Finally, alone in my quarters with nowhere to be, and no one looking for me, I break. Or at least I try to.

Pounding my fists on my bed, I beg for tears, and none come. If I’m going to cry, it has to be now. Who knows when I’ll get another moment’s rest?

Someday, when this is all behind us, I’ll come clean and start again. But for now, no one can know. The citizens can never learn that it was us who turned down peace, us who fanned the hate in the humans’ hearts. We are the reason they deny us help now, victims of a pride that has endured for generations.

Now, like a hunter caught in his own trap, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

I sit back on my knees, defeated. Seth. What if he doesn’t come back? What if the prince dies before he does?

Eighth bell sings out from the Glass Tower. I push myself to my feet with a sigh and light one of the citrus candles by my bedside. It is from the same maker as Mother’s candles, and as the room warms with the scent, it takes me back to Storm’s End’s halls, when I was just a person and not a voice for the city. The moment’s reverie doesn’t last. I can’t let it.

The palace maids have already tidied up my room, but I smooth out the bedspread I’ve wrinkled, savoring the soft feel of the fabric. Warrior training emphasizes tactile feeling: know your weapon, know the ground you keep low to, know the difference between familiar and unfamiliar. Even in my exhausted state, old habits die hard.

With a quick scrub of my face, I let down my hair only to redo it again in a twist of twin braids knotted at the base of my neck. I tie it off with gold thread, denoting my status. Renna will scoff at the look—the hair of a palace maid with the status of a sentinel—but for once, I’m able to shrug off what Renna might think.

Satisfied, I take my lioness form and make a long, circular sweep of the city. A few citizens wave their hellos, and I roar out in response. Keep the people happy, keep the people safe. I want so badly to succeed at both.

Heart hammering with love for my city, I angle downward to Storm’s End. I’m guessing, but Rowan won’t go back to the Underbelly after yesterday. Impulsive as she can be, she shows her hand more than she thinks. When things get hard, she goes home.

I trust her not to spread what I’d told her, but that isn’t why I want to see her. I pulled rank on her, on my little sister, just as I told her I never would. I let her down.