“My lord, she may be involved with the Holgarians trying to kill you,” Viggo said urgently. “She could give us names, locations, assets.”
“Interrogate her, then,” Torvald said, crossing his arms over the mattress before him. “Arrest her. Force her to drink Brynjar’s truth serum if you must. Then she will still be publicly tried and executed.”
“What about Haskell and Evie?” Bryn asked. “They’ll have no one.”
“They’ll have me,” the king said with a dismissive huff.
Bryn stepped forward. “Haskell will have to live with the fact that his word had his mother killed. There has to be another option, sire.”
“Torvald,” I said before he could start shouting again. “Please. Couldn’t we just… banish her to the mainland?”
The king’s hands tightened into fists. “I will not yield.” He glared at the three of us. “Leave me.”
Viggo carefully set me back down on my bed. I felt hollow, as if someone had scooped out my insides with a giant spoon. I’d never seen Torvald so upset. In his anger, he had become a different person. It was unsettling. My head felt heavy all of a sudden.
Helka, a traitor. It didn’t seem possible. I had to wonder if Prince Haskell would have told us about her treachery if we had left him out of our investigation.
In the end, it doesn’t matter, I thought numbly. Helka is still going to die.
I wasn’t sure why I felt so morose. Helka knew the price for treason was death. She chose to plot against the king and his counselors anyway. She deserved to be punished.
Bryn sat in the chair beside my hospital bed with a mournful sigh. “Those poor children.”
“They’ll be all right,” Viggo murmured. “Once the king’s anger has melted away, he’ll come to his senses and choose another punishment for Lady Helka.”
“How can you be sure?” I asked. “Didn’t you see him? He looked like he was ready to commit murder.”
“Anger is a normal response to betrayal, but we know the king’s character,” Viggo said. “If he had Lady Helka executed, it would haunt him forever. He’ll find another solution.”
“I hope you’re right.” Bryn sighed again. “So, shall we bring Lady Helka in for questioning?”
Viggo shook his head. “Not until our burn victims have recovered. If Lady Helka noticed Haskell’s absence, she might suspect something. We don’t want to confirm Haskell’s betrayal by storming into her rooms the moment he comes back from his secretive errand. Besides, the king’s mind might have changed in a few days’ time. I’d rather Lady Helka’s fate be decided before we apprehend her.”
“And if she decides to sneak more assassins in?” Bryn asked. “There are still two counselors left who dared dethrone her one and only love. Her vendetta isn’t over.”
“I’ll station guards around the secret panel,” was Viggo’s reply. “She’ll have to think of another way to smuggle them in if she’s determined to see this through. I’ll talk to Master Philo about instating more rigorous inspections of documentation plaques immediately.”
Kalea hadn’t said a word since I’d been wheeled into her room. She let me explain why I hadn’t been there when her father had been murdered, she let me apologize for breaking my promise to her; she even let me give her an update on Torvald, Viggo, Bryn, and the investigation. But she refused to speak to me. She, like the king, had sustained burns on her back, thighs, and calves. She opted to lay on her side with a blanket draped over her. She stared at the wall, eyes red-rimmed from crying but currently dry. Her long, blond hair had been washed and brushed, and arranged so that it fell away from the angry burns across her shoulders. She was so pale and still. If it weren’t for the steady rising and falling of her chest, I would’ve thought she was dead.
Dr. Ichiro said she was physically fine. The burns, although widely spread, were only of the first degree and would heal quickly. With Bryn’s pain-relieving ointment being lathered over the affected spots twice daily, the queen experienced very little discomfort. Nurses came into her room every hour on the hour to ask if she wished to be repositioned. She wouldn’t eat left on her own, but she accepted food and water when they were given to her. She simply refused to speak.
I couldn’t help the guilt that threatened to strangle me. Kalea mourned her father, and her father had died because I let him out of my sight. I tried to follow my own advice and convince myself there was nothing I could’ve done to save Rakim. Still, I ached for the queen.
I cried into my bandaged hands. “I’m so sorry, Kalea. Please, say you forgive me. I can’t bear your silence any longer!”
“Then leave,” she croaked. “I don’t wish to speak to anyone, you least of all. Nurse!”
A young lady in a white uniform came to wheel me away. She eased me back into my own bed, saying I shouldn’t take the queen’s anger personally. I found little comfort in her words.
I tossed and turned that night, hating death and murder more passionately than when I’d killed Gosta. These atrocities had twisted the people I cared about and turned them against me. I wished them abolished. I wished they’d never existed. I cried myself to sleep, lonely and bitter.
Then I woke in the dead of night, having somehow fallen asleep on one of my hands. I tugged it out from under my cheek and rolled over into a more comfortable position.
There, fast asleep in the chair by my bed, was Viggo. His head lolled back and to the side, his mouth hanging wide open. He wore academy-approved lounging clothes, had his feet propped up on my bed and his leather slipper-like shoes stacked neatly on the floor.
Bryn lay curled up in the corner of the room under a blanket of parchment. Someone had been nice enough to lay a bed cushion down for him, but he seemed to have rejected the pillow and opted for a pile of books instead. He must have knocked over the bottle of ink in his sleep because his bare foot stuck out from the cushion and was stained black.
I vaguely wondered how they managed to sneak in without waking me, but didn’t concern myself too much with that mystery. They preferred to endure discomfort so long as they could be near me, and it warmed my heart. I settled back into my bed and shut my teary eyes, not feeling quite as lonely as I did before.
“I wish I was blessed by Dotharr,” Torvald murmured, slathering butter on his toast. “Your burns were more severe than mine and yet you already look better than I feel.”
“I feel about the same,” was my response.
The king glanced at me before setting his bread aside. His voice grew soft. “I’m sorry, Asta. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
I shook my head. “You haven’t offended me, sire.”
“What’s the matter then?” he asked, leaning forward slightly.
I lifted my eyes with difficulty and met his gaze. “I saw Kalea yesterday.”
“She blames you for her father’s death,” he realized.
I nodded glumly.
Torvald sighed. “I’m not going to have Helka executed.”
“Really?”
The king turned back to his tray of food. “I’ve given it a great deal of thought and Bryn was right. I can’t do that to the children. I’m their brother, their king, and soon-to-be guardian. I can’t also be the man who had their mother killed. Helka will be publicly branded a traitor and banished to the mainland. What happens to her after that will be none of our concern.”
“I’m happy to hear of it, sire,” I said because it did seem to be chasing away my gloom.