Chapter 18: The Gala

Keeva's POV

The royal greenhouse was the most beautiful room I had ever stood in, and I had come to watch my sister's life burn down in it.

Roses climbed the glass in every color, and the Princess sat in a white chair at the center of the aisle.

Princess Isabelle was twenty-nine, and she was not smiling.

Around her sat the packs of the kingdom in their best clothes.

My father and mother sat in the front row.

Dahlia sat between them in a white gown and dark glasses, with a single rose pinned at her shoulder.

Tobias was missing.

Bram stood at my side in a borrowed black suit, and his bandaged forearm lay against mine.

Beside us, in a wheeled chair, sat the van driver with his face half purple and a royal guard at each shoulder.

"We are here," the Princess said, "to settle a question that has traveled further than it should."

Her voice was clear and cool and carried all the way to the glass roof.

"Miss Dahlia Thorburn has claimed that she was taken, and blinded, and that her sister caused it."

A murmur ran through the hall.

"The Crown struck Keeva Thorburn from my academy on that claim," said the Princess. "I intend to learn if I was lied to."

My mother's mouth went tight.

"Your Highness," my father said, standing. "My daughter has suffered enough. I beg you."

"Sit, Alpha Thorburn."

He sat.

"Herald," said the Princess. "The report."

The herald unrolled a paper and read it aloud in a flat voice.

It was the Northvale Healer's signed finding.

It said Dahlia's optic nerves were destroyed beyond any cure.

The Alpha's own Healer sat in the third row, in a gray tunic, with her hands twisted together in her lap.

"And now," said the Princess, "my own healer's finding."

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