I nodded and poured myself some water.
Tavish grinned. “You know, if you die in this battle, you won’t have to marry anyone.”
I choked mid-sip, spilling water down my shirt. “Well, that’s a bright thought. Thanks.”
“I’m a tactician. Always thinking.”
I dabbed a towel to my shirt. “Maybe you should look for another line of work.”
His grin faded. “You’ll be able to weather this out. We’ll stand by you.”
I had told Tavish of my decision not to marry the general’s daughter. It wasn’t for Lia’s sake, or mine, but for the girl’s. She didn’t want to marry me anymore than I wanted to marry her. She was being forced into it the same way Lia had been. I had already made that fatal mistake once. I wasn’t about to make it again, even if it cost me my throne. The girl deserved to choose her own future—not one contrived by the general to serve his needs.
“Did you tell Lia?” he asked.
“Why? So we can dredge up the same argument we had when we left Marbella? I can’t go through that again. My decision won’t change anything between us. If we survive all this, I will still return to Dalbreck and she will still—” I shook my head. “She won’t go with me.”
“How can you be certain?”
I thought about the fury in her eyes when she danced with me at the outpost, the bones she secretly slipped from the dining table into her pocket, the way she paced the dais at Piers Camp and then lifted her hand with Kaden’s when she addressed the troops. “I know her. I’m certain.”
“She’s made other promises?”
“Yes.”
He stood and clapped a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Jax. If I could change any of this for you, I would.”
“I know.”
He left to meet up with Jeb and Orrin. I changed my shirt, then headed out to find Sven, still chewing on his words. He’ll come around. But this time felt different. Sven had exploded at me before, but never in front of outsiders. Maybe that was what rankled him. I’d made decisions that put my throne in jeopardy—the very position he’d spent a good portion of his life preparing me for—and I’d done it without consulting with him first.
I remembered back when I was saddling my horse and leaving on a blind quest to find a runaway princess. He hadn’t been in favor of that either, but after hitting me with a barrage of questions, he stepped aside, letting me go. That was what Sven always did—he raised arguments until my resolve became steel. And when I was torn, he goaded me—make your decision and live by it. Even when I had been ready to tear the general’s head from his shoulders, Sven made me reconsider. Which do you want more, the satisfaction of ripping off his head, or to reach Lia as soon as possible? Because in this much he is right—no one can get a special team together for you as quickly as he can. And it was true. Any delay, even by one day, and I wouldn’t have reached Lia in time. It had been the right decision, and Sven had helped me reach it.
But with the decision to pull troops—there was no changing my mind. I hadn’t needed his counsel. I knew what I had to do, not just for Lia, but for Dalbreck. I’d explain it to him. By now he had probably cooled off. He’d be sorry he had missed a meeting with the king.
Lia’s father hadn’t been what I expected. Now I knew where Lia had gotten her calculating straight face from. He’d made me squirm. I hadn’t realized he’d been playing with me until he issued Lia’s punishment. Somehow he knew there had been something between us. Th
ere was still something between us. Something I was trying to forget. It had been all I could do to tear my hand away from her arm when I’d stumbled into her. I had been careful in my movements when I was around her, conscious in a way that had become tiring. It was like I was standing on a log in a wrestling match again. One misstep, and I would be up to my waist in mud. When we were busy with tasks that needed to be addressed, it was easier—we simply worked together—but in those unplanned moments like when I stumbled into her, everything was unsettled, teetering, and I had to renavigate the space between us, remembering not to do what had been so natural before.
“Sentry,” I called, when I reached the east wing, where the prisoners were held. “Colonel Haverstrom passed this way?”
“Yes. Some time ago, Your Majesty. He’s still down there,” he said, nodding toward the stairs at the end of the hall.
No doubt he was chewing off the captain’s ear now, instead of mine. I would owe Azia.
I entered the passage, and the stairs were dark. Night had crept up quickly, and the guards had failed to light the lanterns. Only the flickering torches from the lowest level provided any light at all. Just a few steps down, I sensed a pervading quiet, a silence that seemed too deep. There were no murmurs, no clatter of metal trays or plates, though it was the dinner hour. My hand went to my sword, and when I turned at the landing, a body lay facedown, sprawled at the bottom of the stairs. It was Sven.
I drew my sword and ran.
I rolled him over, and that’s when I saw another body, and another. A soldier. A servant with trays of food spilled around him. Their eyes were open, unseeing. The cell doors were all ajar. My blood raced, trying to attend to Sven and look for danger at the same time.
“Sven!” I whispered. His abdomen was soaked in blood.
“Guards!” I bellowed up the stairwell. “Sentry!”
I turned back to Sven. His breaths were shallow, his lips barely moving, as if he was trying to speak. I heard a noise and spun. Another body lay in the other direction. Azia. I crept down the hall toward him, my sword raised, and bent to feel his neck. Dead. It was the trickle of his blood into a drain that I’d heard.
I peered into the first cell. The court physician lay in the center of the room, his throat cut wide open. The next cell had another dead soldier. The rest were empty.