Was he warning her then, too?
“We have no idea the ways in which she’s compromised him,” said a man’s gruff voice. “I have sources saying scrublander rebels are on their way to the city. That she uses that bird of hers to send messages to their leader—her lover.”
Roa’s thoughts spun. The council was meeting about her.
But why wouldn’t they be? Roa was a threat to the throne.
“She has no love for him. It only makes sense she’ll try to dispose of him—and that will put Firgaard in a very dangerous position. If we don’t act again soon, it might be too late. Our home will be overrun.”
Roa stepped closer, wanting to know who was speaking. Wanting to know who these sources were, so she could warn Theo.
Before she could, Dax’s arm came around her, drawing her away from the danger.
It made her wonder, What is he doing here?
Clearly this was the meeting he’d told her about. But why was he hiding instead of joining them? Why was he spying on his own council?
If he’s clever enough to spy on his council, he’s far more dangerous than I thought.
She needed to keep her head. She needed to calm her pulse. And yet, it was impossible not to be aware of him. Of his heart beating through his shirt. Of his fingers curled firmly around her hip. Of the warmth of his forearms wrapped around her midriff.
She could feel him becoming aware of her, too. Of her weight, leaning into him. Of her breathing, so traitorously aligned with his own.
Roa went rigid at the thought.
Sensing it, Dax loosened his hold and stepped back.
His boot hit one of the scrolls on the shelves, and its heavy wooden handle fell to the floor with a soft thud.
The voices stopped.
Roa turned to face Dax, her gaze a mixture of terror and accusation.
“Did you hear that?”
There came the sound of wood scraping wood as multiple chairs were pushed back at once.
Caught. In less than twenty heartbeats, the king and queen were going to be caught.
Roa’s first instinct was to run. But there was nowhere to go. And if she ran, the council would know she’d heard everything. They would know their lives were forfeit—because the price of treason was death.
The realization would likely make them desperate. If, in their desperation, they tried to dispose of her, right here, it would be easy. Roa was cornered and outnumbered, not to mention undefended.
She thought of her father’s gods and monster’s board. Of what he always told her about getting trapped.
Confuse and disarm.
Roa looked to Dax.
If getting caught was inevitable, Roa needed to be caught on her own terms. If she could give these councillors a reason to believe the king and queen hadn’t heard them, that they hadn’t even been listening, it might give her a chance to get out of here alive.
“That kiss I owe you?” She grabbed a fistful of Dax’s shirt, peering up at him. “It’s time to collect it.”
His brows knit in confusion. “Right now?”
Roa nodded. She intended to make it look like the king was here doing what he did best: seducing a girl.
The voices were splitting up. Searching the aisles. Getting closer.
They were out of time.
Before Dax’s hesitation could ruin everything, Roa dug her fingers into his hair and captured his mouth with hers.
He tasted like peppermint tea. Roa kissed him harder, forcing his mouth open. The warmth of him flooded her.
And then the voices were in their aisle.
Finally understanding the game, Dax stopped hesitating.
He kissed her back, his teeth scraping her lip. His warm hands cupped her thighs, lifting her up. Roa looped her arms behind his neck, wrapping her legs around him.
As their hips connected, they both drew in a breath. Their eyes opened. Their gazes caught.
Roa’s heart pounded like a drum as his palms slid slowly up under the linen of her dress. A startling heat coursed through her. Her legs tightened around him, pulling him closer.
Pressing his forehead to her cheek, Dax bit her throat gently. Roa made a soft sound of surprise. He bit her again, and Roa closed her eyes, trying not to forget this was a role she was playing.
Trying not to drown in him.
But the harder he kissed her, the deeper he pulled her under. His hands moved fervently over her skin, flooding her senses, until she couldn’t think.
She only remembered the councillors when one of them called out in surprise.
Dax froze, his grip on her tightening.
Their eyes flew open at the same time.
Roa quickly unhooked herself, flushing with heat. Not even needing to pretend.
“Well”—Dax stepped in front of his wife, blocking her from view—“this is embarrassing.”
His voice was light as he ran both hands through his curls.
“My king . . .” came that gruff voice.
Roa pressed her cheek between Dax’s shoulder blades, her body warm in all the places he’d touched her. Her hands fisted in his tunic as she listened to his racing heart, trying desperately to quiet the hunger prowling through her.
The man who spoke cleared his throat and tried again. “My king, what are you doing here?”
A pause.
“What am I doing here?” Roa felt something shift in Dax. If he’d truly been nervous a moment ago, he wasn’t any longer. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
“One would think . . .”
“Is this not my private library?”
“Yes, but . . .”
“And was not the council to alert me to their meetings here? Was that not the deal we made?”
Roa’s fingers unclenched in his shirt. Interesting, she thought. What kind of deal did he make?
“Yes, my king, but . . .”
Roa felt the speaker’s gaze dart over Dax’s shoulder, searching for her.
“Don’t you and the queen have . . .”
He was clearly struggling to put a voice to his thoughts.
