Page 59 of A Kingdom of Destruction

War only made her think of the note, and Major Stone.

“Are you? He’s been closed-lipped on the subject.” Cillian lifted his own glass to hers for a toast. “It’s about time someone showed him up. I hope you knock him to the floor.”

“Didn’t you two ever spar as kids? Wrestle each other to the ground?”

“There were always other things to do besides playing,” Cillian responded, the word almost sounding foreign when he spoke it. “Private tutors gave us our studies on history, literature, ecology, and economy. There were dinners to attend with Father and meetings once we were older.”

“Do you ever miss your mother?” Aven regretted the question the moment she said it, watching something shutter in the crown prince’s eyes.

“Do you?” Cillian countered.

Sounding too much like Roran there for her own good.

“Every day,” she admitted honestly. “And I think if she’d been around long enough, she probably would have made me stay on the path you describe. The one where there is no deviating from pattern. Scholars and meetings…”

She could almost see her mother’s insistence on a match with the Clawborne prince, the man she would have been forced to marry if it had gone according to her father’s will. Thankfully, he had declined all talks of engagement. Last she’d heard, he’d gone into a frenzy and burned down Thorncrest. Whoever ended up with him had her pity. But it had cleared the way for her. Even though what she did was considered unorthodox for a princess, she would not change a thing.

Cillian gestured toward the almost faded runes on her skin. “You don’t think she would have approved of what you did with yourself?”

Aven laughed, her head tipping back. “Oh, absolutely not. She would have been horrified. But desperate times and all. You do what you have to do in order to make sure the people you care about are safe.”

She’d failed. Miserably.

Cillian reached across and rested his hand on her knee. This time, she did not jump. Did not shy away when the now familiar desire entered his gaze. “I’m sure she would have applauded your passion and dedication.”

“I like to hope you’re right.”

Cillian continued to chat easily through their dinner.

When they walked the gardens afterward, Aven paid more attention to the grounds, taking mental notes in regards to the layout. Every walk they took together from that point on, she did the same. Noting where the bunkers were located.

Noting the ins and outs of every small foot trail and the vulnerabilities of the forest surrounding the palace. No doubt the thick wildness of the trees provided a haven for the fae before. Outside of their one attack on the palace, she hadn’t remembered hearing anyone speak of an ambush before, and the shutdown had occurred only as a precaution. No army had broken down the walls or cut the trees. Only a ragtag band of humans and their protocols had been executed flawlessly.

How would they react, she wondered, if her battalion seized the barracks instead? If they stormed the village?

She forced herself to see these things through the eyes of war and strategy rather than touring them for pure pleasure. There would be no more enjoying Cillian’s company as a reprieve.

Much to her surprise, Roran said nothing to her. Not through the training sessions where he joined her and not when she swore she felt his eyes on her neck. Marking her movements, her closeness with his brother.

Alert, she studied his movements. Studied Cillian down to the inflection of his words and the trails he took her on each night, doing her best to recognize a pattern. Even when somewhere deep down inside of her, it felt wrong.

21

Watching for any messages from Major Stone drove Aven out of her mind.

As if her days in the palace weren’t enough to do the trick. She leaped out of her skin at shadows. She saw enemies waiting to pounce around every corner. When she wasn’t scoping out the scenery for missives, she was trying to find a way to send one of her own and came up irritatingly short.

“You’re jumpy,” Cillian remarked a week after she received the first and only communication. “Is everything all right?”

“I have a lot on my mind,” she snapped back. Instantly contrite, she smiled at him to smooth over the bite. “Sorry, I shouldn’t snipe at you. It’s been a long day.”

Every day bled together into the next. They were all long, by that count. Each one spent looking for weak points in the palace and around the grounds, marking the best places for an ambush and where security might be lacking.

As she suspected, the princes did not let down their guard. Any friendly chatter only masked their observations of her in return. Although she had hoped after all this time with Cillian she might be wrong on that front.

“It has been a long day for me as well.” Cillian stared straight ahead, and his expression went distant. “Are you ready to go home?”

They’d taken a winding walk through the forest tonight. The moon overhead cast enough light in front of them that they hardly needed the ball of magic the crown prince had taken to calling to life when the night pressed too close to them.

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