Vivia slipped a hand behind him. He hissed with pain, eyes thinning. A skeleton, Vivia thought. Her fingers gripped nothing but bone.
Fresh shame fired through her. The answer to healing her father might be directly below them. She couldn’t withhold that from him.
She would tell him about the lake. Of course, she would tell him.
Four uneven steps later, they reached the bench. It was filthy, but when Vivia tried to brush away dirt and pollen and seeds, Serafin murmured for her to leave it.
Once he was seated, though, she caught sight of his expression. Of his lips curling back, nostrils fluttering.
At first, Vivia thought the bench was still too dirty. Then she realized his eyes were rooted on her navy jacket. “Still no admiral’s coat?”
“I haven’t had time,” she murmured. “I’ll find a gray coat tonight.”
“Oh, I do not mind.” He lifted a sharp shoulder. “I only worry for you, Vivia. The vizers will call you grubby, and the staff will say you look like your mother. We would not want that, would we?”
“No,” Vivia agreed, though she couldn’t help but think that he was the one who looked truly grubby—and he was the one who looked slightly deranged.
“Any word on Merik’s death?” he asked, finally bending his gaze away from Vivia, toward the pond. “Surely it is not so difficult for our spies to find out who killed him.”
Vivia had received news, but it had been a jumbled mess that had led right back to Nubrevna. To a culprit tucked somewhere in their midst, and she wasn’t ready to share that information with her father.
Not yet, at least.
So all she said was, “No new leads, Your Majesty, though it does sound as if the Empress of Marstok was killed in the same way.”
“Now there was a strong leader. Vaness, as well as her mother before her.”
Vivia gulped. I can be strong.
“Jana was always too gentle. Too meek.” Serafin motioned for Vivia to sit beside him. “Not like us.”
Vivia sat, though she couldn’t keep her hands from shaking. She had to ball them into fists atop her thighs. Sitting still is a quick path to madness, she reminded herself—as if this might explain the trembling.
However, the more her father criticized and nitpicked at Jana, the more Vivia wondered if perhaps it was something else that sent heat slicing down her shoulders.
Oh, Vivia was used to the insults against others by now. Normally, she could even revel in the fact that although Serafin hated everyone, he still seemed to love her. Today, though, she was finding it harder to smile and laugh.
“Idiots,” he said, and it took Vivia a moment to sort out whom he currently railed against. The healers, she realized soon enough.
“They do tell me I am doing better, though.” Serafin smiled. “It is the Nihar blood, you know. You are lucky to have such strength running in your veins.”
“I know,” she replied, yet her gaze lingered on his skin, fragile as a snake’s shed scales.
“The royal line sorely needed the Nihars in it,” Serafin continued, warming to the subject. “Until I came along, Jana had no respect. Not from the civilians, not from the Forces, and especially not from the Council. I earned that for her, you know.”
“I know,” Vivia repeated.
“And I will earn it for you too.” He smiled tenderly, his watery eyes disappearing in the folds of his skin. “Once I am well again, I will march into that Council and tell them to put that crown upon your head.”
“Thank you.” She smiled tenderly back—and it was real, for Noden only knew what Vivia would do without her father by her side. Or without that Nihar blood in her veins.
Join her mother, she supposed.
“I only want what’s best for you, Vivia.” The breeze kicked at his wispy hair. “And I know you only want what’s best for me.”
Vivia stiffened, the shame roiling hotter. Her father was so frail. No matter what the healers might say, he was on the verge of death.
So of course she would try to heal him. Of course she would tell him about the underground lake. Yes, something spidered down her spine at the thought of it—and yes, her mother had said to keep it secret, but that was before Jana had leaped to her death and left Vivia all alone. It was before she’d decided her own melancholy meant more than her daughter.
Serafin had stuck by Vivia through everything. He was a good father, even if Vivia was not worthy of it.
She sucked in a breath, ready to point out the blueberries and the trapdoor, when a bell began to clang.
The palace alarm.
Instantly Vivia was on her feet—and instantly she was hollering for the guards to gather around the king. Then, with nothing more than a breathy warning for her father to remain calm, Vivia sprinted out of the queen’s garden. Halfway down the row of zucchini vines, she encountered Stix.
“What is it?” Vivia shouted over the alarm, trying not to notice how disheveled and puffy-faced Stix was. As if the girl had spent the entire night out.
“The storerooms,” Stix hollered back, waving for Vivia to follow her. “Someone’s gotten in there—and, sir, I think it might be the Fury.”
* * *
After the deafening churn of the floods, the silence of the rising tunnel was unsettling. How so little rock could muffle the thunder below, Merik didn’t know. Especially when he still felt the quake in his feet, in his lungs.
The smell here was only marginally better, for though Merik and Cam had abandoned Shite Street, they carried the shite with them.