own shredded emotions pieced together with disbelief and confusion. The king had known the truth and still meant to name her a coward and a liar and execute her? Had the council known, too? But the pain and pressure in her chest was so great that she could not even give voice to those questions.
Riasa did. Frowning, she looked to Lady Junica. “Did you know of this?” Dimly, Lizzan was aware of the councilor shaking her head. Then to Aerax, Riasa said, “What did your king fear?”
“That Koth would no longer trust in Varrin’s protection,” Aerax said flatly.
“That is true,” Lady Junica stated. “Rumors of the Destroyer’s return had been spreading across the realms. We’d heard of families abandoning their homes and that the roads were in chaos. I did not believe in this tale of wraiths, but the court was concerned then—and has been since—that the panic infecting the other realms would come to Koth. So we make great effort to reassure the people of their safety. The Destroyer did not come to Koth before. He will not again.”
“Are you certain of that?” asked the moonstone-eyed prince. “Or is it merely hope?”
“It is faith.” Lady Junica gave him a slight smile. “Just as you trust in Vela, I trust that Varrin will protect our island from the Destroyer’s magic and his armies.”
At his thigh, Aerax’s fist clenched and unclenched before he indicated Laina with a jerk of his chin. “But at issue is whether she will trust him.”
By her troubled frown, the Krimathean did not appear as if she would. And Lizzan could hardly blame her. To send her warriors into a forest that might be infested with wraiths?
A shiver raced over Lizzan’s skin, and she reached for another flagon. “Perhaps Koth ought to abandon the island.”
“The best of all ideas,” Aerax muttered.
Lady Junica did not think so. “Abandon all that we have built and accomplished? Even if this story of wraiths is true, it has happened but once. Never before, never since.”
That was truth, too. And no matter what the king and council had done, to Lizzan the realm was still worth saving. For her mother, for her brothers—and to everyone else who lived there.
On a heavy sigh, she looked to Aerax. The best of all ideas, he’d said in answer to her suggestion of abandoning the island. As if he still had no love for Koth, despite staying there. And abandoning the island might come to pass if the Krimatheans did not offer their aid. Yet he had come here seeking that aid?
Because he put Kothan lives ahead of his hatred for the realm. Just as he had after the red fever, when he’d accepted his position at the palace. Though Lizzan did not know him as well as she once had, of that she was certain—if people were in danger, then Aerax would help them. Even if he hated them.
So she trusted him to speak the truth when she murmured, “Have there been more wraiths? Do you think there might be?”
Easily he could destroy Koth now. To simply say yes, and the Krimatheans would tell them to abandon the island, instead.
But he shook his head—jaw clenched, as if he resented the answer even as he gave it. “There should not be.”
Should not. As if he knew more than he had said. But Lizzan would not question that now. Always her purpose had been to protect the people of her realm. Despite her exile, that had not changed.
She looked to Laina. “I am full glad that I will never be a queen. I suspect your heart urges you to send the help Koth asks for. Yet you also must weigh the danger to your own realm if the Destroyer comes while your warriors are fighting in the north. You must weigh that these councilors have come to you with no intention of lying, but also blinded themselves to the truth that their realm—and your warriors—might face greater danger than they will admit to. And you must weigh the words of a disgraced and drunken soldier, and whether to risk your warriors or to tell these Kothans to flee south along with everyone else. I do not envy the burden you bear.”
Laina huffed out a laugh and rapped her knuckles on the table as if to emphasize her agreement.
“I will never be a queen, but wearing these cloaks, we are sisters of a sort.” Lizzan reached forward past Aerax and covered the woman’s fist with her hand. “And