BLIND LOYALTYThe map on the table looked like a blur of ink and lines. I couldn't focus. Every time I looked at the parchment, I saw the way Esmeralda had looked at me when the guards took her. Not with anger. With a look that said I had just broken her world.

"Sire, the border reports are coming in," a captain said, his voice echoing in the stone room.

I didn't look up. "Leave them."

"But the General said—"

"I said leave them!" I snapped. The captain flinched, dropped the papers, and hurried ...