Jilhari and Queen Ghallia left behind an absence Esmera felt like a black hole. It sucked all the joy, all the humour from the room with the inevitability of its doom.

But it wasn't an inevitable doom. There was something that could be done about it if the goddess was to be believed.

Esmera and the Lord and Prince on either side of her stared at the space before them in a silence punctuated only by soft breaths and heartbeats.

That was it. The goddess had no further instructions for them. No ideas where Esmera could start looking for a weapon in a kingdom she didn't remember anything about. No suggestions about what the weapon might be or who she could go to for help.

If the Finnaz family was as powerful as people believed they were, there had to be someone alive who knew their secrets, someone who had escaped the massacre as Esmera had. Then again, if they had been crafty enough to escape, they would've been crafty enough to hide so well that they couldn't be found, certainly not by a woman who hadn't even learnt to use her magical abilities yet.

Esmera gazed at the spot where the goddess had sat in a green halo moments before, willing her to reappear and offer some guidance, but she didn't. She had left Esmera to navigate a mission she wasn't sure she even wanted.

What did reappear was Belaren's fury.

"Great. So now we have a week to unearth the Finnazes' secret weapon and use it to defeat Ruagu, or Milatanur and presumably everyone living in it, including us, will be destroyed. Well done, Prince Tauram." From beside Esmera, Belaren presented the Prince with a sarcastic round of applause.

She wouldn't have taken him seriously in his fluffy, polka dot robe and candy-striped shower cap if it wasn't for his blazing eyes.

"Ten years after you first doomed your kingdom, you have doomed it again."

Lundas growled where he sat beside Tauram's ankles, baring his gleaming, pointed teeth. Esmera tucked her legs under her, above his sights and his vicious reach should he pounce, but Belaren paid him no heed. The Lord merely glared at Tauram across Esmera. She felt like a civilian in a war, not involved in the battle but within range of the crossfire.

Tauram's mouth hardened. "Who's to say I won't outsmart Ruagu this time?"

Belaren snorted, the last sound Esmera would've expected from a man as coolly elegant as he was. "Who's to say he won't find some other sneaky way to trip you up again?"

"He has taken everything from me. I have nothing left." Tauram lowered his gaze to his lap.

Esmera missed the infuriating, teasing museum owner, as evasive as he had been. She would've never imagined he was this sad shadow beneath it all, a man whose life was empty, meaningless. But she had seen a glimpse of him in the Himalayan exhibit when he looked at the painting of the family. She had asked him if he was also an orphan.

If he had stayed to answer, this wouldn't have been a surprise to her, but he had left to avoid her question.

She knew why he had done it. She also sidestepped questions about her past because living through the pain once was enough.

"I wouldn't say you have nothing." Belaren's eyes flicked to Esmera and away from her so quickly she thought she might've imagined it. "He still has Ghallia. Your sisters are in his palace. Do you really believe he hasn't laid one of his grimy fingers on either of them in the last ten years?"

Esmera's stomach turned. She hugged herself as if she could shield herself from the terror King Ruagu's reign had caused all through Milatanur, but she couldn't, not while this argument continued.

Tauram clenched his fists in his lap. "You have a lot of anger for someone who begged to go to Arkosara." Tauram jumped to his feet. "You didn't have to leave Milatanur with me when I was banished. I was doing you a favour by taking you with me, and now you have the gall to pretend you didn't want to escape this place."

Belaren scoffed as he rose, his robe fluttering. He and Tauram stood nose to nose. "Please. I could've escaped to Arkosara any time I wanted. I came with you because I wanted to be there for you through what I understood would be a difficult time, but maybe I should've left you alone to ruminate over how you got us into this mess in the first place. Perhaps then you wouldn't be so oblivious and so damn dense!"

Minutes into the conversation, Esmera still had no idea what it was about. "What did you do ten years ago, Tauram?" she dared to ask, still curled into herself on the couch, the way she always was when there was yelling in her house.

Old habits die hard, even when the yelling wasn't for her. She prepared herself for the fury the men fired at each other to come her way, but it didn't.

Tauram and Belaren turned to Esmera, dazed as if only remembering she was there. She looked between them, inviting either of them to answer.

Belaren's eyes glinted as he turned to the Prince. "Yes, Tauram, why don't you tell Esmera what got you banished from the kingdom you were born to rule? You owe your dearly betrothed one truth, at least."

Tauram's jaw tensed, but then he met Esmera's eyes. Something passed in the look between them. Esmera didn't know what it was, but Tauram's face softened. He let out a breath as he sank into the camel brown sofa beside her. Belaren sat too, leaning against the back of the couch even as his eyes never left the Prince.

Tauram cast his eyes downwards at his lap. Taking a deep, slow breath, he said, "Ten years ago, my parents were in a carriage accident. A mountain road crumbled away beneath them. They didn't make it."

