I’m so confused. None of that is different from where we were two days ago.

The door to the arena slams open. Freya stands in the doorway, a little breathless. “Your Highness. My lady.”

Rhen does not look away from me. “What.”

“Jamison and I took the food to the crossroads as you directed, but the people who arrived were too numerous to feed—”

“As I suspected,” Rhen says. His expression turns weary and he sighs. “Have Jamison tell them we will send more tomorrow.”

“We did. But they followed the wagon back to the castle. We told them we would bring their message back to you, but there were far too many to refuse, and—”

“How many?”

“Hundreds, Your Highness.”

“They followed you here?” Rhen glances at Grey and starts for the door. He flashes me an angry look, which says I told you so better than his voice could.

I wince. He did tell me so.

Rhen strides through the doorway. Each word he says is tight and clipped. “I will speak with them.” He glances at Freya. “Where is Jamison?”

“Standing guard at the castle door.”

“Against hundreds?” says Rhen. “They could tear him apart.”

He jogs up the steps to the Great Hall, and I do my best to follow. Mournful music plays this morning, low strings plucked on a harp. Hopefully not an omen.

Freya lags behind to walk with me. “Word must have spread quickly,” she says, her voice a quiet rush. “These people are not all from Silvermoon. At least a hundred people were in line when we arrived at the crossroads. More quickly joined.”

“Are they fighting?” I say as we reach the top of the steps and hurry after Rhen and Grey. A sick feeling churns in my stomach. Rhen wanted nothing more than to protect his people—and now my idea might be causing more harm than good.

“Fighting?” She’s surprised.

“Yes,” I say. “Isn’t this some kind of protest that we didn’t send enough food?”

Rhen reaches the door and swings it wide. Sunlight pours into the hall. After his worry about hundreds of people tearing Jamison apart, Rhen storms through, Grey right beside him.

A roar goes up from the crowd outside, and I run for the doorway, sure they’re about to swarm him, to attack us all.

People have crowded onto the lawns and the cobblestone walkway. Freya was right—there are hundreds. Mostly men and boys, but many women and girls, too. Some are armed and wearing cruder versions of the armor I’ve seen Rhen and Grey wear. Others are in simple clothes, most too heavy for the temperate weather surrounding the castle.

They’re not yelling.

They’re cheering.

“For the good of Emberfall! Long live the crown prince!” Their voices ring out in the courtyard, echoing against the stones of the castle walls.

Rhen is staring.

Jamison moves forward. “Your Highness, they are here to fight. We could not stop them from following.”

“To fight,” Rhen echoes.

“To fight the soldiers from Syhl Shallow,” Jamison says. “To join the King’s Army.”

I step up to Rhen. His eyes are still locked on the crowd in front of him. His expression is unreadable.

I think of his anger in the arena. At least when Grey is Scary Grey, I know who his targets are. With Rhen, I have no idea what’s going on inside his head.

“You wonder who’s going to stand against Karis Luran’s army,” I say quietly. “I think you’re getting your answer.”

The crowd is still chanting. “For the good of Emberfall! Long live the crown prince!”

And because he is nothing if not enigmatic and calculating, Rhen seems to swallow his anger, then moves to the edge of the steps and raises a fist. “For the good of Emberfall!” he says. “For the good of all!”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

RHEN

I focus my thoughts on what I can control. Strategy. Tactics. Planning.

I block what I cannot.

Lilith.

She left before daybreak, but I did not sleep. I soaked in the bath for hours, sinking beneath the surface, holding my breath until my lungs screamed for release. I’ve drowned myself before, but I’ve never wanted it as badly as I did this morning. Every vision she showed me is locked in my thoughts, so vivid I could have lived through each tragedy.

I knew my people were suffering. I did not know how much, all at once. I wished for oblivion.

I came out of the bath ready to kill something. I am lucky Grey is so skilled.

Or maybe he’s the one with luck.

“Rhen.”

