Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
“It is too soon to sleep with my father’s fiancé after his death,” Cassan explained over the breakfast he summoned me to this morning. “And while Luthian was glad to hand you over to me, we had such grand plans for my birthday celebration. Now, I fear they’ve all been ruined.”
“Not ruined,” I promised him. “Delayed.”
I have no ill feelings toward him over his ambivalence to Arcus’s death. If I had lived my entire, immortal life under the thumb of that tyrant, I wouldn’t care if he died, either.
While the priestesses circle the bier with censers of burning herbs and low, droning chants, Cassan leans over to me. “I never expected to be king. This is very strange.”
I place a comforting hand on his arm. “You’ll be a good king. Perhaps even a better one than my beloved Arcus.”
Cassan blows out a breath. “It won’t be difficult. And you can drop the ‘beloved’ act. At least, with me. In public, you should still grieve appropriately, but I know you didn’t love him.”
“Your Majesty—”
“If you did love him, you would be foolish. And I know you are not foolish, Cenere. Luthian praised you as the best student he’s ever had, and he’s taught many to adapt to life here at court.” He pauses. “Did you know that he was once the official court tutor?”
“I did not.” The mention of my guardian turns my blood to ice in my veins.
“I might order him to come back,” Cassan muses.
No, I want to say. I will not survive if I must see him and not touch him. I will die if I have to watch him love another.
A slow, steady drumbeat begins, and a priestess lights a torch with flame conjured from the air. One by one, the others set their torches alight in a chain that begins from that first flame, standing in a circle around the bier.
“All right. I did not love him,” I admit in a whisper. “He wanted me to love him, and I took pity on him for that.”
Cassan nods. “He needed everyone to love him. It was a sickness. So many consorts over the centuries did not survive his possessiveness.”
So, there were others after Parphia, before me. I wonder how many of them were tutored by Luthian and handed over to that monster. How many innocents were sacrificed for Luthian’s revenge?
“A fitting end, I think, to a cruel man.” Cassan flicks a fallen leaf from the arm of his throne.
“How did he die?” I ask, images of Arcus’s bulging eyes and blackened mouth flooding me with giddy warmth. I hope I didn’t smile when I asked that.
“Honey, as it turns out.” Cassan chuckles and hides it as a cough. “Melted him to his bed.”
“Can faeries not have honey?” I worry I may be playing too ignorant, too innocent, but I need to express curiosity, so Cassan doesn’t become suspicious.
Although, I’m not certain he cares enough to suspect anyone, especially when Kathras has been deemed guilty in the eyes of the courtiers.
“The inquisitors say it was tainted with iron. Probably stored in an iron container for long enough to poison the honey.” He shrugs. “My brother must have been planning this for a long time.”
“Do you really believe it was Kathras who poisoned your father?” Do I go too far in defending him? I don’t know Cassan well enough to read him. I can’t tell if his carefree act is a mask for a more devious mind. After meeting his father and seeing how easily Kathras kills, I cannot imagine how Cassan has turned out differently.
“It was him, no doubt.” Cassan murmurs, watching as the priestesses put flame to the bier. “They found a lid to the jar. It was emblazoned with Kathras’s seal.”
My stomach lurches. I nearly vomit my breakfast onto my mourning gown.
“Stupid of him, really. I think he believed that inheriting the throne would protect him from prosecution, but the rules of fae succession simply don’t work that way. Otherwise, we’d all be murdering each other, all the time.” He gestures a limp dismissal with his hand. “Well, some of us.”
Another point he’d brought up at breakfast. Cassan doesn’t want to be king; if anything, he resents the time it will take from his carousing and debauchery.
“That’s why it’s so important that you have a strong queen at your side,” I whisper, and give his hand a comforting squeeze.
The bier catches fully, and flames rise into the air. Heat crumples and consumes the last remains of a foul king, dispatched in a foul way, with foul treachery behind it.
Luthian gave me that honey with Kathras’s seal upon it so that Kathras would be suspected. Was that always a part of the plan? Or was it revenge for the labyrinth?
Or perhaps Luthian didn’t care that Kathras’s seal might implicate me, if I hadn’t wished for his escape. Kathras could have simply blamed the entire assassination on me and accused me of framing him.