Wicked Saints (Something Dark and Holy #1) - Emily A. Duncan Page 0,61

thought he had gone completely blind. Until he realized it was still dark outside.

Something rustled in the room and a candle lit. ?aneta set the candle by the bedside table before sitting down on the side of his bed.

“This is scandalous, ?aneta,” he mumbled, resting his head back against the pillows.

“Definitely more scandalous than the prince being attacked in his own palace gardens,” she agreed.

He lifted his hands and pressed his fingers against his throbbing temples. “Are you sure they didn’t kill me?” he asked.

“Mostly.”

Her auburn curls hung loose around her shoulders. He found himself tracking the freckles that dusted her warm brown skin.

“Did any of them survive?” he asked.

She nodded. “The one with the burned face. Your handiwork?”

He tried to nod but it hurt too badly. “Yes.”

“A good spell,” she said. “We have him in the dungeons.”

“Does my father know what happened?” Serefin didn’t want to know the answer, but he had to ask.

“He does.”

Serefin groaned.

“I’m glad I wasn’t there when he was told,” she said.

Serefin needed to think, but the pounding in his head was making it difficult. There was no point in going back to sleep. He wasn’t sure he would be able to, anyway. He needed answers. He wanted to demand an explanation from his father; surely this was his doing. Yet his rational side knew this couldn’t be his father’s doing. Because it had failed. Gloriously.

“My father is going to blame the Kalyazi,” he mused.

“Was it not them?” ?aneta asked, standing up.

“I … don’t know.” The Kalyazi did not train incompetent assassins; his eye was a tribute to that. This could have been the work of the Crimson Vulture. Perhaps his father was behind the attack and she had shifted the pieces so incompetent assassins were sent instead to give him a better chance. He hated living with a black cloud of doom hovering over his steps, certain that his future was bleak but not having any clear answers.

“Would you fetch Kacper, please?” he asked.

?aneta frowned. She hesitated, as if she wanted to argue, but then left. Serefin wondered what she was holding back.

Serefin let those thoughts fade when Kacper entered, a puzzled look on his face.

“?aneta seemed upset,” Kacper said.

“I said nothing to upset her.”

Kacper let it drop. “A Vulture was sent to interrogate the remaining assassin. I assume we’ll be hearing of that by noon. In the meantime…”

Serefin worked himself to a sitting position. He stared blankly into the darkness at the opposite end of the room.

What information did he have? An attack on his life, a plan to find a queen for Tranavia, and questions with no answers. Why was his father sending thousands upon thousands of prisoners to the Salt Mines? Why was his father working so closely with the Vultures? To what end? Why now?

What is happening?

“Have you seen the current list of families participating in the Rawalyk?” Kacper asked.

“No, why?”

“It seems to be fluctuating,” he said. “Names of girls keep appearing then disappearing suddenly.”

“What do you mean?”

Kacper shook his head. “I’m not sure. I want to look into it, see if the girls are just getting nervous or if it’s something else.”

Serefin let out a breathless laugh. “We are so paranoid.” There was a beat of silence. “I need to talk to my mother,” he murmured.

He wasn’t sure she could help him, not with anything. But it was all he could do at this point. He was trapped in a cage of gold and iron with no door to escape from and had been given a dagger when he needed a saw to cut a hole in his prison.

“I can have a servant sent to her quarters,” Kacper said. “Is that all?”

Serefin nodded absently, before frowning and squinting up at Kacper. “Are you all right?”

Kacper blinked in surprise. “Me? Of course, why? They weren’t trying to kill me.”

Serefin eyed the other boy, taking in his dark hair and skin, the scar that cut across one of his eyebrows, and his sharp, brown eyes. He hadn’t grown up fighting off assassination attempts like Serefin and Ostyia. By all rights, Kacper should have been just another soldier in the king’s army; he was of low birth. His exceptional talent with blood magic and his sharp skills for espionage meant he had been shuffled around in the army until he was assigned to Serefin’s company. Their friendship had been struck a month into Serefin’s first tour of the front when he was sixteen. Kacper had gotten into a spitting fight with Ostyia.