king of Celdaria,” she barked, “and you will demonstrate the proper respect or face the consequences.”
“It’s all right, Evyline,” Audric said, joining her at the crowd’s edge. She reluctantly lowered her sword and stepped back to flank him. “If someone wishes to speak to me, you may come forward and do so. In fact, I welcome it.”
A moment passed in which everyone gathered seemed to be holding their breath. Then, to Audric’s right, a young soldier, copper-skinned with shining black hair pulled into a tight braid, pushed her way forward, her eyes bright and ferocious. One of her fellow soldiers grabbed her arm, trying to pull her back; she yanked herself free.
“My name is Sanya,” she announced, “and I would like to speak.”
Audric nodded at her. “Please do so.”
“Eight weeks have passed since you arrived,” she began. “You sleep in our queens’ palace. You eat at their table. You sit in council meetings for hours, but when we ask our commanders for information about what was discussed, they deflect our questions and won’t meet our eyes. How are we to know you aren’t stalling until your queen can arrive and kill us all? How are we to trust a king whose queen deceived him so completely?”
Low rumbles of agreement swept through the crowd. Soldiers shifted their weight, glanced at each other uneasily. Others watched Audric in silence.
Something inside him quietly crumbled. He had never imagined he would be looked upon with such suspicion, such hostile distrust.
But this was now his world. This was what had come of the choices he had made, and the choices of others that he could not control. He would answer this woman with the truth.
“You can’t know for certain that you can trust me,” he said calmly. “I understand your frustration and your fear, and I’m sorry.”
Another soldier stepped forward—pale and glowering, Sanya’s companion who had tried to stop her. “We have heard that your friend, the lady Ludivine, is no human, but an angel.”
“That’s true.”
The crowd rumbled with anger. More voices cried out from behind him, from above: “Traitor! Liar!”
Evyline leaned close. “My lord, we must leave.”
“Their anger is valid,” he said, stepping away from her.
“Will you send us to die for you?” Sanya called out, her eyes fixed upon him like arrows on their target. “Since your queen showed her face here in the capital, we have faced storms, quakes, and floods that have left much of our country in ruins. And now we will be forced to leave and fight for your throne instead of protecting our home?”
“This is about more than my throne,” Audric replied. He knew he should say something better than that, that he should speak eloquently about the importance of all nations coming together as one to fend off the encroaching enemy.
But he was tired, and the escalating force of the soldiers’ collective anger felt like stones piling on his chest.
“Many possibilities are being carefully, thoroughly explored and discussed,” was all he could manage. “All I can tell you right now is that your queens trust me.”
Sanya scoffed, her eyes flashing. “So did your people. And now we hear they’re being turned out of their own homes and imprisoned for using magic, even if all they can do is light a single candle. Is that what will happen to us too? Will we all be sitting with our magic beaten out of us when the angels come at last?”
The crowd fell silent once more.
Audric stared at Sanya, unable to speak.
Because she was right: His people had trusted him to protect them, and he had failed them. He had abandoned them to fend for themselves in the chaos of a country on the brink of a war it could not win.
Suddenly, a swirling cloud of shadows descended upon them, encircling both him and Evyline. The shadows held wolves with snapping teeth and leopards with shifting black coats.
Veiled by their darkness, Audric hurried toward the nearest door leading back into the barracks, Evyline behind him. The rest of the Sun Guard waited inside, eyeing the shadows with awe and terror. One of their number, Maylis, muttered a prayer and touched her nape, honoring the House of Night.
The barracks door slammed shut. Sloane strode out of the shadows, which dissolved at her touch. The glass orb at the top of her casting, an ebony scepter, glowed as bright as a flame’s blue heart.
“That was my fault,” she muttered as they hurried through the barracks, back toward the palace. “We should never