“Your Grace, Prince Cassius,” he greeted as he came to stand between two sofas, both of them vacant, and dipped his chin into his neck. He lifted his head and caught the prince’s eyes. “I am most grateful to be here. I am also most grateful to you for welcoming me into your home so swiftly. For I have just survived a daunting adventure regarding which I needs make haste in reporting to you.”

“Indeed, I am all ears,” Cassius replied.

Excellent.

“It has been some days since I’ve eaten, thus, before I begin, could I trouble you to order up some food?” he requested.

“I thought you needed to make haste in reporting?” Cassius asked.

“Well, I…yes, of course, however…” He gestured to the sofa beside him. “My journey was arduous. May I sit?”

“No.”

Jellan’s spine straightened, and of a sudden, he paid much closer attention to Cassius, and the people who sat amongst him.

They were not friends of Jellan’s, but they were allies, and he had thought he had their regard.

He was a priest of the Go’Doan.

He was called upon to…

Ah.

“I am not of The Rising,” he assured them.

“This is a lie,” Cassius replied.

Jellan blinked.

“Are we to wait long for the story of your adventure?” Cassius prompted when Jellan lost his voice. “For the lot of us have things to do, and if you wish to draw this out, I’m in the position to tell you that you will fail. We’ll just deal with you and carry on.”

“Deal with me?” he asked softly.

Cassius’s head tipped to the side. “Did you or did you not kill Sofia Magos of the Firenz with the intent to kill Farah Magos of the Firenz, now Farah, Queen of Wodell?” Cassius queried, and Jellan’s heart started to beat a quick tattoo as his attention cut to Farah.

She was regarding him with hatred in her eyes.

But worse, when his gaze shifted to King True…

By the gods…

He had never…

Not ever…

Seen the like.

True’s eyes on Jellan were green.

Not the green they normally were.

Overtaken with the color, no white to be seen.

Jellan took a step back, ran into something, and jerked his head about to look over his shoulder.

A wall of men stood behind him consisting, he noted with a sinking stomach, of lieutenants from three separate realms.

That sinking stomach clutched, and his throat closed.

He turned back to Cassius.

“I-I’m sorry,” he forced out. “I do not know what you mean.”

“All right. I’ll ask another question,” Cassius said. “Did you, or did you not, infiltrate a group known as the Society of the Beast, participate in the seizure, rape and murder of countless women over several decades, doing this conspiring to surface the Beast in order to control it for the purposes of The Rising?”

Oh gods.