Chapter 1
The heat in the hallway was stifling, even though it was well
past midnight. Thick humidity lingered from a storm that had
passed earlier in the evening, coating my skin with moisture. I
couldn’t smell the wet leaves and mud of the jungle here, outside
King Damian’s room, but I knew the rich scent well enough to conjure
it on my own. I was only halfway through my night shift, and I
was already drooping. Willing myself to stay alert, I began to pace.
There hadn’t been a single threat since Damian’s coronation
almost a month earlier, but Deron, the captain of the king’s guard,
wasn’t about to take chances with Damian’s life, and I couldn’t
agree more. Especially after how hard we had all fought — and how
much we’d lost — to stop Damian’s father, King Hector, and put
Damian on the throne. My brother, Rylan’s brother, almost half
the guard, and countless others had died in the fight to free Antion
from the evil vise in which Hector and his black sorcerer, Iker, had
held the kingdom for almost my entire lifetime.
As I marched up and down the hallway, forcing the blood
to move in my tired limbs, the side of my face and neck began to
throb. The pain from my scars had eased over the last month, but
it was still there. A constant reminder of the battle I’d fought
against Iker.
Damian, too, had fought and lost so very much. He and I were
alike in more ways than one — we’d both had to play parts to protect
ourselves, and we’d both seen our families wiped out. I’d
watched my parents and brother die at the hands of our enemies,
but Damian . . . He had been forced to kill his own father in order
to protect his people. Those scars were the type that no one could
see, but would never truly heal.
The lit torch propped in the bracket across from Damian’s
door flickered suddenly, as if a gust of wind had blown past it,
although I felt nothing. My hand dropped to the hilt of my sword.
As I peered into the darkness to my right, there was nothing to see
except a long stretch of empty hallway.
I crossed in front of Damian’s door again, my thoughts turning
to my king, as they often did. Though I’d made my choice, and
convinced Damian that I didn’t have any feelings for him, it was
yet one more buried wound that I carried with me. I could never
let him uncover the truth — that not only did I have feelings for
him, but I was still in love with him. I would do whatever it took
to keep our new king safe and to help him rebuild his kingdom
and be the best ruler he could be, even if it meant causing him pain
now. It was the right thing to do.
That dedication to his safety and well-being was why I never
complained about taking the night shifts like some of the other
guards did — usually the new ones. I was still unaccustomed to
their faces and voices, rather than those of my old friends: Jude.
Kai. Antonio. So many others.
“Alexa.” A familiar voice called out my name — my real name —
making me jump. I turned around to see Deron striding toward
me from the other direction. Maybe someday I would get used to
the captain of the guard calling me Alexa, rather than Alex, as he
had for years when he thought I was a boy.
“Deron, what is it?” I asked as he closed the gap between us,
his own lit torch chasing more of the shadows away.
“There’s a man at the gate who’s demanding entrance to the
palace. He claims to be from Dansii, acting as a runner to warn us
that a delegation has been deployed by King Armando and will be
arriving within a day or two.”
“A delegation?” I repeated in disbelief. “Has Dansii ever sent
a delegation before?”
“No. Not so much as a political emissary, as far as I know.”
A cold chill skittered down my spine. “Why send one now?”
“He claims they have come to celebrate the coronation of the
new king.” When his eyes met mine, I could see my own nervousness
reflected in their dark depths. A number of different scenarios
ran through my mind in quick succession — reasons why the king
of Dansii, Hector’s brother, would send a delegation now. Each
was worse than the last.
“We should increase the watches and guards in the palace
while they’re here,” I said. “No matter what, we can’t trust Dansii.
And we need to alert the king.”
“That’s why I came up here.”
“Alert me to what?”
I spun around to see Damian pulling open his door, wearing
nothing more than a pair of pants, his hair mussed by sleep, his jaw
shadowed with stubble. My heart jumped into my throat, and
my fingers tightened around the hilt of my sword. But he wasn’t
looking at me; instead, he gave the captain of his guard a questioning
look.
“We didn’t mean to wake you, my liege.” Deron inclined
his head.
“You didn’t. I couldn’t sleep.” Damian’s voice was clipped. He
still wouldn’t look at me. “Now tell me what’s happening.”
