Page 29 of War Hour

My feet can’t carryme far enough away from the throne room, where Lord Drytas and Belthan plan to round up Untrialed.

He’s lost it. Drytas has lost all sense, and now I’m not sure if he had it to begin with. It no longer mattered if you’d committed any crime in Falland to legitimize your Trialing.

Drytas planned to Trial them all.

Everyone.

But not in the Court of Valor.

I turn corner after corner, trying to put as much distance between me and their plan as possible. He couldn’t do this. I couldn’t help him do this.

Thoman.

If I’m able to warn Thoman, he would believe me. Then maybe he could spread word, flood the message in the streets. At least they could put up a fight.

My heart races faster, sprinting for its life, and I stumble when it misses a beat as I brace myself against the stone wall.

We have rules, and Drytas was changing them—breaking them.

I lean my back against the wall, letting the cool stone press through my shirt into my skin. Closing my eyes, I take a few deep breaths, air rushing out between my teeth slowly. Someone mutters into my ear, and I push them away blindly.

I have no friends here, surrounded by guards and court members—they are all the same.

A hand grabs my chin, yanking my head to look upward. Opening my eyes, I stare at him. Ardis. He kneels in front of me, where I squat against the wall. Ringing echoes in my ears, and I feel another wave of nausea.

Ardis’s lips are moving, but even when I focus on his mouth, I can’t make out the exact words. His eyes lock with mine and then he’s right there, whispering in my head.

Lysta.

It doesn’t hurt like it had in the grand hall, when I’d first used my powers, when he searched my thoughts for what had happened, for if I were a liar.

Drytas is the liar.

What happened with Drytas?

A tear slips out as I stare back at him, shaking my head in disbelief. Ardis must have known. How could he be so close to Drytas and not know?

If I say the words, I might lose it completely. So, I show him.

Drytas’s announcement of the infantry leaving in two days’ time. The rounding up of the Untrialed. Taking on the other courts, all in the name of power and Drytas’s paranoia. I don’t show him the moments after. Where I’d stared blankly at Drytas as he and Belthan briefed me on details I shouldn’t know.

Details a perpetrator would know, not a victim.

They said their plans in front of you?

Confusion breaks my spiraling thoughts at Ardis’s question.

Why did it matter?

Do you want to stop him?

Ardis’s voice is insistent in my mind, practically vibrating off the walls of my brain.

What kind of question is that?

Lysta, do you want to save them? The Untrialed.

A new hope shines in Ardis’s stare. For a moment, I swear his pale blue eyes darken into a molten brown, light reflecting off them. When I lean forward to look closer, Ardis turns his face away, clearing his throat.

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