me about that too.”
She made fists, shame colliding with outrage and fear. “What happened to the transport was just as obvious. It wasn’t an accident any more than this was. I’ve kept my eyes shut for too long. No more. There have been other accidents too.”
She told him of the deaths of the two intelligence ministers before his arrival. He knew of Caydinn’s situation but not of the other suitors who’d mysteriously disappeared before they had ever gotten close. A tremor shivered through her, and not from the cold. “I think I have a rebellion on my hands.”
“Our hands,” Jared said. “Who on your staff knew of our plans today?”
“I wanted to sneak away with you. Only Tibor knew.” Her heart sank. “Tibor Frix. The head of my guards. It can’t be his doing. He is like a father to me.”
“A father is right. He’s no eunuch.”
“He wears the blue robes of one.”
“He can wear anything he likes, but one look in his eyes and I don’t see a man missing his balls.”
“It can’t be Tibor. I trust him the most out of all the people in the palace. I trust him as much as I do you.”
A shadow crossed Jared’s face. His jaw clenched. Why he would seem so unhappy about having her trust, she didn’t know. “Tell me about Frix. How long have you known him?”
“Since the day I returned to the palace after losing my family.”
“How did they die, Keira?” he asked, softening his tone. “I heard it was in a crash. I want to understand what happened.”
She stiffened. “I would like to understand too.” She jumped to her feet, pressing her fists to her stomach. Tried to control her breathing. If she’d been in her gym, she’d have been hurling her daggers. “We were traveling home from a pilgrimage on a distant world. I was sleeping. My mother woke me. She said that there was a problem with the ship and that we had to find a safe place. She brought me to an air pipe and told me to crawl inside.”
“A pipe?” Jared shook his head. “An evacuation pod, maybe?”
“No. It was a pipe. I remember it was dark and tight. I couldn’t move and I couldn’t see.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Stay here, Keira.” Her mother’s fear-filled voice rang in her mind as if it were yesterday. “‘Do not move,’ she told me. ‘Do you understand? No matter what you hear, do not come out.’ She held my baby brother in her arms. She said she’d bring Narekk to a safe place too. She told me we’d be all right. The ship would shake but the pipe would keep me safe. So I waited. I heard loud noises, like explosions. The ship rocked after each one, so violently. I heard my brother crying. Then I heard my mother scream, and my father yell. I wanted to go to them, oh, how I did. But I promised my mother I would stay put, and I did. After that, it was silent. Cold and silent.” She hugged her arms to her ribs. “I passed out, I think, because I don’t remember anything else until I opened my eyes in my bedroom in the palace nursery.”
She opened her eyes and Jared was there, sweeping a hand over her hair. She wanted to drown in his compassionate gaze. “Rissallen was there when I woke,” she whispered. “I didn’t yet know of my family’s fate. He introduced Tibor Frix. Tibor looked so fearsome, his braided hair, his size and dark clothes, like a Drakken. But Rissallen told me I mustn’t be afraid. Tibor was my very own guard and that I shouldn’t be scared of him. Then he asked me to tell him what I remembered about the voyage.”
“Rissallen did?”
She nodded as he traced the line of her jaw with the back of his hand. “I lied. I told him I remembered nothing because I didn’t want to relive the frightening things I’d seen and heard. I asked to see my parents. He told me they wanted me to get well first. I heard nothing else until I was summoned to the chambers of parliament and learned I was a queen.” She stopped herself, her heart slamming against her ribs. “‘A tragic accident,’ they called it.”
Suddenly the truth glowed bright. It blazed down the long, dark years of her life and forced her to see what she couldn’t before. She went still as a calm certainty stole over