Road To Fire (Broken Crown Trilogy #1) - Maria Luis Page 0,101

no boy,” I tell Josie, looking into the rearview mirror so I can glimpse her face, “and there were no late nights spent at the network. I lied. I lied for years and I can’t take back any of that.” Swallowing tightly, I rub my thumb against the jut of my elbow, needing to do something with my hands. “I thought . . . I thought, maybe, that with the king dead, the country would revert back to how things were before. Parliament at the forefront of our politics. Nights where we didn’t worry about hearing the sirens, announcing another death at yet another riot. I thought we’d be safe. Maybe not me, but you, Josie, and you, Peter. I thought the two of you would be safe.”

“You were naïve,” Saxon utters roughly, “so bloody naïve.”

I don’t even bother to defend myself. “I was.”

Truthfully, I still am.

Peter’s hand gently folds over my shoulder, squeezing. “I don’t want you to think that I hate you. I can’t . . . Fuck—”

“Language, Peter,” Josie admonishes, and from the way Peter jolts in his seat, I have the sneaking suspicion that she poked him.

“Dammit, Jos, I’m trying to say something here.”

“No one’s stopping you.”

A small, battle-weary smile lifts the corner of my mouth. “Josie, let him talk.”

Squeezing my shoulder again, Peter goes on. “We all wanted the king dead. All of us. But I wouldn’t have done it myself. That’s not, uh . . . That’s not the sort of person I am, I suppose. But you’ve always been braver than me, Isla. You do what no one else will, and I-I just wanted to tell you that. It’s not naïve to trust your gut—it just makes you human.”

Tears prick the back of my eyes and I reach up to grasp his fingers. Overwhelmed by emotion, I kiss the back of his hand, the way Mum used to do to us as children. “You have no idea what that means to me,” I say, my voice ragged. “I love you.”

“What about me?” Josie pipes up, jabbing me in the other shoulder.

I glance back at her, and she is just so Josie. Tough and brave and so much older than her sixteen years, but her blue eyes reveal everything she won’t say out loud: she’s terrified of me dying, of somehow leaving her behind to fend for herself. “I love you, too,” I tell her, snagging her hand before she pulls away completely. “There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you.”

Even kill the king.

For the first time in the hour-long ride, the radio punches on and music floods the car. Saxon’s palm hits the steering wheel with an audible thwack. “Five minutes.”

Letting Peter and Josie go, I settle a hand on his upper arm. “Are you okay?”

He issues me a stiff nod but says nothing for the remainder of the ride. Trees bracket the two-lane road, their scraggly branches eclipsing the clear sky above. The stifled air has returned, and not even the upbeat melody playing from the speakers can do much to erase the unease seeping back into my veins.

The road opens some, revealing a quaint stone house on our right before Saxon takes a left at the fork. And then it’s nothing but a narrow, single lane road leading us deeper and deeper into the woods. The brush grows thicker, the sky disappears altogether, and I can’t even imagine what it must be like to drive here at night.

Pure, all-encompassing darkness.

I sit up tall in my seat. “How much farther?”

Gravel crunches under the tires as Saxon eases us down a small drive lined with trees on one side and a short brick wall on the other. “We’re here,” he says, and then we are.

A landscaped lawn comes into view, followed shortly by a paved path that winds around a pond and a small stream. Stone bridges arc over the water, and if I lived here, I know—without a shadow of a doubt—that I would spend most of my days seated beside that stream, taking in every splash that nature has to offer.

I lower my window, hoping to catch the sound of rippling water.

“What is this place?” Josie breathes from the backseat.

“We call it the Palace,” Saxon answers, turning the music off with a flick of his fingers. “It was built for Henry VIII. A manor house that he never visited.” He looks over at me, pausing, before returning his attention back to the road. “In the chapel, the ceiling has artwork that