Though no natural light came into the cavern in which they slept, some recently developed instinct told him that it was dawn, and Keris opened his eyes. The lamp on the small table next to the bed burned low, illuminating the chamber, and beyond the curtain that served as a door, the rebels stirred as they prepared for the day ahead. But all that mattered to him was that Zarrah was in his arms.
Easing up onto his elbow, Keris watched her sleep, unwilling to wake her. Unwilling to sacrifice this moment.
The lamplight cast dancing shadows over her rounded cheekbones, illuminating the freckles splashed across her skin. Her long lashes moved slightly, as though she were dreaming, though the steady breath through her parted lips told him that whatever visions filled her head, they did not trouble her. His gaze drifted over her dark curls, nearly long enough to brush her shoulders now, then over the long column of her neck to her delicate collarbones. The curve of her breast, and the muscled length of her arm, her fingers loosely interlaced with his.
Why was fate so cruel as to demand he leave her?
A sudden wave of grief passed over him, the intensity so staggering it stole the breath from his lungs. Made his eyes burn so that he had to squeeze them shut. She needed him to do this. Needed him to bring her an army. Needed him to be the king of Maridrina. Yet every part of Keris wished that the only thing she needed from him was himself.
“I love you.”
Her beautiful voice filled his ears, fracturing his heart, and when he opened his eyes, it was to find her looking at him. He wanted to lose himself in her dark gaze, to fall down into the depths and forget everything else, but instead he said, “I need to secure passage north.”
The faint smile that had been on her lips fell away, and she pressed her forehead against his chest. “Why is it always this way?” Her voice was shaking, as though she were close to tears.
“Star-crossed,” he answered softly, feeling a tear drip down his cheek. He wiped it away before it fell on her shoulder.
“I wish I could travel with you,” she said. “It’s not fair that you have to do this alone.”
Keris shook his head, knowing this was her heart speaking, not her mind. Knowing that as she stepped out of his arms and into her role as empress, logic would prevail. “Petra is poised to attack your people. As the rightful empress, you need to be standing at the head of your army. They need to see you present.”
Keris felt the dampness of tears on his chest as Zarrah said, “I’m afraid. For you. For my people. For myself.” Lifting her face, she met his gaze. “Promise me that this isn’t the end.”
“I promise,” he said, because life was not possible for him without her. He’d come back to her, knowing that they’d again be pulled apart, that he’d again face this grief. Over and over he’d do it, for as long as they both lived, because even stolen moments in her presence were worth a lifetime of pain. “I will come back to you.”
She pressed her lips to his shoulder, just below the arrow wound, then moved onto her hands and knees, kissing her way down his chest, then his stomach. Though he’d been in her most of the night, his cock still hardened at her touch. Wanting more. Wanting her.
Zarrah looked up at him then, her large brown eyes framed with endless lashes, anything but innocent as she said, “I’m yours.”
He exhaled, relaxing his hold on her, though a groan tore from his lips as she closed her mouth over him. Sucked him deep, her nails trailing over his skin, his heart pounding harder with each passing second. Zarrah knew him in a way no one else ever had, ever would, and part of him would never cease to be amazed that she loved him in spite of it.
Her tongue circled his tip, and he drew in a steadying breath because he was losing control. Though perhaps he was delusional to think he ever had control when in her presence, ever at her mercy. “Zarrah…Zarrah, I’m going to—”
She lifted her face for a heartbeat, meeting his gaze, then lowered it again, and the sight of her full lips around his cock was his undoing.
The violence of his climax made him shout her name, bowing his spine, his fingers tangling in her hair as he spent himself. Falling back against the bed, Keris closed his eyes, dragging in breath after breath as she curled around him, one finger tracing over the muscles of his torso.
Marry me, he silently asked her. Be my wife, the mother of our children. His lips parted, words rising—
Only for a cough to sound outside the curtain serving as the chamber’s door. From the far side, Daria’s voice said, “One of our spies has arrived with urgent news. The Usurper has made her first move. We need you both, now.”
