“Nothing! Your guards brought me a letter from my sister. A reply to the wedding invitation you insisted on sending. She asked that I inform the Tavgharad of the wedding, and I brought it to them. They … they told me the message was a code. That it was time to escape.”

“But there was another command in your sister’s letter.”

“I read it myself!” Ehri cried. “There was no such thing!”

“What else could make the Tavgharad take such an action?”

Ehri turned her head away again.

Nikolai hadn’t really expected her to believe him. The princess had never been willing to accept that she was not meant to survive her trip to Os Alta, that her older sister had been planning her death all along. Even after what she had suffered, maybe because of what she had suffered, she couldn’t stand the thought. The physical pain was bad enough, but another betrayal from her sister was too much to accept.

The proper thing was to give her space, a chance to heal. But he’d squandered the time required to be a sensitive suitor. And now he needed someone else to make his argument for him.

“A moment please,” he said, and headed into the hall.

He returned pushing a wheeled chair.

“Mayu!” Ehri exclaimed.

Nikolai had deliberately kept them separated in the weeks since Mayu Kir-Kaat’s attempt to assassinate him. Until last night, there had been no little chats with Mayu or attempts to win her to his side. It had been impossible for him to feel sympathy for the girl who had killed Isaak. His own guilt was too overwhelming. Commanding armies had meant sending countless men to their deaths. Being a king meant knowing there would be more. But Isaak had died pretending to be Nikolai, wearing Nikolai’s face, protecting Nikolai’s crown.

“They said you were near death!” said the princess.

“No,” Mayu whispered. She had been kept under restraint, and the Grisha Healers had not allowed her to return to full health. She was simply too much of a threat. Mayu Kir-Kaat had tried to kill the king, and the women of the Tavgharad were some of the best-trained soldiers in the world.

“Last night, I showed Mayu the letter your sister sent,” said Nikolai.

“It’s just a letter! An answer to an invitation!”

Nikolai settled back into his chair and gestured for Mayu to speak.

“I recognized the poem she quoted.”

“‘Let them be as deer freed from the hunt,’” said Ehri. “I remember one of my tutors taught it.”

“It’s from ‘The Song of the Stag’ by Ni Yul-Mahn,” said Mayu. “Do you remember how it ends?”

“I don’t recall. I’ve never had a taste for the new poets.”

A sad smile touched Mayu’s lips, and Nikolai wondered if she was thinking of Isaak, who had consumed poetry the way other men drank wine.