She couldn’t help but notice her choice of words made him wince. She’d disappointed him, but there was nothing she could do about it. She didn’t love Magnus the way he wanted her to. And she never would.
Lucia pushed his hands away and turned toward the balcony again, searching for any sign of the golden hawk that had been there before, desperately wishing that Alexius would soon visit her again so he could guide her. So he could be with her.
Somehow, some way.
CHAPTER 20
CLEO
AURANOS
It was the morning of Cleo’s wedding.
And it would be the day that King Gaius would die.
For you, Mira. Today he will pay for his crimes in blood.
Fire burned within her. Today, she would have her vengeance.
Currently, however, her two Limerian attendants tugged so painfully at her hair that she wanted to cry like a little girl, not a future queen. “I don’t know why I can’t just wear it down,” she growled.
“The king commanded that it be plaited like this,” Dora haughtily explained. “And it will only take longer if you keep squirming about.”
Cleo had to admit that the king’s interfering attention to detail had paid off. Her hair did look beautiful in this style, a crisscrossing of tiny braids, woven together in an intricate pattern. Still, she hated it. She hated everything to do with this wedding—doubly so as the servants helped her into the beautiful but heavy gown Lorenzo had finished for her. He’d personally come to the palace to take her measurements the day after she’d returned from the Wildlands, full of endless, groveling apologies that his seamstress, unbeknownst to him, had been working for rebels. The girl had disappeared, but Lorenzo swore that if he learned anything new about her location, he would inform the king.
In Cleo’s mind, the seamstress was less an aid to the rebels and more a simple-minded girl who would do anything a handsome and exciting boy like Jonas Agallon asked of her.
Jonas . . .
The gown sparkled even in the dim light of Cleo’s chambers with the sheer number of crystals sewn onto it. And it weighed nearly as much as she did. Helena and Dora laced her up mercilessly, cutting off her breath.
She tried not to worry that she’d received no message from Jonas confirming the rebels’ plans to attack in the week and a half since she’d returned to the palace.
Did she really trust him?
Currently, she had no other choice.
Jonas would do this for Paelsia—to save his people. Despite the kiss they’d shared, she knew he wasn’t doing this for her.
How you’d laugh at me, Mira. A kiss from a Paelsian rebel a week ago and I remember it as clearly as if it happened just now. I’d give anything to have you here to talk with about it.
She watched herself in the mirror as the girls worked on her hair. The glint of the purple stone in her ring caught her eye. Knowing she wore it, hidden in plain sight, made her heart race. But there was no way to know how this day would turn out, and it was her most precious and important possession.
In the reflection, she caught sight of Nic, who’d appeared at her doorway, his expression grim. She hadn’t seen him smile once since she’d broken the news to him about Mira. The pain on his face had shattered her heart. He felt that he had failed to protect his sister when she needed him the most. But he swore he would never fail Cleo.
Now he stood at the doorway to her chambers, waiting to accompany her to the carriage that would take her to the site of her wedding.
To the site of her destiny.
• • •
This day would go down in history. The Auranian people would speak of today for centuries to come. They would write books, compose songs, and pass tales down through generations of the day that Princess Cleiona joined forces with the rebels to defeat her enemy and free the entire kingdom from a king’s tyranny—even if that kingdom had never fully realized the extent of the evil the King of Blood could unleash.
And peace would reign across all of Mytica for another millennium.
The crowd of thousands cheered upon seeing her step out of the carriage when she reached the Temple of Cleiona. Guards were everywhere outside controlling the masses, holding them back.
She coaxed a smile to her lips and waved at the crowd.
This was good to see. The rebels could use such a large gathering as camouflage, even with the many guards patrolling on foot and on horseback.
Gaius’s Imperial Road began here at the temple. It stretched out into the distance, a perfectly formed ribbon of gray rock against the green landscape.
Jonas had said that there were people enslaved and abused on the road sites in Paelsia, where most of the long miles of construction were taking place. But here, and along the path they’d taken in the carriage where they’d passed workers, she didn’t witness such atrocities. Those who toiled appeared clean and well rested, working hard, but not to any extremes.