Ambrosia (Frost and Nectar, #2)(39)

A scarlet current of danger and violence hummed through every stone in the room, making my muscles go tight.

“He’s left us for the bloody demons!” someone screamed. “And we’re leaving the throne open for this bastard?”

A dreadful feeling was crawling up my spine. Moria had crafted her speeches for this moment, hadn’t she? She’d whipped up the mob into a furor, then showed them the most damning evidence.

Moria’s hands went to her cheeks as she stared at the images. “But—this doesn’t make sense, does it? Why would our king join the Unseelie?” Her tone sounded more histrionic than Hannah G. on season four of Hitched and Stitched when she faked a brain aneurysm to get Cole into her hotel room.

“My sister was once his intended bride,” Moria went on, “and no one hated the demons more than she. Torin wouldn’t have murdered Milisandia, would he?”

Of course, I’d already heard her beliefs on this topic.

“Modron!” she shouted. “Please, tell us what happened to Milisandia! Please.”

It was a performance with all the sophistication of a thirteen-year-old belting out songs in I’m Really Rosie, but these people had never sat through bad musical theater, and they didn’t know the difference.

“No,” Orla shouted. “That’s not why we’re here.”

But Modron wasn’t listening to Princess Orla. With a low, rattling sound, Modron breathed another cloud into the air, and the gray mist took shape above the dais. In the fog, a beautiful woman appeared with hair red as blood draped over a white cape. She stood in a ruined temple dusted with snow. A tear ran down her cheek, and her expression looked agonized.

In the gray fog, Torin took shape by her side, his expression grim. And when he turned sharply away from her, she grabbed his arm. He whirled back to her, his expression horrified. Ice spread from his body to hers, freezing her from the point where their bodies made contact.

Moria screamed, the sound filling the hall.

“It’s not what you think!” Orla cried. “It’s not what you think!”

She was shouting this over and over, but without explaining any further, which wasn’t particularly helpful.

Dizziness swam in my thoughts as I watched what Modron was showing us next—the king himself, burying a body at the Temple of Ostara. Cracking the wintry earth with a shovel.

Moria turned on Orla. “You knew about this, Princess.” Her voice dripped with venom. “You knew before I showed it. What else did you know? Are you also in league with the Unseelie rats?”

But all Orla could say was, “I can’t speak of it.” She staggered back over the dais, looking fragile.

Why wasn’t she explaining?

The crowd was screaming at Orla now, their voices hysterical. She stepped back over the dais. A few guards dressed in blue uniforms like Aeron stepped before the princess. But they looked uncertain now, as if maybe they should not be protecting her.

Aeron’s body tensed against me, and he leaned in to whisper, “Get out of here, quickly.”

Fury flashed in Moria’s burgundy eyes. “Torin is the only one in their family who remained un-cursed. Maybe the Unseelie spared him because they could use him.”

This had all unfolded too perfectly for Moria, hadn’t it? All the lurid threads had woven before us into the vision she’d wanted us to see.

Maybe Modron was telling the truth, but that didn’t mean it was the whole truth. After twenty-four seasons of Hitched and Stitched, I knew selective editing when I saw it.

The visions had been curated.

“I never expected to find that our king has betrayed us,” Moria shouted, her voice growing wilder. “I never dreamed that he’d murdered my sister to protect the Unseelie.”

A clear lie. She’d already accused him of murdering her sister. But who would believe me, the human friend of the “demon whore”?

“Milisandia wanted war with the demons, and he didn’t want it.” She strode across the dais, adopting a tremble in her voice that, frankly, sounded deranged. “Now he lives with them. With their queen. And this is why we must be vigilant. Who else among us has Unseelie sympathies? Who knows who else among us might be trying to destroy our kingdom from within?”

But I’d read Milisandia’s journal, and she hadn’t said a thing about the Unseelie. It was all about how beautiful Torin was, and how he couldn’t touch her. There’d been a bit about Moria’s premonition that he would kill her and bury her body at the Temple of Ostara. Moria had known this would happen even before it did.

My jaw tightened .

I didn’t know what Torin and Ava were doing, but I did know Moria was full of shit.

It was only then that I realized the crowd had turned to me, eyes narrowed with suspicion. Aeron slid his arm around me, his hand shifting to the hilt of the sword.

Around me, the crowd chanted Moria’s name as Aeron ushered me out of the hall, his powerful arm around me like a shield.

“Hide, Shalini,” he whispered. “I need to get you and Orla to safety.”





25





AVA




Ilay on my back, my throat dry as sand.

Who knew why, but Morgant had given up and stopped bringing me food and water several days ago.