“Your uncle, King Armando, has apparently sent a delegation
that will be arriving at the palace shortly. A runner has preceded
them to warn us of their coming.” Deron kept his voice level, indicating
no response to this news.
Damian lifted one eyebrow, his gaze finally flickering to
mine, then quickly away. It lasted less than a second, and yet
the brief connection sent a wave of awareness through me. I’d
been guarding him, standing next to him all day long, but for
some reason — possibly because he was half naked — standing
only a few feet away from him now, in the middle of the night,
felt too intimate. In the low light, his shockingly blue eyes were
shadowed. I couldn’t read his expression as I forced my eyes to
stay on his face, rather than letting my gaze stray to his chest or
abdomen.
“Alexa,” Deron said, with a hint of exasperation as though he
were repeating himself.
I quickly straightened my spine as I turned away from the king
to look at Deron.
He gave me a sharp, questioning look. “Do you still agree that
we need to increase the watches and guard presence in the palace
for as long as the Dansiian party is here?”
“Yes,” I said. My heart beat unsteadily in my chest, but I
hoped that my expression remained neutral. “Yes, I do.”
“And where do you suggest we recruit the extra help? The
army is already short staffed,” Damian pointed out.
Shortly after being crowned king, Damian had released the
orphan boys from their forced enrollment in the army. Many
stayed, as they had nowhere else to go, but there was a significant
number who had quit, returning to their ravaged villages
and homes to try to put the horrors of the war — and Hector’s
reign of terror — behind them. Even Nolan, Damian’s former
“handler,” had chosen to leave the palace. Damian had done the
right thing, letting them choose, but it left Antion with a diminished
army.
I answered without looking at the king to see if he was watching
me or not, gazing just past him instead. “Now that there is no
threat of attack from Blevon, we could pull some of the soldiers
assigned to the outer patrols into the city and pull the city patrols
into the palace.”
“But that would take weeks, and the Dansiians are almost
here,” Deron pointed out.
“There isn’t a threat of attack in Tubatse any longer; those
soldiers are helping with rebuilding efforts more than anything,” I
said. “If we pulled just one man off each squadron in the city, we
could double the watch numbers without impacting the rebuilding
efforts significantly.”
Damian nodded, steadfastly keeping his eyes on Deron. “Are
you sure this is necessary? I don’t want to cause a delay in the
housing project.”
“Taking one man off each group shouldn’t slow it down much.
Your safety is of the utmost importance — even more so than finishing
the new homes,” Deron said.
“My safety won’t be in question. That’s why I have you — isn’t
it?” Damian lifted his eyebrow. Before either of us could respond,
he continued. “The women and their babies need places to live.
They can’t stay in tents indefinitely.”
I shuddered as I thought about the building that had once
been the focal point of so many horrors. Damian’s very first act as
king, even before releasing the boys from their involuntary servitude
in the army, had been to move the women and babies out of
the breeding house and tear it down. I still remembered the night
that it had crashed to the earth through a targeted attack by both
Eljin’s and Damian’s sorcery; some had cheered but others hadn’t
been able to do anything except stand in the falling dusk and sob.
Now there was a small tent city situated in a section of the courtyard,
as far away from the former breeding house as possible, where
the girls and women were relocated. The hard ground was preferable
to the nightmarish hovel where they had been forced to reside
for so many years, but it was no way to live — especially for those
women who were pregnant or had new babies who hadn’t been
taken away. Yet another project Damian had spearheaded was to try
to reunite mothers with children who had been taken after they were
weaned and then put in the orphanage to survive until they were old
enough to join the army themselves — or to take their place in the
breeding house. It was a heartbreaking and, in some cases, futile
process. The wounds from King Hector’s rule ran deep, and many
were still slashed wide open with little hope of healing.
“I know you are worried about those women, and rightfully
so, but if there is a threat to your safety, that has to take precedence,”
Deron said.
“We don’t know that there is any threat,” Damian argued.
“And I refuse to do anything that will make my people think I care
more about myself than their welfare.”
“Sire, I understand your concern,” I began haltingly, still staring
at the wall past Damian’s bare shoulder, “but it would be
unwise to assume that this is a friendly delegation. King Armando
is the one who sent Iker to your father. What if there is another
black sorcerer with them?”
