“What happened?” she asked.
The king couldn’t answer her. It filled him with shame. Hira, pitying him,
addressed Almira.
“Justan Seaver took the baby,” Hira said quickly.
Almira stared at her, her black eyes penetrating as she went eerily still.
Her lips slacked, she grasped her belly.
“What baby?”
“Almira,” the king whispered. “We’ll find her. He couldn’t have gotten
far. We have ships out on the coast, men combing the city—”
“WHAT BABY?” She stumbled back.
He reached to her, but she moaned and pulled away from all who came
near her.
“Cuzo, I’m sorry—” Sanaa tried, her voice unrecognizable.
But the Queen turned and shot down the hall towards her quarters. They
all rushed behind her.
The Mesedi and Black Knights overwhelmed the hallways as they
searched the castle, but Hira knew, deep in her gut, that it was too late.
Justan was smart. He would’ve planned, he would be where they least
expected. He’d out-thought them.
Hira didn’t know how Almira ran up the stairs, but her determination was
incomparable. When they reached the landing at the high quarters, all the
soldiers and guards were still posted before the chamber, their weapons
clean and their bodies relaxed.
“He couldn’t have. She’s safe!” Almira pushed the soldiers out as they
made way for her, as she shoved open the doors to the chambers.
Inside the chambers was a silent, macabre display of bodies. Two young
Red Guards were dead, one with a blade protruding from her back and
another with a split throat. None of them with weapons at hand. Someone
had calmly ambushed them. A maid laid out next to the antechamber door,
killed in a swift, gory manner.