Brian paced the length of his room, gnawing at the side of his thumb as he went.
He'd heard the guards talking through the door earlier, the way they always did when they thought nobody was listening. The Queen had been taken. His grandmother too, snatched out of Dravengard. And there was a Great War coming, the kind no one wanted to fight anymore.
He'd heard something else as well, something that had sat in his stomach like a swallowed stone. Kira was pregnant—carrying the King's pup.
But the last piece was the one that had him wearing a track into the floorboards.
Kira was the Nexus.
He still couldn't make himself believe it. He'd watched that girl for months, and not once had he sensed anything unusual about her. Nothing at all. And now the whole world was tilting on her, and he was stuck in a plain room with a locked door and nothing to do but chew his own hand raw.
He was done with this room. He had things to do out there.
