““So Sorscha lifted her head, even as her mouth trembled, even as her eyes burned, and stared down the King of Adarlan. “You destroyed everything that I had, and you deserve everything that’s to come,” she said. Then she looked at Dorian, whose eyes were indeed wide, his face bone-white. “I was not supposed to love you. But I did. I do. And there is so much I wish … I wish we could have done together, seen together.” The prince just stared at her, then walked to the foot of the dais and dropped to his knees. “Name your price,” he said to his father. “Ask it of me, but let her go. Exile her. Banish her. Anything—say it, and it will be done.” She began shaking her head, trying to find the words to tell him that she hadn’t betrayed him—not her prince. The king, yes. She had reported his movements for years, in each carefully written letter to her “friend.” But never Dorian. The king looked at his son for a long moment. He looked at the captain and Aedion, so quiet and so tall—beacons of hope for their future. Then he looked again at his son, on his knees before the throne, on his knees for her, and said, “No.””
