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gritting my teeth. I didn’t care if I drew the guard’s attention again. He wasn’t my problem. Sabara was trying to push me out.
    Laughter erupted, echoing ominously and grating against my ears, rasping along each and every nerve fiber of my body. Poor child. Poor, wretched child. You have no idea what you’re up against. No idea how to stop me, do you?
    I gasped as I fell to the ground, sickened by how close to the truth her words had hit. My heart shuddered violently within the dwindling space of my chest.
    I didn’t know how to make her go away. I hadn’t figured out how to make her leave me alone.
    The sight of me curled in a ball on the thick carpet must have raised alarm because I heard the guard’s voice coming from somewhere outside of me. “Are—are you okay, Your Majesty? Do you need help?”
    I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I concentrated instead, focusing everything I had on smothering Sabara. On quelling her treacherous voice, the one that tempted me with its malice. That whispered evil and deceit.
    She isn’t me. Not yet. I am still in control, I reminded myself, again and again and again.
    I dropped my head, forcing myself to draw in one breath, followed by another, and another. The remaining darkness was deluged by a shower of glittering sparks as my flesh torched. I called up every ounce of reserve energy I had, clutching my hands into fists as I wrapped my arms protectively around myself.
    “Go away,” I told her in a shaky voice. And then louder, more resolved. “Leave me alone!”
    The only sound I heard was the whisper of booted footsteps, the guard’s steady gait as he rushed away from me. Surely, he’d assumed I was speaking to him.
    But I heard—and felt—nothing from within. I stayed there for what seemed like an eternity, waiting to see if she’d return, if she’d come back to torment me. The oily black smoke that had just moments earlier choked me, seemed to have vanished, evaporated into oblivion, and now I could breathe again. Clearly. Freely.
    It wasn’t until I felt someone reaching for me, and I heard the familiar voice against my ear, that I dared to open my eyes at last. “You have to stop doing this, Charlie.” Max’s words scolded me, but his soft voice—and his fathomless gray eyes—were gentle and filled with unspoken reassurances. “You’re scaring the guards.” He picked me up from the ground, lifting me and clutching me to his chest. I let my head fall heavily against him as I listened to his heart beating an unsteady rhythm, and I knew the real truth of his statement.
    It wasn’t the guards I was scaring. It was him.

iv
     
    When I heard the knock at my door, I closed my eyes, staving off the headache I’d been fighting all day. “Tell him to go away,” I told Zafir, unable to even get off the bed where I was sprawled with my fists crushed against my throbbing temples. “No more lessons today. I can’t take any more.”
    It had been a rough day, and Baxter, Sabara’s former adviser who was now in charge of tutoring me in the finer points of palace life, had been patient, doing his best to pull me out of my foul mood and placate me when my tolerance grew thin. But patience wasn’t what I needed now, and the idea of facing Baxter for yet another lesson made my head pound even more violently.
    What I really needed was sleep. And peace and quiet inside my own head. Neither of which I’d gotten the night before.
    Max had carried me back to my rooms and gently put me back to bed. He’d even waited there with me until long after he thought I’d fallen to sleep. But sleep had been tenuous and hard to hold. Like so many threads of light carried on the dawn.
    Eventually, after he’d gone to his own chambers, I’d given up on it, choosing instead to concentrate on my schoolwork. Funny how I’d once thought that being queen would mean no more studies. Now, it seemed, studying was all I did.
    Zafir’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “It’s Brook,