The king was tapping his fingers in an out-of-rhythm pattern on the carven arm of his chair. He stood up. “Very well. It seems, given this new testimony, that the crown must convict you, Baron Dedrick Corvalis, for the death of Sahlma Salazar. Your sentence, sir, to be delivered immediately, is forfeiture of your title and your property, and exile from Achleva.”
The crowd ignited, pushing forward and screaming in protest.
“No!” Zan said, even as the king turned his back on it all. “Our laws dictate that murder and treason must be rewarded in kind—?and this man has committed three at least, and perhaps more that we do not yet know of. The people of Achleva demand justice! Answers! Will you rob them of it?”
The king whirled on his son, eyes bulging, his sword sliding out of its scabbard with a metallic shink! He held it aloft, the point at Zan’s heart. “You dare to contradict your king, boy?”
Don’t falter, I thought. I willed him courage. Be strong.
Zan did not flinch. The crowd roared for him, and he slowly lifted a hand in response. He was not the sickly prince anymore. In an instant, he had transformed into someone else, accessing some reservoir of power inside him that he’d never touched before. He was an opaque glass lamp that had suddenly been lit from within, and all I could see was the fire inside.
“He betrayed you,” Zan said quietly. “Don’t you want to know why?”
The king lowered his sword. “The sentence has changed,” he announced. “The punishment is death.”
Dedrick knew the end was near. He was gibbering and giggling now; manic, high-pitched squeals came from behind his gag.
“I think he wants to say something,” Zan said. “Undo his gag; let him testify on his own behalf.”
But Domhnall did not wait. He laid his sword across the man’s throat and sliced. The crowd gasped; the king had become executioner.
Dedrick’s body fell sideways and lay there, bleeding, at Zan’s feet.
29
The king’s guards made a show of escorting Zan from the platform with deference, but I could see the roughness with which they handled him. I was about to follow after him when Nathaniel clapped his hand on my shoulder. “Not that way.”
Ella was sleeping on his chest, held fast by fabric wrapped over his shoulders and around his waist. Sheltered next to his heartbeat, she was blissfully unaware of the tumult that surrounded her.
“What will they do to Zan?” I asked fearfully as Nathaniel led me out of the uproar. Someone had pulled Dedrick’s body from the platform, and it was now bobbing above the crowd, passed from hand to hand, like a grotesque marionette. When it came to executions, Renalt and Achleva weren’t really all that different. Delighting in death spectacles seemed to be an ugly trait of humanity rather than nationality.
“I don’t know,” Nathaniel said. “Domhnall hates him. He always has. Zan was sickly from the start; Domhnall resented that his only son was so small and frail. Used to beat him savagely. An attempt to toughen him up.”
I remembered the words he’d used to describe the prince: Weak. Feeble. Ineffectual . . . He’d been talking about himself. Repeating the lies and insults he’d heard so often, he’d come to believe them. I could hardly process the horror of it. I’d felt so sorry for myself growing up, but I’d been gifted with a mother and father who loved me, whose single-minded purpose was to protect me. I ached for Zan. For the little boy he used to be. For the childhood he didn’t get to have.
Nathaniel ducked through one side door of the castle and then another, and I followed him. The route led out into a long-unused sitting room, crowded with stacked chairs and cobweb-laden shelves. The only break in the dust was a well-trodden path zigzagging through the maze. “What is this?” I asked.
“Zan knows all the back ways and passages in the castle. He’s been coming and going unnoticed since he was a kid. This one leads out to the top of a stairway that ends at a short hallway. Follow the hallway to its end; that’s where you’ll find his private rooms. That’s where they’ll probably keep him while the king decides what to do with him, but they only ever post a guard at the bottom of the stairs, so it is unlikely they’ll see you.”
“Aren’t you coming with me?”
“I can’t,” Nathaniel said, looking conflicted. “When Kate found out she was expecting, I made a promise to her that our child would always come first. I’ve got to get Ella out of here. I can’t wait, not even for Zan.”
I nodded. “I understand. Zan will, too.”
Nathaniel hugged me roughly; it was like being embraced by a bear. “I plan to camp tonight just off the southwest road outside of High Gate, and tomorrow set off for Ingram. My sister is a midwife there. Her name is Thalia. If you need to find me, that’s where I’ll be.”
“Empyrea keep you,” I said, tears starting from my eyes.
“And you,” he replied, his own eyes moist. Then he gave me a nod and left the way he came.
I followed Nathaniel’s directions to the letter, pausing from time to t
ime as guards and courtiers went by but otherwise unimpeded. I tried to practice what I was going to say as I went. I’m the real princess, Zan. I’m Aurelia. We’re supposed to be together. We were always supposed to be together.
A painted portrait of a woman was hung on the wall opposite Zan’s door. She wore a simple but elegant dress, with very few ornaments save for a ring set with a clear white jewel on her left hand and a raven ring on her right. She had hair like a raven’s wing, too, and wide green eyes; her beauty was marred only by a furrow in her brow and hard lines of worry on each side of her mouth. Simon’s sister. The late queen of Achleva, I knew now. It wasn’t his father Zan took after; it was his mother. Queen Irena Silvis de Achlev, the nameplate read. I paused beneath her portrait to thank her, silently, for saving his life.
The door to his room was not locked. It swung open with the barest turn of the knob.