Page 6 of The Crown’s Temptation

TEORIN

He tells everyone to stay docked.

The Threns will not behave if left to themselves and he cannot afford what that costs him tonight. Not here. Not before he knows she is safe. He had heard rumors that Yorali’s king had an interest in the golden-eyed princess. He had gone to Colsar with that much, at least. Not only did he ignore him, but he went to the one place that was the least safe.

Fucker.

He makes his way to the castle alone, the Morraks circling above him in loose formation, their wings cutting the dark in slow arcs. The city is quieter than it should be for an arrival of this size. He notes that. Files it away.

He hopes Nox has not reached her. He knows her well enough to know that she likely plans to but opted to stop in Morrath first. For power. Morrath was good for that.

He hopes Colsar has not ruined Asharin. He hopes she was still herself, even with being a mother now.

Shitspawns, Nox had called them. Something inside him twisted, conflicted at the thought.

Relieved she had not lost her children. He had known how badly she wanted them, how much she loved them. Had seen that look in her eyes, the way she had absently pressed her hand against her belly with care the moment the healer told her. He had told himself no harm would come to her or the pregnancy. Yet when they parted last he had no idea if he had allowed harm to come to either. At any rate, he hoped Colsar had not ruined her. Turned her into some weak-minded noble wife. That he hadn't broken her heart. He thought of his last interaction with Colsar. They had fought. He had lost control more quickly than he wanted. Too quickly. But as he left Shalvar, the thought occured to him. It wasn't that Colsar didn't simply smell like Asharin. He smelled like nothing at all.

And the way Colsar had stopped fighting him. That was not the Colsar he knew. He stopped when told, as though he had something to protect. Something worth protecting.

It had all been a lie, if he had to guess. They probably had both worn scent maskers. Asharin had probably been there the entire time. But by then the window of opportunity had passed.

He hopes she does not hate him. He knows that is not possible.

The palace comes into view and something in him goes cold before he can name why. The deathmages at the front are the first thing. They appear as though they have dropped where they fell, which means someone killed them here and did not stop to think about what came after. Then the Avanki, weapons drawn, moving through every corridor and courtyard in a pattern that belongs to a search rather than a patrol.

Something has already happened.

He slips in through the side entrance and closes his eyes and reaches, the way his father taught him before his father became someone he did not want to learn anything from. The palace speaks back in the particular language of blood and recent violence. Sevrin's blood. Wrong. And another scent beside it, fainter, threaded through everything in the hall ahead in a way that makes the back of his throat close.

He finds the Great Hall.

He kicks the door open because he already knows whatever is on the other side will be something he is not ready for. And like most things he is not ready for, he will face it head on.

Colsar is on the floor.

Tears are running down his face without any apparent awareness that they are there, his hands shaking against Asharin's hair, his mouth moving. Asharin is in his arms, limp and pale, her lips carrying the blue of lips that have been that color for some time.

Teorin cannot speak.

Then he moves.

He crosses the room and grabs Colsar by the front of his coat because his hands need somewhere to go and his mind has not yet reached the part where he is capable of rational thought.

"What did you do," he says. His voice is lethal and quiet and entirely useless because he can already smell Sevrin's blood, can already see the deathmage against the far wall, can already smell the lightcraft in the air, can already understand that none of this was Colsar.

It does not make him let go.

"Who did it?" he asks. "Who the fuck did this?"

Colsar does not look at him. He looks at Asharin.

"I do not know how to raise children," he says, to her rather than to Teorin. His voice is barely holding together. "Especially not a girl. Who will plait her hair when she is old enough for it? Who will teach her to read a room the way you do, to be tactful, to be a queen." He presses his face into her hair. "Who will sing to them when they cry? Who will tell them stories the way you tell them stories? Who will snuggle them at night the way you do, the way they already know to expect from you?" His voice breaks and he drags it back."Who?" A pause. "Who? They love you so much. They do not know it yet. But they do. They will."

He lifts his head and the sound that comes out of him shakes the room, stones falling from the upper wall in a fine cascade of dust.

A man with silver hair steps forward. He places himself between Colsar and Teorin. Teorin remembers him from Shalvar. Clearly someone related to these Fyrekin ties his brother now possessed.

"I know you have differences with His Highness," the sentinel says. "Perhaps you are here to attack. But I would ask you, with respect, to consider that he is not alright. The death of his⁠—"