“Your father committed treason, didn’t he?” I asked.

“Do you know?” Loki glanced over at me. “Did they tel you what my father did?”

“Elora said that your father told Oren where my grandmother and mother were hiding,” I said. “Because of that, Oren found them and kiled my grandmother.”

“He did,” Loki said. “He did more than that, actualy. He tried to tel Oren where you were, but he was never able to find out.

“And because he did that, he became Oren’s right-hand man,” Loki continued with a bitter smile. “He got everything he ever wanted, and you think that would make him happy, but no.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“When I was nine, Oren married Sara, and my father was furious,” Loki said. “There was a chance they might produce a healthy child, and my father didn’t want that. Without a child, I was the only viable heir to the throne.”

“But Sara can’t have kids?” I asked.

“We didn’t know that at the time,” Loki explained. “She has some Tryle blood in her, two generations back, and that’s how she has the ability to heal. But the Vittra blood must have thinned out the Tryle in her too much, because she’s been unable to have kids.”

“But when she married Oren, your dad thought they might have a child?” I asked.

“Right,” he nodded. “My father wanted nothing more than for me to be King. It didn’t matter that I had no urge to be King, or that Oren might live forever and I would never be King anyway.”

“Why did he want you to be King so badly?” I asked.

“He wanted power, more power,” Loki said. “He thought if I became King, we could rule the world or something. He never got specific about his plans, but he just wanted more.”

“So what happened?” I asked. “I heard he tried to defect back to Förening.”

“Yes, that was after everything went to hel,” Loki said. “My father came up with some plan to kil Sara. I don’t know exactly what it was, but I think he wanted to poison her. My mother found out about it, and she was…” He stopped and shook his head.

“My mother was kind,” Loki went on. “I’d been betrothed to Sara, so she’d become like a member of our family. My mother invited her for supper and treated her as a daughter. Even after Sara married Oren, my mother remained close to her.”

“And your father was going to kil her?” I asked.

“Yes, but my mother wouldn’t let him.” He chewed the inside of his cheek and stared straight ahead at the snow coming down. “So he kiled her.”

“What?” I asked, thinking I’d misunderstood. “Sara’s alive.”