I blink. “What.”

Harper opens her mouth, then closes it, her lips forming a frown. I haven’t been able to meet her eyes all morning and now is no different. We’re in the General’s Library, my father’s strategy room, and I stand at the window, watching the people in the courtyard below.

“I asked if you were pleased,” says Harper. “People are showing up to volunteer. You can start building your own army.”

“Do you remember our discussion of regiments?” My voice sounds hollow and I am unsure how to fix that. I speak through it. “One regiment of Syhl Shallow’s army could eviscerate the people in the courtyard.”

“You just got them all fired up!” she says. “If you didn’t want them to form an army, why did you say all the ‘good of Emberfall’ stuff?”

“They were already ‘fired up,’ as you say.” I keep my eyes on the people shuffling into a line below. “I have no desire to incite a mob. I merely gave them a rallying cry.”

“It’s a start,” she says.

I have nothing to say to that.

I wish I were back under the water, holding my breath, waiting for oblivion.

I wish I were back in the arena, swinging a sword.

Instead, I stand here, every muscle tight as a bowstring.

Eventually, Harper says, “Grey, what do you think?”

“I think it is good that the people are willing to fight. That their loyalty has not waned. They seem to believe the royal family is in exile. Most have put aside their fear of the creature—of the castle itself—to come here. To fight for themselves and for Emberfall.” He pauses, and his voice gains the very barest edge. “They will need someone to lead them.”

Those words are a warning, of sorts. A reminder that I have a role to play here.

I’ve told Grey nothing of what happened with Lilith, but I am certain he’s guessed at some of it. I was not subtle in the arena this morning.

“Can you lead them?” Harper says, and I think she’s talking to me.

No, I think. I can only lead people to their death. Do you not see?

“I am not a general,” says Grey. “I am not even a soldier. The King’s Army and the Royal Guard did not train together.”

“Jamison was a soldier. A lieutenant, right?”

“He was.”

“I know he messed up at Silvermoon, but a lieutenant would be some kind of officer, right? Could you go talk to him and figure out a plan for what to do with all of these people once they’re divided up by skill?”

“Yes, my lady.” He leaves, the door softly falling closed behind him. He didn’t even wait for me to issue an order.

Or maybe he knew I needed her to give one.

Harper appears by my side at the window, leaving a good two feet of space between us.

“It was Lilith, wasn’t it?” she says quietly.

I jerk at the mention of her name, and Harper looks over at me with alarm.

“I wasn’t sure if she was what had you so upset,” she says, “but I haven’t heard you talk about anyone else who has the power to throw you off your game like this.”

“She is quite skilled at finding any weakness,” I say.

“So she came back. Last night.”

“Yes.” I brace myself for her to ask what was done, or to ask why I did not invite her to my chambers for another session of bargaining. The very thought turns my stomach.

But Harper says nothing. She stands beside me and breathes, much the same way we stood together at the cliff at Silvermoon. So much changed overnight. On so many levels.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she says.

“No.”

We watch the people in the courtyard for a while. I’m surprised at the variety of volunteers. A boy who can’t be more than six stands in line. He stares at the castle in wonder, then pokes an older boy beside him—a brother, possibly. I think of young Jared being eviscerated in front of me and snap my eyes away. An older woman leans against a cane farther down, reminding me of a village elder who lay impaled by a Syhl Shallow spear in another vision. Emerging from the woods, more people stream toward the courtyard.

One young woman seems familiar, and it takes me a moment to place her.

Zo. The musician’s apprentice. She is small in stature, but instead of a gown, today she wears breeches and boots, a bow strapped to her back and a dagger at her hip. A huntress, perhaps.

Interesting. I wonder if Grey will turn her away.

He should turn them all away.

I turn from the window and move back to the strategy table, dropping into the second chair—not the first, where my father would always sit. Maps are spread across the surface from whatever meeting my father would have had with his advisers during the first season. I no longer remember. This is not a room I visit often.