Page 82 of Wrath of the Never Queen

The handwriting is small but distinctly witchtongue, with looping letters across the pages. I flip forward through the dates until I reach about nine months before Theo’s birth. There are some spells written, some comments about her day and complaints about the king. I spot Vanya’s name a few times across the pages and decide to come back to it later. The queen’s name, too, is mentioned often. The three ofthem, it seems, were close.

I spend the rest of the night reading fervently. With Ruya’s story, the last piece of the puzzle clicks.

???

I awake to desperate banging on my chamber door. I jerk up from where I am slumped across the bed, Ruya’s diary still in my hands. I snap it closed and hide it under the pillow.

“Miss Shivani!” a male voice from the other side of the door shouts. A guard. He follows it up with more thumping.

“Yes, coming!” I call back, jumping to my feet and swinging open the door. Instantly, I know something is wrong.

The guard stands, panting, his eyes wild behind his helmet. Dark crimson is splattered across his chest, covering the king’s crescent.

“The prince,” he gasps.

“What has happened?” Alarm turns my voice shrill. “Is he alright?”

“It…is best if you see for yourself,” he answers before turning. I curse and follow him, hiking up my skirt to half-jog.

The guard hurriedly leads me to the dungeon, where the familiar stale air invades my nostrils. The taste of blood sits uncomfortably in my mouth. I can hear the prince, turned and roaring viciously.

“He has turned again so soon?” I ask breathlessly as we traverse the narrow stone stairs.

“It is worse than that, miss,” he replies, his voice grim. “He turned around noon yesterday and has not come back since.”

“He has been this way for over a day?” I exclaim, aghast. “How? Why?”

“That is what we were hoping you could tell us,” he says. “You have an affinity for him. We have seen it.”

His words curdle my stomach, spoken as if from a spy. We come to the bottom of the steps and into the dungeon.

Theo is angry, angrier than I have ever seen him in this state. He thrashes against his cage like a wild animal, furiously swiping at the bars. There are deep cuts running along his arms and face and several sections where his scales have chipped off.

“What have you done to him?” I whisper furiously, whirling on the guard. He holds his hands up.

“Not us, miss,” he replies. “He has done that to himself trying to escape.”

As he speaks, Theo throws his head back, unleashing a terrible roar that makes both the guard and I slam our hands over our ears. When he is finished, he resumes his assault on the bars. Even after I remove my hands, my ears are ringing.

“What?” I yell at the guard, seeing his lips move.

“I said we need to get him under control,” the guard replies, raising his voice. “If he is in this state when the king returns—or kills himself—the king will have our heads.”

I look at Theo, blinded by wrath, and recall Ruya’s diary. It makes sense. His mother’s magic, the word printed across his back in dragon text, which I could not quite recognise. I turn my tongue over in my mouth, tasting blood. Faeth is thick in the air. I know how to fix it. How to fix everything.

I glance at the guards around us—I cannot tell him the truth here. I need to get him back to his chambers, back to safety and away from the king’s spies.

“Did the prince know the news about the king?” I ask. “Did he know his father is only a week away from returning?”

“Well, yes,” the guard replies, looking at me quizzically. “The prince is always the first to be informed of any news.”

Without hesitation, I stride over to the bars.

“Wait!” the guard calls, but I ignore him, walking up to the outside of Theo’s cage. He pounds his fists against the blood-stained metal.

“Theo,” I say firmly. “We have only had a setback. We still have time to figure this out. We are not giving up.”

He turns to glare at me with venomous yellow eyes. I do not look away and take a step closer.

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