screaming.

I hit the door with both hands. I press my lightcraft into the wood and it cracks and holds and I hit it again and keep hitting it and I press my back against the wall and breathe.

There has to be another way in.

I start moving down the corridor.

A door to my left stands open.

I slow.

Inside the room a candle burns on a low table. A man sits on the edge of a bed with his back to the door, his hood down, his dark hair loose around his shoulders. Beside him, her legs folded beneath her, sits a woman.

I stop.

I have never seen her like this.

Maridale.

Her cheeks are rosy. Her brown hair long and loose down her back. But this Maridale is different from the one I knew. She looks certain of herself in a way the Maridale I knew perhaps was always working toward but never quite reaching. She is laughing at something he has just said, her hand easy on his arm, entirely at ease.

He turns his face toward her and I see it clearly.