“I’m afraid it is the king’s army that has attacked. And the commander is leading the charge,” Elisaf says, his lungs showing some strain.
“I didn’t know about the poison! Atticus knows that!” I cry between ragged breaths. I’ve never moved so fast in my life.
“It does not matter. He is using this to his advantage.”
Shouts ring from somewhere far below.
“I warned you, didn’t I!” My indignant rage bubbles. “I warned you both that he couldn’t be trusted, and you didn’t listen to me!”
“I did not think he would do this.” Zander charges in, a smear of blood that isn’t his own on his cheek. A haunting shout carries up the stairwell, one of agony, of likely a final breath. “Atticus has claimed the army. Some still fight for me, but they will not last long. There are too many. We need to leave now. Even the Legion can’t hold them off. Abarrane knows where to meet us.”
“Why is Boaz against us?”
“Because Boaz is for the crown, and he clearly no longer feels I am fit to wear it.” He nods toward my dress. “Change out of that, quickly, unless you feel like running in it.”
Corrin and I rush to my closet. Her fingers work frantically over the hooks and buttons. I peel off the delicate material, leaving it in a heap as I don my tunic and pants.
Zander appears in the doorway just as I’m yanking on my second riding boot. Corrin is on her knees, furiously tying the laces. “Are you ready? We need to get out of the city immediately. We will meet Abarrane out near Eldred Wood.”
I curse. “I need to go to the apothecary first.”
“For what?”
I hesitate. “Bexley found Ianca and Gesine. They’re waiting there for me. She sent the message this morning. I was going to tell you after the tournament.”
“What message?” Corrin gasps as she remembers. “You’ve been scheming again! And with Dagny, of all people! I knew you were up to something.” She stabs the air between us with her finger. “I warned him not to fall for this new—”
“It’s not what you think!” I yell over her tirade.
“Why am I not surprised by this?” Zander shakes his head. “Wendeline has lied and manipulated us in far worse ways than I ever anticipated, and now you want to seek out more of these treacherous casters from Mordain?” His anger rises with his words. “That spectacle out there could have been avoided had she told us what this poison was. We would have known to check the Ybarisans. This is what she wanted. Islor in shambles.”
“But I don’t think it is.” Whatever her reasons for deceiving him, Wendeline said everything she did has been for the future of Islor that Zander wants.
“And what do you know about what is and what isn’t, Romeria?” he seethes. “All of Islor will be hunting you—the immortals, to ensure your death; the mortals, for your blood. No, the absolute last place I’m taking you is to more casters.”
“But I need to see Gesine,” I push through gritted teeth.
“Explain to me why?” he demands.
Wendeline said there would be a time to tell him, and I would know it. With his kingdom crumbling around him, I don’t suppose this is it. Yet I’m afraid that if I leave Cirilea tonight, I’ll never get the answers I need to survive in this world. “Because I’m a key caster, and she can teach me how to use my affinities.”
Corrin gasps.
Zander’s face pales. “You can’t be.”
“And yet apparently, I am. It’s a very long story that we don’t have time to go through right now, but I need to get to the apothecary. If you don’t want to take me, fine. Just get me past these walls, and I’ll get to it myself.”
“You won’t last an hour on your own. I don’t know how you’ll survive, even with me,” he murmurs absently, pushing his hands through his hair, sending it into disarray.
“I need Gesine to help me understand what I am. Please. Don’t worry, I’m not going to open any doors or tear any dimensional folds. I’m not going anywhere near the nymphaeum on Hudem.”
Zander’s eyes are clouded, his thoughts somewhere as he processes this. “The nethertaur sensed you. That’s why it came to the meadow.”
“Yes.” There is no other answer but the truth.
“How long have you known?”
“Since the day I went to the market with Dagny. Wendeline knew after the daaknar attack, when she tested me.”
“The market …,” he echoes, and I sense where his mind is veering—to all the intimate moments and opportunities I had to tell him. And I didn’t.
“I’m sorry. I was told you’d kill me if you found out—”
Elisaf charges in. “We must go now.”
A switch seems to trip in Zander’s head. He turns to Corrin. “You will come with us?”
“I would only slow you down. Besides, I have a household to take care of, Your Highness, including three new members, soon to be four.”
Gracen and her kids. What have I unwittingly dragged them into?
Zander’s jaw tenses. “I do not have time to stand here and argue. Atticus knows you are loyal to me.”
“And he also knows I maintain this castle’s operations better than any other could,” she says haughtily. “I will keep things in place until your return.” She nods as if confirming that decision, but in her eyes, I see a mixture of resignation and fear.
Zander sees it too. “Do not risk yourself needlessly. If he presses, give him whatever information he demands.” He bows deeply. “Until my return.”
“I will buy you as much time as I can. Stay safe.” She looks to me. Her face remains wary, but her curtsy is uncharacteristically deep. “Both of you.”
“How does Atticus not know about this passage?” I stumble over a crumbled stone, nearly dropping my lantern.
“Because it’s called the king’s alley for a reason. Only the king has seen it since it was constructed many centuries ago,” comes Zander’s muted response. “Four kings have used it. Ailill, Rhionn, my father, and me. My father led me through it, and his father led him through it, and so on. And while Atticus deigns to play king in my absence, he will never know of its existence.”
Instead of unlocking the passage at the bottom of the winding steps as Zander did last time, he led us beneath the steps and along a hidden path I had to crouch to pass through while the men had to crawl. Now we trek silently along an endless corridor that reeks of mildew, the skeletal remains of dead rodents crunching beneath our boots, as we flee into the night with stockpiled provisions—mainly weapons and gold.
That the king of Islor had his own go bag like the one I stowed in my apartment for a quick getaway is not lost on me.
“Imagine how differently things could have gone had you only been honest with me,” Zander muses.
“I was afraid you would kill me!”
“Yes. Spend the night wrapped in a woman and then rise to execute her in the morning. That sounds like me.”
“Sounds like that night in the tower.”
Zander stops so abruptly, I plow into his back.