He stiffened when I used the word sire. He hated it when I
didn’t call him by his name. But I’d made my choice — I’d led him
to believe I didn’t love him anymore, that I didn’t trust him. I’d
done it for his own good, and for the good of the kingdom. Even
though I knew I’d made the right choice, that didn’t make it any
easier to live with the consequences. The only way to survive my
self-imposed torture was to force up some kind of barrier. “If there
is a sorcerer of any sort, I’ll know it and so will Eljin,” Damian said,
his voice matching the frostiness of his expression. “But we can’t
assume that their intentions are malicious. Armando is my uncle.”
Did Damian hope that his uncle had benevolent intentions
toward Antion, even though he’d been the one to send Iker, a
black sorcerer, to his own brother — Damian’s father?
“And if they attack us?”
Damian finally looked directly at me. When our eyes met, the
hardness of his gaze sent a jolt through me. The stonelike mask on
Damian’s handsome face was my fault. The hurt that lurked in the
bright blue depths of his eyes was because of me.
It tore me apart inside to see all the love, all the passion I had
once inspired in him wiped away, replaced by the same facade he’d
presented to the world for years to protect himself from his father’s
machinations.
“Then we’ll fight them — just like we fought Iker,” Damian
finally said.
“Alexa was barely able to beat Iker,” Deron pointed out, his
voice gentle. But however kindly he said it, it didn’t ease the pain
of his words. I fought the urge to touch my scarred cheek again as
the memories of that horrible day threatened to surge up. “What if
there’s more than one black sorcerer this time?”
Something inside of me clenched when Damian’s gaze flickered
down to my cheek, then back to my eyes. “Black sorcerers
are not common,” he said after a pause. “I doubt they’ll have one
with them.”
Deron shook his head. “I’m sorry, Sire, but it’s our duty to
assume the worst. And then try to prepare for it. We can’t take
risks with your life.”
At Deron’s words, my fingers tightened around the hilt of my
sword. “I won’t let them hurt you,” I said before I could stop
myself, my voice low. Damian tensed, his eyes widening slightly —
a tiny crack in his veneer. I forced myself to tear my eyes away from
the king, to stare at the floor instead, lest he see the emotions I’d
spent the last month suppressing.
“We’ve kept the man waiting too long,” Deron said suddenly,
before Damian could respond. “We need to bring him inside; we
can discuss the details of what we should do in the morning.”
There was another long pause before Damian spoke. “Fine, but
I would like you to come up with a solution that won’t slow down
the building project.” Damian stood there for a moment longer,
but when I wouldn’t meet his gaze again, he turned on his heel
and stalked back into his room, slamming the door shut behind him.
I flinched but didn’t move, waiting for Deron’s orders.
“Stay here and finish out your shift. I’ll take care of the runner.”
Deron turned away but then paused. “Alexa . . .” he spoke
hesitantly. “Are you . . . and the king . . .” He trailed off uncomfortably,
and my stomach clenched. The last thing I needed — or
wanted — was for Deron to try and talk to me about the situation
with Damian. Now that everyone knew I was a girl, most of
the other guards treated me differently — they seemed to think
that I was suddenly weaker than I used to be, even though I
hadn’t changed. I was still the same person — the same soldier —
I’d always been. But no one else saw it that way, except for Rylan,
who’d always known.
And Damian.
“You’d better not keep the runner waiting any longer,” I said
curtly, standing up taller, with a glare that I hoped clearly conveyed
my desire to drop the subject.
He gave me a searching look but nodded. “All right. I’ll see
you tomorrow, then.” He turned away again, and this time he
didn’t stop.
When he was out of sight, I had to fight the urge to sag against
the wall; my legs felt strangely weak and my heart wouldn’t stop
racing. But instead, I stood up even straighter, throwing my shoulders
back. I was a guard — this was my duty. I wouldn’t be the one
found relaxing on the job, allowing something, or someone, to get
past me. My life was devoted to protecting my king.
But the expression on Damian’s face wouldn’t leave me, the
pain he was so adept at hiding from everyone — everyone but me.
I, who knew him best and had hurt him the worst.
What if the person he needed protection from the most was me?