“Impossible,” Zarrah said. “She can’t yet know that Arakis has turned against her. Would only just have learned that I escaped the island.”
Keris didn’t answer, his skin crawling with trepidation because if Petra were merely on the march south, Daria would have said so. It was something else.
It was something worse.
They both swiftly washed and dressed, going into the tunnels and making their way to Arjun’s war room. Whispers echoed, the faces of all those they passed grim. Except it wasn’t Zarrah they looked to.
It was to him.
They reached the war room to find Arjun and Daria speaking with Miri, who must have turned around to ride back almost as soon as she’d returned to Arakis. At the sight of them, Arjun said, “Thank you for bringing us the news so swiftly. Rest before you return to the city.”
Miri nodded and departed, closing the door behind her.
“Petra has set sail,” he said. “Fifty ships filled with soldiers.”
“We have time to evacuate our people from Arakis,” Zarrah answered. “We can retreat inland and evade her forces until we’re ready.”
Keris heard her, but the words sounded distant, barely registering in his ears, because Arjun hadn’t been addressing his daughter; he’d been addressing Keris. “She didn’t sail south, did she?”
Arjun shook his head.
“She intends to take Nerastis, then?” Please let it be Nerastis, he silently pleaded. Please let this attack fall upon soldiers.
A fool’s hope, because if invasion was her intent, she’d have taken her entire army north.
“It was our spies in Nerastis who sent word,” Arjun answered. “Petra’s fleet attacked your ships there, damaging or sinking all of them. But instead of disembarking, they sailed north.”
Past the army that he’d poised to march to Zarrah’s aid, and this news would have taken days on a fast ship to reach them in Arakis.
The world around Keris swam, a roaring in his ears drowning out all other sounds. There were only a thousand soldiers in Vencia to stand against a number ten times that. A thousand soldiers to protect his family. His people. His kingdom.
Sara.
Staggering to his feet, Keris fought for balance as everything spun. “I need to get north,” he said. “I need a horse. A ship.”
Hands gripped his arms, Arjun’s eyes locking on his. “Your armies in Nerastis will know her intent and put on immediate pursuit. And Vencia itself is no easy target, especially if the seas are rough. A thousand well-trained men can defend that city; I’m sure of it.”
Keris twisted away, his head throbbing. God help him, he knew how this would go. His armies would abandon Nerastis to race to the aid of the capital, and the rest of Petra’s forces would claim Maridrina’s half of the contested city.
Falling to his knees, he gagged, bile mixed with fear and guilt rising up his throat.
“We’ll get to the coast,” Zarrah said. “Send a rider ahead to tell our people to ready our fastest ship.”
“Already done,” Arjun said. “But…”
He didn’t need to finish, because Keris had already done the math. In the days this message would have taken to reach them, Petra’s army would be nearing Vencia.
It was already over.
Zarrah’s hands were on him, her voice in his ears, but every time he blinked, he saw Vencia burning. His people dead and dying. And he hadn’t been there. Hadn’t been focused on them, because he’d allowed Keris the man to make decisions, not Keris the king.
He lifted his head to meet Zarrah’s gaze. “Perhaps it is the lot of those who rule to stand alone.”
She went very still, then gave a rapid shake of her head. “That is the Usurper speaking, and her words are poison, Keris. You can’t blame yourself for this—we were certain her eyes were on the south. Everything told us that she’d move against the rebels before turning north, and even then, we believed Nerastis her target.”
Had he been certain of that? Or did he just allow himself to be convinced because it justified his choice to remain with Zarrah? Because it justified him putting his army where she’d need it? His chest tightened to the point he could barely breathe, because he knew the answer. Knew he’d turned a blind eye to anything that might take him away from her, and his people had paid the price. “I need a horse. I need to go.”
Go and do what? the voice in his head whispered. You’re too late to make a difference. The dead won’t care if you come now, only that you weren’t there when it mattered.
He ignored the admonishment and left the room. Barely seeing anything he passed as he left the cave system and descended the ladders to where horses were tethered. He could feel Zarrah behind him, sense her hunting for words that would offer hope and coming up short. Heard her intake of breath, but before she could speak, he said, “I’m going alone.”
