The world swam around her, familiar voices filling her ears, and Zarrah shook her head to clear it.
“We got you, girl,” Daria said, and fingers pulled the filthy gag from her mouth. “Once we’re out of harm’s way, we’ll get those ropes off you.”
Harm’s way.
Keris.
He’d come for her.
And Daria had betrayed him.
Panic and fury flooded her veins, and Zarrah twisted, falling to her knees. “You bitch,” she hissed at Daria. “You gave him to them. You killed him.”
“Keris gave himself up,” a familiar voice said, and then the ropes around her wrists loosened. “The Empress will want him as a prisoner, and he has a plan to get free.”
Zarrah whirled to face Aren, shock to find him there mixing with her rising panic. “It’s not the Empress who made the deal with Kian; it’s Bermin. He’s been plotting behind the Empress’s back. The second he has Keris in his sights, he’s going to kill him.”
“He won’t risk crossing Petra,” Aren said. “He’ll take him prisoner, which gives us time to get him back.”
Zarrah gave a wild shake of her head. “The last thing Bermin said before he imprisoned me was that he planned to kill Keris. He swore it to me on his honor.”
Unease filled Aren’s hazel eyes. “But the navy… Bermin couldn’t have ordered all those ships here without Petra agreeing to it.”
“Because she did!” Zarrah pulled a spear from Saam’s grip. “She sent me here as bait for the rebels and their commander.” There wasn’t time to explain this. There wasn’t time to explain her aunt’s madness to them when Keris was walking toward death. “Bermin set a trap within a trap, and on my honor, he plans to kill him. We need to go. We need to get him back. We need to fight!”
“Fuck.” Aren spun away from her, gripping the sides of his head as he kicked a rock, sending it spinning. “Goddamn it, Keris!”
“Gather everyone.” Zarrah caught hold of Daria’s arm, pulling the woman close. “We’ll attack Kian from the rear. But we need to move now!”
Daria didn’t move.
Zarrah spun in a circle, realizing that everyone was looking anywhere but at her. They weren’t going to help her. “Aren…”
“I don’t want to leave him,” the King of Ithicana said. “But this isn’t a fight we can win. Even if we defeat Kian’s men, Bermin has the island’s entire garrison with him.” Aren let out a shaky breath. “Keris knew the risks, Zarrah. Knew that there was every chance he’d be killed, but he chose to do it anyway. Not just for you, but for everyone here. Don’t let his sacrifice be in vain.”
A scream of rage tore from her lips, and Zarrah dropped to her knees, slamming her fists on the ground.
“Zarrah, listen.” Daria knelt in front of her. “Bermin has nearly emptied the guard towers and brought the soldiers to the cliff facing the beach. This is our chance to get across the channel. Keris has bought a chance for all of us to be freed.”
At the cost of his life.
“You told me it was over between you two.” There was desperation in Daria’s eyes. “That he wouldn’t let you be who you needed to be.”
Daria spoke the truth, yet faced with his death, Zarrah saw now that her claims had been fueled by her aunt’s poisonous words.
“How is he worth risking the chance for you to liberate all of Valcotta from tyranny? He’s given us a chance at peace—don’t throw it away!”
“Peace is a dance,” Zarrah said. “It only works when both nations dance to the same music, and without Keris, Maridrina will keep dancing to the drums of war. He needs to live!”
Daria took a step back, shaking her head, and Zarrah saw that freedom was worth too much to her to take the risk. That the Endless War was a distant threat to be dealt with another day, not something to guide her hand.
That Daria was afraid.
Yet it was Aren who broke the silence. “You would defy your Empress?”
Zarrah stared at him in confusion as he surveyed the rebels with disdain. “You claim to fight in Zarrah’s name as the rightful Empress of Valcotta, but she has called you to arms, and you turn your backs?” He scoffed. “Seems to me you fight only for yourselves, and in Ithicana, we have a word for that. It isn’t honor.”
Rightful Empress?
Then Aren’s eyes fixed on hers. “To rule is to lead, Imperial Majesty. Don’t let your first and last act be to lead them to certain death.”
She had no time to question why Aren had referred to her as such, not with Keris’s life on the line. Answers would be had after they got out of this alive.
Zarrah swallowed, panic warring with a lifetime of military training. Daria and Aren were right. To attack Kian from the rear would only be delaying Keris’s death, not sparing him.
Turning in a slow circle, she let her mind drift, taking in all the variables and considering her enemy, whom she knew better than anyone here. Then she faced her army. “This,” she said, “is what we are going to do.”