I stood, my legs quivering beneath me.

I thought Max would remain where he was, rooted to his spot until he was ordered to do otherwise. There were still rules to obey, despite the unusual circumstances surrounding our meeting, and as far as I knew, he was still a prisoner. We all were.

But instead he moved to stand beside me, a prince at home in a castle. He laced his fingers through mine.

I have a purpose, I reminded myself once again. My family is counting on me.

The air around me smelled of a fire’s smoke and a queen’s power as her lips drew back from her teeth in a startling attempt to smile. I couldn’t tell if it was meant to depict good humor or if she was mocking me, and her voice didn’t make my assessment any clearer. “So you are the girl who has turned my country upside down.” Her pale eyes looked dead already but felt as if they were boring right through me. She ignored Max’s presence at my side.

heountry updth="1em">I flinched from her statement. “No, Your Majesty.” I wondered what sort of answer she’d expected. But from the tightening of her lips, I recognized immediately that I had misspoken. “I—I certainly didn’t mean to.”

“Of course you didn’t, my dear. But you have.” Her use of the Royal tongue was deliberate, and I realized that she knew I understood her.

Max squeezed my hand, a gesture of encouragement as he tried to intervene. “You can’t do this,” he stated to his grandmother, his voice low and steady. “You can’t hold her hostage. She’s not property to be bargained with. She can’t be forced to take the throne.”

I waited for the queen to answer him, but instead she stared blankly at my face, memorizing me as if she’d never heard Max speaking at all. I felt myself wanting to recoil from her chalky gaze. “I’ve searched for so long. . . .” Her voice faded, drifting off, before finding its way once more. “You’ll make a good queen. So strong. So lovely.”

“But what if I don’t want to be queen?”

I thought she’d raise her voice, berate me in anger. I didn’t expect her to smile. “It’s not up to you, child. It never has been.”

Xander stepped forward then. He’d torn one of his sleeves from his shirt and tied it around his wounded arm. Blood still soaked through. He moved to stand in front of both me and Max, as if he’d listened to enough.

Hostility split the air as the two of them stared at each other, and I wondered how long it had been since they’d been face-to-face like this. The silence between them was palpable, and in that moment, I felt that Xander was in more danger than the rest of us.

It was the queen who spoke first, her voice low and menacing. “How dare you show your face in my home? What

right do you have to stand before me?”

Xander’s voice belied the bitterness that was etched across his scarred face. “Grandmother,” he bowed comically—mockingly. He spoke in Englaise, an obvious jab at his royal heritage. “Always a pleasure.”

“Don’t ‘grandmother’ me, you insolent brat. I’m your queen, and you’ll show me the respect I deserve while you stand within these walls.” Her eyes grew glassy. “There was a time I would have done anything for you,” she said in a tone that neared affection. The way she spoke to him, the way her voice dropped, made me think she’d forgotten that it wasn’t just the two of them, that she wasn’t having a private conversation with her grandson, but rather a public discussion with the man hell-bent on destroying her. “My sweet Alexander, you were the only boy I’ve ever truly cared about.” She closed her eyes, permitting herself a moment with her memories. And again, I saw a weakened woman before me.

Xander grinned. “You won’t be my queen for long. Charlie will never agree to your terms. She won’t accept your Essence.”

She opened her eyes just a sliver, and then she cackled, a sound eerily similar to laughter escaping her thin lips. “We’ll see about that, won’t we?”seeheight/em>

At last, a grim smile settled over her face. She spoke not to Xander, or to me, but to the guard at her side. “Bring in the prisoners.”

XXIII

I saw my father first. His hands were bound behind his back and his mouth was gagged. The cuts and bruises I could see were a thousand times worse than I ever could have imagined. My mother stumbled in behind him, and when one of the guards shoved her from behind, she nearly tripped over the shackles that weighed down her ankles.

I belatedly realized that the gasp I heard was my own as I watched Aron being dragged in. Dragged, because he was incapable of walking on his own, as his feet dangled limply behind him and his head lolled forward, sagging uselessly against his chest. Even from where I stood, I could hear his jagged breaths; they were difficult to listen to.

He was dumped on the floor like refuse, as if his very presence was distasteful.

I didn’t wait for a signal that it was okay for me to move. There wasn’t enough willpower in the world to stop me from running to my parents. I couldn’t reach them fast enough and didn’t care who might try to stop me. They were barely through the doorway when I was hugging each one of them in turn. I was careful not to squeeze too tight, since I didn’t know how badly they were injured.

It pained me not to go to Aron, but I knew he wasn’t even aware of his surroundings. He was brought only as a message to me: The queen had shown restraint with my parents.

“Are you okay?” I whispered in Parshon, slipping the filthy cloth from my mother’s cracked and bleeding lips. Her breath smelled sour, a combination of hunger and bile; I could no longer find the sweet scent of warm bread coming from her skin.