Page 61 of Vicious Is My Throne

“Sister. Welcome. It seems you’ve become lost in my memories, so I thought I’d show you one of your own to make you feel more at home. While you are here as my guest.”

That easily, the hunter had become the hunted.

I did the only thing I could think to do.

I ran.

24

ZORANDER

When we’d left Blackcastle—mere days ago—I thought it would be months before I saw the Keep again. The trip took me three jumps with the storm nipping at my heels and one short, ill-timed stop inside a pocket of blight-ridden forest, but I was back.

Striding down the main hall toward the throne room, I scanned every bustling room for Torin, Cosimo, Zeph…anyone.

I found them in the war room, bent over a map, torches flickering when I burst through the door, my bare feet skidding over the polished stone since I had to ditch my blight-infested boots. Everyone’s heads snapped up, Cosimo already moving to intercept me.

“What’s happened? Where are Anaria and the others?”

“The Oracle is free.” I scrubbed my face with my hands, hardly believing it. “She found us at the Wynter Palace. I got away, but I stayed, long enough to see her capture Raz and Tavion.”

It had been fucking embarrassingly easy for her to subdue them. One flick of her fingers and she had them both on their knees.

“Tristan and Anaria?”

I scrubbed my face. “They were in Mysthaven. Retrieving a weapon to use against Corvus.”

“Does the Oracle have them as well?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Everyone’s faces fell. “They would have returned to the palace not realizing the Oracle was waiting. She would have scooped them up as easily as she did Raz and Tavion. I think Bexley escaped, but I couldn’t be sure.”

“Bex is with you?” Torin fixed that all-seeing stare on me. “How did you find Bexley? How did you escape her?”

I sank heavily into the only chair in the room, the weight of these past hours slamming into me, my consuming fear over Anaria, the frantic jumps through the mountains to avoid the blight. A girl bustled in with tea, then Torin was pushing a steaming cup across the table to me.

Coz ran his eyes over me and reached in his pocket, pulling out a flask and filling it to the brim.

“Thanks,” I muttered. “I hate fucking tea.”

“I figured.” The astronomer’s smile was troubled.

My hand wrapped around the delicate flowered porcelain, and I resisted hurling it against the wall as I recounted what little I knew. The note detailing Anaria’s excursion to Mysthaven, the Oracle’s impending arrival, what little I saw before I fled.

“So you don’t know if Anaria and Tristan made it back?”

“If they did, they walked straight into the Oracle’s trap.” The tea scalded my mouth, my throat, but I hardly felt the burn. “Chances are she has them all now.”

“If they escape, would they come here?” Zeph asked, taking the seat opposite me. “More importantly, would she follow?”

I thought about that, taking another sip. “Anaria wouldn’t draw the Oracle anywhere near this place. There are too many people at risk in this city, too much potential collateral damage.”

“She has powerful allies here,” Cosimo pointed out softly. “An army. Not a big one, true, but an army to protect her.”

“No. Anaria wouldn’t come back here, not unless she was sure the Oracle wasn’t a threat. Who, right now, is pissed off and looking for revenge. The best we can hope for is Anaria has a plan up her sleeve.”

“She does seem to have plenty of those,” Torin pointed out dryly. “What can you tell us about Mysthaven and this weapon?”

“Not as much as I’d like.” I briefly went over Anaria and Tristan’s disappearing act this morning and the rendering from Bexley’s book, our theory that the weapon was witch-made and could destroy a god. “Knowing Anaria, she wouldn’t have returned to the palace until she had it in her possession.”

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