Page 112 of A Reign of Embers

Aurelia brushes her fingers over her hair, curving them in a way I’m suddenly sure is a message.

I’ve seen gestures passed between my foster brothers before, haven’t I? It just hadn’t occurred to me that the mute prince might have a more complicated vocabulary beyond my understanding.

Therearethings I haven’t seen, but an awful lot of them happened before Aurelia ever walked among us.

Lorenzo walks off with more energy to his strides. A few minutes later, he positions himself near one of the plantersand starts playing his vielle with all his usual skill for the entertainment of the court.

He never volunteered his talent under my father. But then, Father called on him often enough that I can’t imagine the prince would have felt inclined to offer more.

How much has my foster brother strained that actual gift of his? He fainted at least once…

I never let myself worry about how any of the princes were faring in the past.

Through the haze in the back of my head, a prickle of apprehension wriggles forward. Something… Something in the garden doesn’t seem quite right.

Tension winds through my limbs. I shove my internal debate aside and scan our surroundings with sharper eyes.

What’s niggling at me?

One of the maintenance staff is perched on a ledge by the roof of a shed we’re walking toward. She looks as if she’s simply checking the tiles—there’s nothing so strange about that, is there?

A man in staff uniform ducks off between the trees in an unnervingly furtive way.

Is that a gleam of metal amid the flowers in the planter just up ahead?

The breeze ruffles through the leaves on the nearby trees, and my ears catch an odd creak.

A page steps out from behind the shed and beckons to Aurelia. “Your Imperial Highness, you should see the roses just starting to bloom over here.”

Does her tone sound a tad too urgent?

I make a swift gesture to my fellow guards to be even more on the alert, just as Aurelia steps forward to follow the page.

“I think you’ll like the roses too,” she’s murmuring to Coraya when the tile beneath her foot gives way.

A small pit must have been dug beneath the tile. Aurelia pitches forward, her leg plunging into the path nearly to her knee. At the same moment, a gardener snatches up a knife that lay among the flowers and hurls it toward her.

A chunk of the shed’s roof snaps off and plummets straight at Aurelia’s head. A branch whips off a tree just a few feet beyond. Three of the palace hounds bay and hurtle along the path.

It's not one attack but several all at once—to try to overwhelm us guards? My colleagues are shouting and flinging out their various gifts.

I throw myself forward, toward the baby slipping from Aurelia’s jostled grasp.

I catch Coraya a second before her head would hit the ground and press her close to my chest, positioning myself so I’m between Aurelia and most of the danger. The hounds have already been diverted, the knife smacked aside. The branch thumps to the ground inches away from us.

Kassun slumps with a grunt where he deflected the broken piece of roof, so close his sleeve brushes mine.

Aurelia scrambles up, blood streaking down her shin from a scrape, the elbow she threw out in an awkward attempt to break her fall bent at an unnatural angle. Even though pain tightens her face, all her attention focuses on me. “Is she all right?”

I look down at the baby I’m clutching. Coraya blinks at me and lets out a brief babble that sounds more startled than frightened.

Then she sticks the rattle she’s still clutching in her mouth to gum its ridged surface.

My mouth twitches with unexpected amusement. It’s hard to look away. This small life could have so much power in the future… or none at all.

Either way, she’s every bit her mother’s daughter. Cool and composed despite the chaos around her.

She might not actually bemydaughter, but I can’t see her as anything but incredible.

---