“Don’t we have . . . what?” The king sounded amused. “Private quarters?” He pulled Roa out from behind him then. Looping his arms around her waist, he rested his chin on top of her head. “Today we wanted something a little more . . . illicit.”
Roa flushed with heat.
Since when is he so good at lying?
The seven council members before her fell silent.
This was their chance.
Looking up at him, Roa put all of her focus into playing the part of a flirtatious wife. “Should we finish this elsewhere?”
His smile widened, and Roa realized with some annoyance that it was the smile she hated most. The one he used to charm and seduce.
Leaning in, Dax kissed her neck, just behind the ear. “Would that please you, my star?”
That name again. Roa wanted to roll her eyes, but quenched the urge. She nodded instead.
Taking her hand in his, Dax marched her straight through the council, who parted like butter at the mercy of a knife.
Twenty-Three
Dax stormed through the corridor, dropping her hand like it burned him. That smile was gone. The charming husband vanished like the act it was.
He’d convinced the seven council members. And—if she were honest with herself—he’d convinced her, too.
But now as she watched him, his footsteps thunderous, his face masked, she wondered: What was he really doing in that library?
And from the way he looked at Roa, he was thinking the same about her.
She cleared her throat.
“If you weren’t invited to that meeting, how did you know it was happening?”
He studied her, as if trying to decide how much to tell her.
“The girl you were so jealous of last night?”
Roa bristled at the accusation, even as she knew exactly who he was talking about: the draksor in the yellow kaftan who’d
been hanging off his arm all evening.
“She’s the daughter of Councillor Barek. She alerted me to the meeting.”
Roa went quiet, considering this.
“I told you,” he said. “It was just business.”
Dax turned a corner. Roa followed, trying to keep up with his long strides.
Just business, she thought. Was what they’d done back there just business, too?
He halted in front of a door, guarded by two soldats. He halted so fast, Roa almost ran into him.
“My king,” they said in unison. Then to Roa, “My queen.”
She nodded to them.
Dax walked straight in.
Safire sat at a desk, her quill moving furiously across a piece of parchment. At the presence of the king, she didn’t look up.
“There are seven council members heading for the front gate at this very moment. They’ll have taken the most direct route from the atrium, which means by now they’ll be in the hall of fonts. I need you to arrest them all for treason.”
Safire’s quill stopped.
“But, please. Take your time.”
The commandant looked up, staring at her king for several silent heartbeats while something wordless passed between them.
Saf rose from the desk. “I’ll expect a full report from you when I return.”
Dax nodded. “Of course.”
Her boots clicked against the tiles as she strode out into the hall. To the soldats standing guard, she said, “With me.”
“Once they’re subdued and imprisoned,” said Dax, going to the window with a view of the Great Assembly’s copper dome, “I’ll call an emergency council meeting. Tomorrow morning, I think. We’ll need to act quickly.”
Roa stayed where she was, near the door.
“Act quickly for what purpose?”
He turned around to face her.
“I have reason to believe Rebekah is plotting a coup.” Dax watched her carefully as he added: “And that she has allies in the House of Sky.”
A chill crept through Roa.
How could he possibly know that? She forced herself to look him in the eye as an even more frightening thought took hold: If he suspects Theo, does he also suspect me?
She thought of the accusation the councillors made in the library.
“Do you believe them?” she asked, needing to know. “Do you think I’m using Essie to send messages to Theo?”
Dax’s mouth twisted as if he’d just bitten into something sour.
“Of course not,” he said. And then, more softly: “Essie would never betray me like that.”
Roa studied him.
Dax studied her back.
“You’re several moves behind,” he said as he turned away, moving for the door. “Try to keep up.”
As he stepped through it and disappeared down the hall, Roa remained where she was, her feet frozen to the floor. She needed to warn Theo. But how? It was impossible to do without raising Dax’s suspicions, or worse: proving them true.
More than this, Roa needed to find out what, exactly, the king knew.
Just after dawn the next morning, the king and queen made their way to the Great Assembly. The streets were quiet and calm as Dax’s guards marched ahead and Roa’s marched behind.
Once again, Roa had refused to wear any of the royal kaftans sewn for her after the coronation, nor did she wear the gold jewelry inherited from the former dragon queen. Instead, she wore a long linen dress dyed with saffron and her wrists were adorned with bronze bracelets, hammered by scrublander coppersmiths. Her earned scythe was sheathed at her hip.
Dax eyed her attire before they set out, saying nothing.
Despite the rising sun, it was still cold and Roa pulled her sandskarf tighter around her shoulders, trying to keep warm.
She’d been up all night, worrying about Theo and Rebekah’s plan. Worrying about what would happen to Essie if it all went wrong.
So, as the circular building rose before them—its copper dome shining in the sunlight, its white walls as high as the palace’s—she spoke her thoughts aloud.
“What reasons would Rebekah have to plot against you?” she asked him.
Dax, who’d been quiet and withdrawn all morning, glanced her way sharply, as if he’d forgotten she was there.
“None that are honorable,” he said.
