The Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood and..

powerful. It also meant that the mother I remembered—the
one Alastir had claimed was a Handmaiden—could very well
have been my real mother. And, once again, I was back to
the possibility that Ian could be my half-brother. That we
shared the same mother but different fathers. Discovering
that was huge and important to me, but only to me. It
wasn’t what we’d gone for.
Which was to gain the aid of Nyktos’s guards—the
draken.
At least, I’d gotten to see one, so there was that.
Sighing, I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. I’d left the
crown in the bedchamber, and I wished I’d left my brain
there, as well, where Casteel had managed to pull my
thoughts from the trip to Iliseeum multiple times in the
ensuing days.
Since we’d returned, Casteel and I had barely had any
time alone. There were meetings with the Council. Time
spent with Eloana and Valyn, where I was taught the
different laws of the kingdom at a head-spinning speed.
Sessions held where the people of Atlantia could approach
us to ask for aid or offer their services for various needs
throughout the kingdom. Dinners had been late, and we
mostly spent them with Kieran, strategizing the best way to
enter Oak Ambler without being seen. Entering Castle
Redrock wouldn’t be a problem. Slipping into the city’s Rise
unseen would be, and it hadn’t been until the prior night
that Kieran had come up with a plan.
I had yet to venture off the palace grounds, but it was
just Casteel and me at night. We spent the time talking. I
learned more about his brother and what it had been like
growing up in Atlantia as the second son his father once
expected to lead the Atlantian armies.
“That is how you became so skilled at fighting,” I’d said
as we lay together in bed, facing one another.
He’d nodded. “Malik trained alongside me for years, but
when it came time for him to learn to rule, it became time