Page 82 of Nightingale

“How did he decide to trust me? He had a hundred chances to end me on the road and he didn’t. He risked his own neck to save mine, when he could have left me there to die.” She pushed back with everything inside of her, fought with a raging fire that refused to be diluted.

Casta sighed, pinching at either side of her nose. “If he was anyone else, I might consider it. But it’s theGolden Heir.I can’t just let him go. Not when we have a valuable asset in our hands. Any son or daughter of the King would be prized, and we’re lucky that this one just walked right up to our gates. It’s not something that happens everyday, it’s an advantage to show our hand.”

Her mother’s mind was already made up, confirmed by her concrete statement. There was nothing that would change her mind, not unless a miracle of an idea instantly scurried into her brain. And not one that sounded like a foolish, made-up-on-the-spot thought. Her mother would scoff at it, refuse to even hear her out if she so much as started spewing nonsense.

Her blood chilled, sludged in her veins. “What are you going to do with him?”

Casta drew in air, pulling her head up. “I needed a move to show Carylim that we weren’t afraid to repeat past actions. To show that we will not back down, no matter what. For three years he held you captive, let you live when he should have just ended you. I will never understand why he made that mistake, not when it’s known far and wide that you are my favourite out of all my heirs.”

A slap to the face, then a kiss to heal it over.

“I won’t repeat his mistakes.”

“You’re going to kill him.” Vrea whispered as horror rifled through her gut, charging through her like a mad bull with piercing horns that tore through her skin, her soul, the perimeter of her heart as the image of Rian’s execution rolled through her.

It wouldn’t be easy or quick.

It would be a slow show, a painful play of power.

“He has to die.” She stated, like she wasn’t ordering about the death of a man Vrea might have loved.

“No,” The woman argued. “He doesn’t.”

“Yes, hedoes.” Casta flung around, storming over and gripping her daughter by her shoulders, a harsh shake thrown into the mix. “Hehasto die, Vrea. I can’t let this chance to show our strength pass us by like a feather on the wind. I can’t just let him go.”

Vrea shoved her mother off, slapping her hands away with a resounding hit that left the woman speechless, eyes wide in shock. “If we have to hold some sort of leverage, if we have to keep an advantage over Carylim, then do the same thing you did with Daria!”

The horror transformed into fear.

Into a wretched and cruel understanding of what that would have in store for the man she loved.

But he would be alive.

“Let him be enslaved to me. Bind him in the collar, wrap him in chains but let him be bound to me for the length of two years, as we do for all Carylimians. I can get information out of him, detailed and private facts that could help us win the war.” Vrea swore, desperate to keep him around, alive.

Whatever it took, she would do it.

Because being her slave was better than his death.

Casta considered it, rubbing at her chin.

Vrea held her breath.

“Very well, Vrea. You fought for your point bravely, with the information to back it up and additional advantages that I hadn’t contemplated. A well earned victory, one that I will honour. Gather your siblings in the throne room. I’ll let them know my decision and the fate of the Moordian Prince.”

She’d won.

But in the process of winning Rian’s life, she knew she might have lost something else.

He’d never forgive her for this.

Forty

Vrea stood next to her mother, just as she’d instructed all her children to do. Even Alpheus emerged from the training field to appear on the dais in his designated spot. Her mother greeted them all with a lowering dip of her head in respect, the only sign that they’d receive.

She’d changed from the simple robe, into something befitting her station. Teal covered her arm in a spider-web of lace, crawling up her shoulders and meeting with golden armour that tore up her tall neck, wrapping around it and dropping towards her cleavage in a dramatic point, tapered with a turquoise gem in the shape of a teardrop. Earrings dangled from her ears, with the same jewel covered in gold. She wore no rings, no crowns. The gown waved behind her in satin bolts, flaring out at her hips with beige swirls that climbed up the length.

Casta clapped her hands once and the doors into the throne room opened, two sentries pulling a bound Rian forward.

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