Gathering Darkness (Falling Kingdoms 3)

She let out a grunt of frustration. “Someone secretly tucked your message into my sketchbook. I was lucky to have found it in time to make my excuses to come here.”

“Didn’t know you were an artist, either.”

Cleo glared at him, her arms crossed over the bodice of her violet gown. Her dress was not nearly as revealing as what the goddess out front wore, but Jonas certainly wasn’t complaining.

“Clearly,” she said slowly, unpleasantly, “you’re alive and well and ready to make light of everything I say.”

She was every bit as forthright as he remembered—it was one of his favorite qualities about her. She didn’t bother with proper royal etiquette in his presence, which was fine by him. Frankly, he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed her until this very moment. “Hardly, your highness. Much gratitude for meeting with me.”

“You’re being hunted like a wild boar. It was foolish of you to enter this city.”

“And yet, here I am.”

“I’ve already heard about your victory at the road camp.”

He frowned. “That was no victory.”

“Perhaps not overall, but you finally got your revenge on Aron, didn’t you?” She wrung her hands, making her large amethyst ring glint in the candlelight. “I’m not saying that he didn’t deserve it, of course. He did. And I hate that I feel any grief for him at all. But he’s just one more piece of my previous life that’s now been taken from this world.”

Jonas frowned. “Who told you I killed him?”

“I assumed . . .” A shadow of confusion crossed her expression. “It wasn’t you?”

“No.” He couldn’t lay claim to slaying the murderer of his brother and his friend. “I arrived too late to do the deed myself. But I would have, if your new husband hadn’t stolen the opportunity from me.”

She stared at him. “You’re saying . . . that Magnus killed Aron. But why?”

Apparently, this wasn’t common knowledge at the palace. “Because Aron Lagaris killed Prince Magnus’s mother.”

“What?” She grappled for words, a rush of nameless emotions playing on her face. “But . . . but they’re still saying you’re responsible for the queen’s murder.”

Of course they were. Otherwise, his wanted posters would have been nothing more than fuel for a campfire. “Did you think I was guilty?”

“No, not for a moment. You don’t kill women indiscriminately—even one married to the king. You hold yourself to a higher standard than that.”

It pleased him to know she knew this about him, even if everyone else seemed ready to jump to the worst conclusion. “Sadly, Lord Aron didn’t hold himself to the same standard.”

“Magnus killed Aron because Aron killed his mother,” she repeated under her breath shakily.

A stab of jealousy pierced through him at the sound of Cleo so casually mentioning the prince’s name, but he tried to ignore it.

He didn’t have time for such petty emotions. It was time to get to the point of this meeting.

“Not long ago I asked if you’d become my spy inside the palace,” he said. “I’m asking you again.”

“What do you need me to do?”

Her answer came so swiftly that he needed to take a silent second to compose himself. “I need to know the king’s next steps. Conquering Paelsia and Auranos were only the first. I have reason to believe there are ulterior motives behind his Imperial Road.”

Motives that called for an exiled Watcher to head the construction. And if the king had a Watcher building his road, then it was more than a way to link the three kingdoms—it was a means to get to magic.

Cleo looked at him with impatience. “Do you think that the king brings me in on his council meetings and asks for my opinion? I know nothing of his plans.”

“You’re married to the prince.”

“So? You think that gives me special privileges?”

“Of course it does. That you’re here at all shows me that you’re not locked in your chambers as you were before your wedding.”