Page 34 of The Crown’s Temptation

"Your security leaves much to be desired," she said. "I simply walked in." She looked around the room. "This is a realm of heartless creatures, Majesty. Are you really naive enough to leave yourself weak and unprotected?"

"I am not weak."

She looked at Asharin. Then back at him.

"You are weak," she said. "And she is still half dead." A pause. "Though I imagine she is less half dead than before. I will give you that."

CHAPTER 4

The North Tower

King Orsin’s Castle

Irun back to the door. I hit it with both hands. I press my lightcraft into the wood and it cracks and holds and I hit it again and the sounds from inside have changed and I do not want to think about what that means and I keep hitting it.

A hand closes around my arm.

I spin.

Tamal.

His hood is up again. He looks at me with that face that is not cruel and is not kind and says it quietly, the way you said something to someone you needed to understand.

"Father needs the key."

"I know what he needs," I say. "I know what is happening in that room and you need to stop it."

"It is necessary."

"It is not necessary. None of this is necessary. You are standing in a corridor while your father⁠—"

"For Maridale to live whole we need the amulet," he says. "The amulet requires a key."

I laugh bitterly. “You say key, but what you truly mean is person. Whatever this amulet is, it requires an innocent person.”

His hand tightens on my arm. "Person. Key. I don't give a fuck. In any scenario, you are in the way, dear sister."

Sister. No, it cannot be. I ignore it for now.

"Tamal—"

He picks me up and I feel myself catapulted in the air.

I do not land on the floor. Instead I am back inside the room.

The room is exactly as I left it and somehow worse. Nox is in the chair with the dampening cuffs on her wrists and blood already at the leather where she has thrown herself against them. Her voice is gone. Whatever sound she is making now is coming from somewhere below sound. The three men are still there and the guards are still along the walls looking at nothing and the seer is still murmuring and I cannot stop looking at the chair and at Nox's face and at the way she cannot close her eyes because he will not let her close her eyes.

I throw my lightcraft at the deathmages. They hold.

I throw it at the guards. They hold.

I throw it at the cuffs on Nox's wrists and it presses against the dampening and goes nowhere and I scream at her and she cannot hear me and I cannot reach her and I cannot stop any of it and I press myself against the wall and wait for it to be over because there is nothing else I can do.

This is not real, Asharin. You need to leave.

I know it. And yet I cannot leave them.

When it is finally over the three men leave.