Chapter 27 · The Heart in the Crown

"Take your hand off me, Varan."

His fingers tightened around my wrist.

Ice snapped over my skin.

The frost climbed from his palm to my elbow, locking my arm against my side. Pain shot through the old marrow scars in my bones, sharp enough to make my knees buckle.

Varan caught me before I hit the floor. His chest slammed into mine, hard and hot beneath his black uniform. His breath brushed my cheek.

"You don't get to order me around while you're holding a crown full of dead magic," he said.

"Then stop holding me."

"Not until Kaiser finishes searching your case."

Across the war room, Kaiser stood beside the long table with my bone case open in front of him. Every tool inside had been spread across the wood. Needles. Bone thread. Three sealed vials of marrow ash.

And the little black splinter I had stolen from the crown.

Kaiser lifted it between two gloved fingers.

"You hid this from us," he said.

"I hid it from everyone. That's usually what people do with things they don't want stolen."

His mouth pulled into a thin line.