That was not an answer. Roa tried again. “What evidence do you have?”
“Enough to suspect those involved.” Her heart hammered at the way he studied her. “But not enough to accuse them.”
Roa held his gaze. Again, this answer was too vague to be of any use to her. She needed to be careful if she pressed him further, though. If he suspected Roa’s involvement with Theo and Rebekah, then he would already be on high alert. And if he didn’t suspect, she didn’t want to give him reason to.
So all she said was: “So if you can’t accuse her, then what’s the point of this?”
They’d arrived at the marble steps of the Great Assembly. Double doors loomed at the top, guarded on either side by two dragon statues. The dragons stared down at Roa, their mouths open, their teeth bared, as if about to roar at her.
Dax stopped at the first step and turned around. Roa studied him in the post-dawn light. He wore a white tunic and embroidered silver dragons chased each other around the collar.
“You told me once that the moment I know my opponent’s favorite piece, I know her weakness.”
Roa thought of those long-ago lessons trying to teach him how to play gods and monsters. “Never reveal yourself,” she murmured, nodding. It was one of the rules of the game.
He looked up to the domed marble building that cast them in its shadow. “The council is Bekah’s favorite piece. Her power is on full display here.”
His guards had reached the top of the steps, waiting for the king and queen, while Roa’s guards scanned the empty street at the bottom.
“So what will you do?” she said to his back as he started up the steps.
“Undermine her. Provoke her.”
Roa hitched up her dress and followed him. “And then?”
He paused at the top, waiting as two of his guards opened the doors. “And then wait. When she retaliates—and Bekah always retaliates—I’ll be ready. And I’ll have my evidence.”
He held out his arm, motioning Roa inside. She stepped into the massive hall, her footsteps echoing as sunlight spilled in long, thin bars across the tiled floor. Again, she wondered at the history between Dax and Rebekah.
“What did you do,” she asked softly, so their guards wouldn’t hear, “to make her hate you so much?”
Dax stiffened beside her. Their footsteps fell out of sync. He didn’t answer for a long while.
“Bekah and I were friends, once.” He didn’t look at Roa while he said this. “Before the revolt.”
Roa waited for more.
“It was only ever a friendship. At least, for me it was.”
He looked back over his shoulder, as if checking to see if anyone watched them. But only Roa’s guards followed.
“In order to bring down my father’s regime, I had to make a choice. I could have gone to Bekah and asked for her help. With her father funding me, it would have been easy. The baron would have given me whatever I needed . . . as long as I made his daughter queen.” He shook his head. “But I didn’t go to Bekah.”
Roa thought of that night in New Haven, the war camp. How exhausted she was from taking Darmoor, from riding all night. How determined she was to force Dax’s hand, and in doing so, ensure her people’s protection.
She thought of him in the tent, staring down at the map. As if he were waiting for her. And when she gave him her proposition, he’d been so calm. As if he already knew that she’d ask, and he’d spent the whole night pondering his answer.
“You knew what I’d do before I did it,” she realized now.
“I know how to read you.” His mouth turned down, as if this were a burden. “I grew up playing go
ds and monsters with you. You taught me how to read you.”
“Why?” she demanded, feeling suddenly angry. “Why choose me instead of Rebekah if you knew I’d give you the same proposition she would?”
He looked up at the dais, where twin gilt thrones stood side by side.
“Why do you think?” he said softly.
Roa thought of Rebekah circling Dax like prey at dinner. Of Rebekah hunting down Torwin—Dax’s best friend—and keeping him captive. Of Rebekah putting Essie in a cage and using her as leverage.
I’m the lesser of two evils, she realized.
Roa shivered at the thought.
Twenty-Four
The council meeting did not go as Dax hoped.
It was late afternoon and despite the fact that the meeting had ended long ago, Roa and her guards were still within the Great Assembly. They stood at the window, watching the mob gather on the front steps, packing the street.
When Dax announced that seven council members were being held in the dungeons for treason, the initial response was disbelief. When he introduced their temporary replacements—four skral and three scrublanders—the unease set in. And when he called for a vote to lift the sanctions on the scrublands, the vote passed seven to five.
In the midst of her shock, Roa couldn’t help but be impressed.
Rebekah was furious.
The city was in an uproar.
They hurled insults and rotten food at the assembly building. They accused Roa of framing the council. They accused Dax of being manipulated by his scrublander wife.
Safire had to send double the guards to retrieve the king and queen. With so many travelers here for the Relinquishing, the streets were crowded and had become nearly impassable.
The king left first. Safire hoped he would draw away most of the crowd, but it hadn’t worked. And as the midafternoon sun pulsed above the city, Roa started to pace the hall. She was running out of time. The people of Firgaard had her trapped, and the longer she stayed here, the less time she had to find a secret way into the palace. She needed to report back to Rebekah by tomorrow night.
“Don’t worry,” said Celeste, watching Roa pace. “It will be all right.”
Roa stopped. She glanced at her scrublander guard to find the girl studying her linen dress and sandskarf.
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