"I'm so sorry," murmured Esmera.

She knew the pain of being alone in the world, of not having parents. Knowing them and losing them must be an unspeakable agony.

That was apparent from the way Tauram's face contorted at the memory. "I was supposed to be King," Tauram continued as if he hadn't heard Esmera. Maybe he hadn't. Maybe his distant eyes were looking out at another time, and he was deaf to the words spoken in this one.

He shook his head, sweeping his inky black hair off his forehead. "There was a legend of an evil sorcerer who had been plaguing the royal family for centuries, long before my mother's rule, trying to claim the throne for himself. He hadn't been seen in years, but there was speculation that he might've had something to do with my parents' deaths."

"Who knows? He might've." Esmera had found out that the lark who visited her was her familiar. She had discovered that her strangely acute hearing was her magical ability. She had been teleported to a secret kingdom by a goddess.

If there was one thing she had learned today, it was that nothing was impossible.

"Keep listening," said Belaren from beside her.

She pressed her lips together, sealing them closed as she leaned closer to Tauram, eager for more of the tragic story that had made him and his kingdom what they were.

"It was a hard time for me. Not only did I have a kingdom to run, but I also had care for my brother and sisters." Tauram sighed. The sound was heavy with the devastation of what came afterwards. "My best friend Ruagu was my rock, or so I thought. He was an orphan, and we were instant friends when we met as children." Tauram shook his head. "About a week after my parents died, I woke up surrounded by Yaoguai."

"Shape-shifting demons from north-east Milatanur," Belaren whispered as he nudged Esmera.

Her eyes widened. She could imagine it all, the terrifying stillness of the night, the rasping of the demons' breaths, the fearful racing of Tauram's heart.

"Ruagu had staged a coup. He may have been an orphan, but he wasn't a child when we met, just the wicked sorcerer of legend in disguise, biding his time." Tauram clasped his hands in his lap. "The palace was overtaken. My siblings were hostages in their rooms because I had let the being who wanted to destroy us most into our home." His fingers tightened around themselves as if they would break one another.

Esmera put a cautious hand on Tauram's. His fingers relaxed beneath her palm.

"But it wasn't your fault, Tauram. Ruagu earned your trust, and then he deceived you."

Behind her, Belaren snorted, but he turned it into an unconvincing cough. Esmera shot him a look.

"But it was my fault, Esmera." Tauram shook his head. "I could've fought Ruagu and his demon army off. I might've stood a chance if he didn't bargain with Ghallia's life."

"Why?" Esmera tilted her head. "Who was she to you?"

Tauram looked away. "We were engaged to be married after my coronation that never happened."

Esmera's breath caught. That was it. That was the secret behind the breathless greeting, the piece of the past expressing itself in charged glances.

But if Ghallia was originally Ruagu's captive, how did she end up married to him? Maybe the answer to that would reveal itself as Esmera listened to this tragedy unfold.

"I still remember how Ghallia looked that night on her knees in my bedroom, with Ruagu's deadly hand around her neck. I remember the moonlight illuminating her hair. I remember her fear." Tauram swallowed. "Ruagu's terms were simple. Either I fight and Ghallia dies, or I surrender and leave Milatanur, and she and my siblings live." Tauram shook his head. "I wouldn't have had time to resist him, not even to coordinate a sneak attack. One wrong move on my part, and he would've killed Ghallia on the spot."

"I'd rather be dead than married to a tyrant." Belaren's cool voice had the same sting as a snapping elastic.

Tauram gave the Lord a weary look. "I know one life is a small price to protect a kingdom, but I loved Ghallia. I couldn't condemn her, even if I knew she would eventually marry Ruagu. That they would have children." He shook his head. "I don't understand how this happened. He must've forced her into it somehow. Maybe he used someone she cared about as blackmail." There was hope in his voice, as fragile as the whispers of a crumpled Milatanuran bloom.

Esmera kept silent. She hadn't been able to see through Queen Ghallia's fear of her husband whether there was any genuine love behind it. To be fair, she wasn't sure she knew what genuine love looked like anyway. She couldn't even be sure she knew how it felt.

Belaren reached across Esmera to pat Tauram's shoulder. "The heart makes fools of us all, doesn't it?" he asked, softer now, soft as only a man who understood love could be.

Esmera had to agree. She had believed that she loved Stephan more than anyone once, and that had kept her married to him even when she no longer knew what she felt for him, when her fear had distorted her adoration into something she didn't recognise.

She couldn't begrudge Tauram his mistake. Love had gotten the better of her too.

They sat in quiet unity for a moment, three unfortunate people burned by the passion they had felt for another. Esmera had heard it in Belaren's voice. It was a feeling Esmera knew well enough to recognise it in the subtlest inflexion of a stranger's voice.

