s private study, staring at the parchment and at the black serpen

ed to be her fortress now, but it felt more like a cage filled with p

r thoughts. She folded the

is

ir

the door, locked it behind her, and went straight to the desk,

ved anothe

watched the color drain fro

could have w

. At the attack, or so

if the wood itself might be liste

below, every one of them wearing the royal crest, every one of them a possible enemy. "Adrian

ne knows you t

es

you goin

veryone believe the king is alive long enoug

r, a knock came at the

el requests your presence in the council

losely the night before - her voice, her movements, the wound that never seemed

d Kael I

Mira shook her head imm

omes more suspicious

discovers

iscovers it too late." She lifted the crown from its stand and set it on her head, meeting her own eyes in

its head, Lucien seated among the others with an expression of practiced concern. Near the windows stood Kael Veyron, and hi

at. "Why have I

y, there has been a develop

develo

ambers. It belongs to the assassin - he was wounded while escaping." Beside the cloth he placed a small silver button, an

g surprise well. "One of our o

w that," Kael

t do you

e wants us to bel

bvious conclusion, which made him considerably more dangerous than a

ime that morning, something like genuine uneas

n's chambers the night of the murder - he had heard her sc

His throat was cut. No struggle. Whoever killed him

th the table, though everything in her wanted to grip the edge of it. Rovan was dead because of what he mig

, as though hurt. "Close the palace

our Majesty, that would cr

hat should have been watched. Someone inside this palace helped him do it." She let her gaze move slowly aro

aightened, she caught something new in his expression - not suspicion thi

n was the last to rise, and he paus

, but his eyes saying otherwise. "You survived the nig

ld be grateful yo

ched the doors close behind him with the distinct feeling that she had just been threatened in the gentlest possibl