She had loved Johannes since she was a girl. In fact, she could still remember the first time she had seen him. He was three years her elder; she had been twelve at the time, and he, newly sixteen, and she had been visiting Port of Helmut with her father. Lord Havener and his eldest son had been there to receive them. Johannes had been tall for his age, with beautiful flowing chestnut hair, dressed in an emerald green that brought out the color of his eyes, eyes that could light up the darkest of places. And when he had looked at Ida, he had smiled that cocksure grin of his, and even at twelve years old, she had felt her chest flutter and her breath catch in her throat and her knees go weak. She had stared at him every opportunity she had, every moment they were together, and when she had gone to bed that night, she had told herself that if she could not marry him, she would never marry anyone else.

  She rolled over onto her side now, watching the chest of the man sleeping next to her rise and fall with his breath, blankets twisted around his hips, lashes so long they brushed against his cheeks. She watched his lips silently part as his head gently lolled to one side on the pillow. She wanted to reach out and touch him, to trace a finger along the curve of his arm, but she did not wish to wake him.

  Carefully, quietly, she climbed from the bed, snatching up a shawl from the floor and wrapping it around her shoulders. No one was to come into her rooms, not even the maid, that was what she had said. No one could be trusted. And so that was how it was. She crossed to the table where a half-drunk chalice of wine still sat from the night before and stared down into it, watching her own reflection twist and warp as she picked it up.

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  She glanced over her shoulder at the man lying in her bed, one shoulder wrapped in a soiled bandage. She had loved Johannes every minute of every day. Even when he had hurt her. Even when he had betrayed her. Even when he had been unfaithful to her.

  There was a quiet knock at the door, and Idalia pulled the shawl tighter around her. She lifted the chalice to her lips, draining it, and letting it slip through her fingers, clattering to the floor. She padded over to the door.

  “Ida?” She heard the rustle of blankets and the man in the bed drearily calling out to her as she reached the door. She slid the lock across and cracked the door open to find a guardsman on the other side. The Constable, a man with a balding crown and a lisp should have been the only one reporting to her, but he had been killed during the attack on the capital a few days prior and she did not know the new one.

  “What is it?” Idalia demanded. The floor was cold against her bare feet. Why hadn’t any stockings been laid out for her, and why was there no fire?

  The guardsman rose from his bow.

  “Your Majesty,” he said, “I’ve come—” His eyes grazed her shoulder as he looked past her into the room. “It’s—"

  “Ida,” she heard the man in the bed call drearily to her once more. She raised an impatient brow at the guard.

  “Speak.”

  The guardsman’s eyes returned to her as he licked his lips nervously. She moved to close the door.

  “Your Majesty," he said before she could, "I’ve come under order of the Constable and with sworn testimony of members of the royal household."

  Idalia blinked at him.

  “To what purpose?”

  The guardsman drew himself up, apparently finding his courage.

  “For the arrest of Lord Johannes Havener," he said, "for treason, conspiracy, and attempted murder on the life of the sovereign Empress of Aros.”