Page 6 of A Court of Bones & Sorrow

Alaric looked at Kieran, and some unspoken conversation passed between them. Then Kieran’s mouth flattened into a hard line as he glared at his best friend, who only returned the expression with a hard stare.

Yeah, I wasn’t touching whatever was going on there. I had enough of my own drama to deal with.

“If our suspicions are right and the Sovereign House is really working with the wraiths, then we can’t trust any of the other Houses.” I rubbed my face tiredly. “Some of them will almost certainly be in on it too.”

“I think we can pretty much count on it with House Corvinus,” Kieran said bitterly. “They’d do anything to stay on Velika’s good side.”

“Tepes and Salvatore are wild cards,” Alaric noted. “They could go either way, which means, for now, we definitely can’t trust them.”

“True. Although I doubt Salvatore would agree to ally with wraiths,” I said. “Last I spoke with Dominique, she was still feeling overwhelmed at the loss of her parents and sister and also the pressures of stepping in to rule the House.” The stoically beautiful, young Moroi was only twenty-five years old, one year older than me. Her elder sister had been the Heir, so Dominique had never planned on leading. Based on all the interactions I’d had with her, she hadn’t been upset by that. She had loved her sister and had been happy to play a supporting role, even planned her life around it.

Then her parents and sister had been killed on a trip to visit House Tepes along with ten rangers and almost twentyother members of House Salvatore. Outside of the recent outpost attacks, it had been the deadliest wraith ambush in almost a century.

“For all we know”—a dark look passed over Kieran’s face as he spoke—“Dominique arranged that attack to seize power. Maybe she’s been playing everyone all this time.”

I wanted to disagree, but if someone had told me two weeks ago that the Moroi Queen was plotting with our enemies, I would have laughed in their face. Nothing and no one could be trusted anymore.

“As much as it pains me to say,” I said with great annoyance. “I don’t think House Laurent would ally with the Sovereign House. Marvina has always hated Velika and would try to undermine the Sovereign House at any opportunity. She always did it on the sly so it wasn’t super obvious, but I don’t think she was faking the hostility.”

To say my ex-mother-in-law and I didn’t get along was an understatement. During my three-year marriage to her son, she’d bounced back and forth between indifference and hostility towards me. My leaving House Laurent and dissolving my marriage with Demetri had almost as much to do with that as it did finding Demetri in bed with someone else.

It still felt odd that merely months ago, I’d been living at House Laurent in a loveless marriage and growing more and more frustrated with my daily life. Given our current problems, my life wasn’t exactly perfect now, but I was happy.

And I’d kill anyone who tried to take that away from me, even the Moroi Queen.

“What about House Devereux?” Alaric asked.

Roth let out a humorless laugh. “Trust me, they’re not allied with the Sovereign House, but they won’t help us either.”

As a member of the Devereux line and someone who grew up in the House, Roth likely knew better than all of us. But of course Alaric wasn’t willing to let it go.

“But you must know somethi—” he started.

Roth slammed their book shut and rose from the table. “I think I’m onto something with the black stones, but I need quiet to focus on it. I’ll be in my quarters.”

They gathered a stack of books before stalking towards the door, and I practically jumped up from my chair to dart across the room, cutting them off. Roth paused when I rested my fingers on their forearm.

“Please be careful. We all need to watch ourselves while Draven is here. Your room is far from all of ours, and there are no other living quarters around it.” Roth had taken over a small room just down the hall from the library. Most of the rooms in this wing were used for storage or as guest quarters for lower-ranking members of other Houses while they were visiting. Roth liked it because it was close to the library and quiet, but it also meant they were isolated from the rest of us.

A dark red ribbon unwound from their forearm and gently brushed some of my hair back over my shoulder. “I’ll be fine, Samara,” Roth said in a low, even tone. “He probably has no idea who I am or what I’m doing here. I’ll keep to my room and the library as much as possible and hopefully just avoid the prince altogether.”

Then the ribbon wrapped around a thick section of my hair before giving it a sharp tug. “You can come check on me later though, if you’re worried.”

“I’ll think about it,” I murmured as Roth stepped around me and headed for the door. The ribbon trailed down my backside before wrapping back around their forearm as they stepped out of the library. Once the door closed, I glanced at Vail, who had stepped aside to let Roth leave. “Could you possibly get one of your rangers to keep an eye on Roth in an unobtrusive manner? They’ll get cranky if they know the guard is there.”

Vail’s lips quirked up into the faintest hint of a smile.

“They’ll getcrankierif they know the guard is there,” I amended.

“I’ll take care of it.”

“What now?” Kieran asked.

I plucked at the dark green fabric of my tunic and scrunched my nose. “Now we get cleaned up and pretend to go about our day as we normally would, which to be fair, with Carmilla gone, there are some House responsibilities Alaric and I need to deal with. Then we’ll attend dinner tonight with the prince, where we’ll find out just how good of a liar he is.”

“Want me to grab you some food and meet you in your study?” Kieran offered as he rose before walking over to join me.

“Yes, please.” I smiled at him, and Alaric grumbled something under his breath that I chose to ignore. Kieran shot his best friend a sharp look before planting a quick kiss on my lips and slipping out the door.

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