Belaren had been heartbroken too. Maybe that was why he had wanted to leave for Arkosara with Tauram all those years ago.

Esmera couldn't heal anyone's broken heart, not even her own, as much as she wished she could. She couldn't change the past or take back mistakes on others' behalf, but there was something she could do to sweeten the Prince and the Lord's grief.

She straightened in her seat, finally finding a purpose that she understood. "I know what we need. Coffee."

Tauram looked out the window at the sun setting the sky above the mountains alight. "At this time of the evening?" He raised an eyebrow.

"There's such a thing as decaf, you know." Esmera rolled her eyes. "You'll be able to get all the beauty sleep you need."

Not that he needed much, but Esmera bit her tongue before that slipped out. Tauram thought enough of himself already.

"Touché." Tauram gave Esmera that infectious grin. "Go ahead and help yourself in the kitchen."

"Don't be ridiculous." Belaren smacked the Prince on the back of his head. "You haven't lived here in over a decade. You can't eat or drink anything from the pantry if you don't want food poisoning or a mouthful of weevils. Here you go." He touched Esmera's palm with his smooth, elegant fingers, and a glass jar of decaf instant coffee appeared in her grasp.

She studied the label. Instant coffee took away the fun of brewing the coffee from scratch, but it would do.

Esmera looked back at Belaren as a realisation struck her. "You can summon things with a touch."

That was how he had pulled the fluffy robe seemingly out of nowhere earlier.

"That's my ability." He shrugged, looking smug. "It has its uses."

Esmera's imagination was already firing off. There was no limit to the drinks she could make. "I hope you don't mind if I ask you to summon caramel, sugar and hazelnut sauce."

Belaren smirked. "Should I just summon a whole coffee bar for you, then?"

"That would be nice. I work at a coffee bar." Esmera smiled. Her line of repeat customers suggested that what she whipped up was good, but she had never had the chance to taste it for herself. Now, she could.

She had no idea how much longer she'd be in Milatanur, but maybe her stay wouldn't be so bad after all.

Belaren raised his eyebrows. "You're a barista?"

"Yeah." Esmera's smile faltered as she looked between them. "Why?"

There had been a shift in the room that Esmera couldn't put her finger on, a loudness in the silence that she couldn't explain.

Belaren burst out laughing. "I've never heard anything as ridiculous as a Finnaz making coffee for a living. To go from being a noblewoman betrothed to a prince to that... have you ever heard anything as preposterous?" He nudged Tauram.

Esmera's smile slipped from her face. Her hand clenched around the tin of instant coffee as she looked for Tauram for his reply.

The Prince's lips split in a grin. "I can't say that I have."

Then Esmera saw red. Not the red of fear but fury. She heard it in the blood booming in her ears.

"Well, I'm sorry I didn't have the good fortune of growing up in the lap of privilege." Esmera jumped to her feet. "This job that you have the audacity to disrespect was the only thing keeping me off the streets."

She would've explained it all to them, that she hadn't been able to afford college or secure funding when she was younger, that all her dreams rested in a jar of coins that would have to be filled many times over before she could go to music school and get a job they'd see as respectable, but she didn't think they'd care or even try to understand.

Stephan hadn't, and he was her husband. She shouldn't have expected anything better from two strangers.

The humour left the men's faces, but they had nothing to say, it seemed.

Of course they didn't. They were two pampered brats who hadn't grown out of the cushy lives they'd left behind a decade ago. Existences like Esmera's, fraught with strife, were at best a myth to men like them and at worst a joke.

Trembling with the anger coursing through her, Esmera shoved the jar of coffee into Belaren's surprised hand. "Go make your own coffee."

The squirrel in his pocket squeaked in alarm but stayed hidden. Belaren's eyes widened as he gave Myresh a reassuring pat on the head, but Esmera spoke before he could strike her with one of his quick retorts.

"And you..." She glared at Tauram.

He stared back, still as a painting. Lundas hissed at Esmera, but he didn't scare her this time. After everything she had endured to be where she was in life now, a cheeky feline familiar was nothing to her.

"I don't care whether your kingdom lives or dies." She spun and ran from the sitting room, up the short flight of wooden stairs leading up to who knows where.

Tauram's shoes clacked against the floor as he stood and called her name, but she ignored him.

He was the last person she wanted to talk to now and forever.

Esmera couldn't see where she was going through the tears blurring her eyes, but she didn't care. She opened the first door she came upon.

It led into a bedroom with a chest of drawers and a chair against the wall and a window looking out over the mountains. The sky was a light purple blossoming into dark night.

Esmera slammed the door closed behind her, then fumbled for the key in the keyhole and locked it. The smooth white comforter was just waiting for Esmera to collapse on it. The soft, plump pillows welcomed the face she pressed into them.

There was nothing in Esmera's life but her hot tears and the sobs tearing at her chest because the pillows blocked out everything else.