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Just as my throat tightened with new horror, Zeke’s hand settled on mine. Without meeting my eyes, he took up the task of keeping pressure on Keil’s wound.

So I shuffled farther into the blood, scooped up Keil’s hand, and squeezed. His eyes slowly fluttered toward me.

“Just keep looking at me,” I breathed. “I’ll be here the whole time.” My heart ached as I said the words he’d once said to me. “The whole time.”

As Stian eased a hollow reed into the incision, my breathing turned shallow.

“Keep fighting, my boy.” Stian’s frown softened. “Keep fighting.”

Someone grasped my shoulder: Osana, now kneeling beside me. Goren joined her, having crawled across the floor with his broken ankle. The two Wielders who’d loathed and distrusted me from the moment I’d arrived now flanked me in quiet solidarity.

As twilight purpled the throne room, Osana’s soft prayers filled the silence.

Fresh tears ran off my jaw. These were Daradonian prayers, Amarie’s prayers—the ones she’d spoken over me when I’d been riddled with blueneck fever. Now a greater agony wrenched at me, because I’d never learned the words by heart. I couldn’t join Osana in begging the gods for Keil’s life.

So I sent my own prayer to the one person whose fierce love had always guided me out of danger.

I sent it to my father.

My lips moved with the silent words until a soft hiss escaped the reed in Keil’s chest, and Stian’s shoulders relaxed.

I sobbed in relief. Stian’s method was working.

As the surrounding voices became muffled in the background, my eyes remained on Keil’s alone, holding that fluttering gaze until his lashes drooped shut.

“Need to keep him stable,” someone was saying. “Inform Princess Valeria.”

Armored boots gathered around us, imprinting the pool of blood. Hands hooked under Keil’s armpits, and I panicked, trying to claw them away.

“They’re helping him.” Stian’s voice crested like a wave. “You need to let him go.”

I couldn’t understand the words. My nails dug into those hands, making them flinch back.

“Alissa!” A tendril of power gripped my wrist, cool and unyielding—tearing me away.

I scrambled back, my blood rising. Not right, not right, not right—

The world sharpened just in time for the guards to heave Keil onto a stretcher. My palms slid over bloodied tiles as I tried to stand.

But Stian’s hard gaze rooted me to the spot. “You need tending to,” he said, his voice flat and clinical. “Another physician will see to it.”

Then he turned and followed the stretcher out the door.

51

The night passed with the dissociative air of a dream.

More fighting followed—a last resistance from Arun’s loyalists. But once news spread that the minister had tried to torture a young woman who possessed royal immunity—had even stabbed Prince Keil himself—the tide of opinion quickly turned. Most of these guards had always obeyed Arun out of fear. But Keil had long ago earned their respect. And now, though Valeria and the others had been detained at the checkpoint, the remaining guards were sending orders for their release.

More medics descended upon us. Goren left on another stretcher, severely battered. Osana, though insisting she was fine, couldn’t focus on the physician’s finger when asked.

“Concussed,” I heard them say. Then Osana, too, was swept away.

I ended up in an empty parlor, squinting against the glare of chandeliers. The physicians tended to my slashed palm, my tender shoulder, and the burn on my thigh. I winced only when they assessed the new bruises Arun had inflicted across my ribs.

“We can give you something for the pain,” they said.

But I refused, asking only for a quill and parchment. The medication might work like a relaxant, and I couldn’t afford to be drowsy or complacent. Not yet.