Page 11 of Rise of the Vicious Princess

Charis leaned closer and let the rage that crouched in the corner of her heart flicker to life in her eyes. “My father’s health and peace of mind are more important than whether I am contained. You do not make decisions without consulting me, Reuben. I promise you do not want me as your enemy.”

He held her stare for another second, and then nodded deferentially. “Yes, Your Highness.”

She turned to Tal. “I assume you and the rest of Father’s staff have already searched his chambers to secure it this morning?”

“Yes.”

“Then Reuben and Elsbet will stay here to guard the entrance while you and I go see Father.” Without waiting to see if Reuben would dare argue with her, she pulled the door out of Tal’s grasp and closed it with a dull thud.

“Father?” Charis hurried through a parlor decorated in soft blues and whites, a small library with a pair of bronze lanterns gilding the spines of the king’s treasured books with gold, and then into a sitting room where the king sat on his favorite gray sofa, a thick yellow blanket draped over his lap.

“Charis!” He struggled to stand, his body shaking.

Charis rushed toward him, but Tal got there first. Wrapping an arm around the king’s back, the boy held him steady. Charis reached him an instant later and gathered Father’s cold, frail hands in hers.

“There’s no need to worry, Father. I’m well.”

“You’re hardly well.” The man who knew her best and loved her most let go of her hands to press his palms to either side of her face as he gazed into her eyes, hunting for the truth behind the shield of strength she tried so hard to never be without.

His breath ended in a wheeze that pierced Charis’s heart with a pain that refused to be ignored. She settled down next to the king’s abandoned blanket. “Sit with me?”

When Father was settled beside Charis, the blanket fluffed over his legs again, she said, “I’m so sorry you worried. If I’d known Reuben was going to send out that report, I would have come here much earlier. There’s no need to be upset. Mother is going to fully recover.”

“Of course there’s reason to be upset.” The sternness in Father’s usually gentle voice was a surprise. “There was an assassin in the palace! How did he get there? Why weren’t the guards aware of the threat? What if he’d struck Letha’s heart? Or what if his target was any royal who entered the room, and she just got there before you? My sweet Charis, this isn’t something to brush aside and ignore.”

His breathing hitched as though there was something caught in his throat, and the pulse along the side of his neck beat rapidly. Charis cast around wildly for something to say that would calm him.

“I’m not ignoring it, Father. I promise.” She kept her voice soothing and patted his hand.

“What is being done?” He looked from her to Tal, who stood a few paces from the couch, staring at the wall as though not at all interested in their conversation. “What is being changed to keep you better protected?”

“Changed?” She frowned.

“There was obviously a terrible breach in security, and we cannot take the risk that it will happen again.” His voice rose, thin and unsteady. “How can you sleep when we don’t know how this happened?”

A shudder seized Charis, and she sucked in a little breath, desperate to keep her composure. If Father knew the depths of her own horror and fear, there would be no calming him. She imagined every rapid heartbeat, every harsh breath of his giving the illness a stronger foothold and stealing a few more minutes of the time she had left with him.

“My guards will search my chambers—”

“The same guards who allowed a Montevallian spy into the ladies’ parlor where you and Letha were supposed to be safe? No, I won’t allow this.”

“Father, now that we know there’s a breach, my guards will be even more careful.”

His voice shook. “Letha’s security has been increased. We should increase yours as well.”

“That can be arranged.”

He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “We should move you into this wing. There’s a set of rooms across the hall. Or better yet, I’ll take the couch and you take my bed. They’d have to get past me before they came for you.”

And put Father directly in the line of fire? Absolutely not. There’d been other attempts to harm both the queen and Charis over the years, though none within the palace itself. But no one had ever tried to hurt Father. Even his enemies must have known he was a gentle soul who held no political power and whose death would gain them nothing.

All that would change if Charis appeared to be under his direct protection.

“Tal, send a message—” He broke off into a fit of coughing. Charis rubbed her palm against his back, wincing at the press of his bones against his skin.

She could still see echoes of the man who’d carried her on his shoulders, who’d tucked her in at night and read story after story until she was lulled to sleep by the sound of his voice, and who’d softened the harsh reality of her life as the heir to a kingdom at war with unexpected picnics or trips to the sea. But the echoes of that version of him were fading, faster by the day, it seemed. Consumed steadily by the illness that was devouring him voraciously, an insatiable enemy Charis and every physician she’d hired had been unable to defeat.

“Take a minute,” Charis said firmly when Father’s coughing finally stopped. “Nothing is going to happen to me in the next few moments while you get settled.”

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