“I’m aware of her powers. I wasn’t aware she’d be a beggarly orphan.” My head whips up before I can stop it, and my eyes lock with the dark eyes of the Ash King. His upper lip is hitched in a sneer. “I am neither a beggar nor an orphan,” I say. A hard metal object strikes the side of my face, and I crumple onto the dusty pavers, pain blazing through my cheekbone. “You will not speak to the king unless directly addressed,” says the guard who hit me. “You will not use that tone with His Majesty.”
