Page 10 of A Court So Dark
“When the guards get here, come find me,” I urged as I hurried out of the chamber and rushed down the winding steps of the tower. As soon as I abandoned the area, there were signs of disarray. Servants and guards hurried down the long corridors, looking panicked.
“Does anyone know where to find the king?” I heard someone shout down the hall. “He needs to know what happened.”
I clenched my fist as I marched past a couple of startled page boys. I hadn’t been here to guard my home, and now my mother was dead.
As soon as I passed them, one of the page boys ran in the opposite direction.
“The king is here. The king is here.” He went calling.
The doors to my mother’s workroom were thrown open. Several males stood guard, their expressions grim. When they noticed me, they bowed deeply, and I sensed a combination of sorrow and guilt. The queen mother was dead, so I understood the sorrow. But the guilt… I was sure it was misplaced.
I was the only one to blame for this. I should’ve been here to protect her.
My steps echoed in the large space. More guards stood inside, facing the door I’d just walked through. Their backs were turned to the chaos.
This workroom had never been the tidiest of places. There were always canvases everywhere. Brushes, pallets, and half-spent tubes of paint lying around, but now… there was no disarray, only destruction.
Easels sat broken on the floor, their canvases trampled and torn. A tube of bright yellow paint lay busted, boot prints smearing away from it toward the center of the room, where a shape bulged under a heavy tarp, and my uncle, his wife, and two council members stood.
Everyone turned to face me as I approached.
“My King.” Captain Loraerris pressed a fist to his chest. His eyes were red-rimmed, his entire demeanor crestfallen.
If I still harbored any doubts that my mother was dead, his expression erased them. That was his sister on the floor, under the tarp.
My uncle’s wife was deathly pale, clinging to her husband’s arm. The council members—one male and one female, who had always been close to my mother—appeared just as distraught.
Reluctantly, I lowered my eyes to the floor. There were red splatters everywhere. I wanted to tell myself they’d been caused by paint, but I knew better. I’d seen enough violent acts to know that these patterns spelled brutality. I moved closer and lifted the piece of cloth. I was only able to handle the sight for a couple of seconds before I pulled away.
Dry blood stained her beautiful hair, which looked matted. Her face was unrecognizable, a deep cut slashing her from temple to jaw. And beyond that, her neck… a puncture.
“Did anyone see what happened?” I asked, forcing hoarse words past my tight throat.
“I got here too late,” a small voice said behind my uncle.
Someone I hadn’t noticed stood on the corner of one of the still-standing canvases. It was Shadow, my mother’s closest servant, the sprite who had once been a slave to a wealthy lord for many years and whom my mother had liberated by paying a substantial sum. Strangely, instead of using her freedom to go back to her land, Shadow decided to stay beside my mother.
I turned to face her. She looked beyond sorrow. She was angry. I recognized my own fury in her expression.
“But I did see who did it,” she said, without taking her eyes from my mother’s motionless shape.
“Cardian,” I said, without hesitation.
Her gaze cut to me. She seemed surprised, but for only an instant, then she nodded.
“How did he get in?” my uncle asked. “The guards at the door never saw him.”
“He has a transfer token,” I said.
Shadow startled. “That’s how he got away so fast when I went after him.” She clenched her small hands.
Cardian better hoped I got a hold of him before the sprite did. She was vicious, a Sunnarian warrior known to have defeated more than one powerful foe, just the reason my mother had welcomed her request to remain by her side.
Though the way that Wölfe was thrashing inside me made me wonder which of the two would make Cardian wish he’d never been born.
I started pacing. If I didn’t move, I would crumble like a too-old statue battered by a tempest. In the expanse of two weeks, I had lost my father, my mother, my brother, my mate.
All I had left was this useless kingdom and an all-consuming desire for revenge.
