Cassian read Severin's arrest order once. Then he unbuckled his sword. I stared at him.

"What are you doing?"

"Preventing twenty Royal Guards from drawing steel against twenty palace guards."

He placed the sword on the council table. The room had filled quickly

Smoke leaked from beneath the ancestral vault door. Captain Rusk swore.

"Manual lock from inside."

Cassian looked at the hinges.

"Can we breach it?"

"Not without collapsing the frame."

I stepped forward. The black metal plate beside the door bore the same

The crown was heavier than it looked. That was my first thought when the chamberlain placed it in my hands. Not impossible to carry. Just impossible to forget. Three days had passed since the ancestral vault. Severin was in secure royal custody awaiting formal trial. Corvin Ashe