“No.” She closed the distance between them, though he didn’t turn around. Couldn’t bear to look at her while he went back on everything he’d ever said. While he ripped to shreds all the promises he’d made with her in his arms, because he would not be coming back.
“I’m not letting you go alone, Keris,” she said. “I’m not letting you face this without me.”
“It’s too dangerous.” He slipped the bit into his horse’s mouth, then pulled the bridle over its head. “You are Valcottan, and it was Valcottan soldiers that attacked. My people won’t care that you’re a rebel. They won’t care that you hate Petra as much as they do. All they’ll see is the enemy, and given how I’ve failed them, I won’t be able to stop them from tearing you apart.”
“I’ll be careful,” she insisted. “Wear a scarf, keep my face concealed.”
He lifted the reins over the horse’s head, then paused, drawing in a deep breath before turning back to her. “This is where she’s turning next, Zarrah. You need to prepare to fight.”
Her jaw tightened, beautiful eyes closing as his words struck home.
“What kind of ruler abandons her people on the eve of battle?” he asked. “Not for any valid reason but for the sake of her lover? For the sake of another nation?”
A ruler like him, was the answer, and he was paying the price.
The muscles of her face scrunched like she was in pain, and it was all Keris could do not to pull her into his arms. Instead he kept still, knowing that she’d see the reality of the situation.
“This is my fault,” he said. “You pushed me to walk away, to leave the past in the past and set our hearts and minds to defeating our enemy. But I wouldn’t let you go. Couldn’t let you go, and used words and actions and sentiment to convince you we could have it all because I believed I had the power to remake the world in a way where all was possible. I was wrong, and Maridrina has paid the price of my hubris tenfold.”
Her hands fisted. “You act as though I was a passive player in all this, but that’s bullshit. If I didn’t want you to be here, you wouldn’t be. But the truth is that you merely put words to desires that burned in my heart.”
“Then we are both fools,” he answered, his mouth tasting of bitterness, anger, and guilt.
Zarrah flinched, then whispered, “I don’t believe that.”
God help him, he wished she was right. But Vencia was half a continent away, and he swore he could taste the ash of its destruction. And their dream was the fuel Petra had used to set it aflame.
Dropping the reins, he cupped her face, using his thumbs to wipe away her tears. And though each word rent his heart, he said, “Some dreams are never meant to be a reality.”
She shuddered, the general, the empress, falling away to reveal the woman beneath.
His control crumbled, and he pulled her against him, blind to the rebels looking on as he tangled his fingers in her hair. “You are Empress Zarrah Anaphora, rightful ruler of Valcotta and commander of the army that will liberate it from a tyrant. You need no one, least of all me.”
Her fingers dug into his shoulders. “Tell me there is a chance, tell me there is hope, tell me that on the other side of this, we will find a way back to each other.”
He wanted to say yes. Needed to. Instead he bent his head and kissed her softly, then swung up onto his horse. “Goodbye, Imperial Majesty.”
Digging in his heels, he trotted through camp, following Arjun’s lead to the coast, where he’d board a ship to Maridrina, knowing full well that by the time he reached his homeland, he might be a king of nothing at all.
* * *
The rebel ship was built for speed, and they made no stops as they sped north, avoiding contact with any other vessels.
Keris barely ate, his stomach in ropes. Barely slept, his dreams plagued with nightmares of what he’d find when he reached Vencia.
“Nerastis, Your Grace,” the captain said as they sailed past the contested city. The man handed him a spyglass, and girding himself for the worst, Keris lifted it and turned his eye to the coast.
It was too far to see details. Yet his eyes burned as he remembered his time there, it seeming like both yesterday and a lifetime ago.
He moved his line of sight up the coast, searching for smoke, but there was nothing. Which meant the attack had happened farther north.
The coward deep in his soul crawled upward, whispering that there was no point in carrying on to Vencia. That it was better to fade into the wind than to see the consequences of his distraction.
“You will go,” he growled at the coward, not caring when the captain gave him a startled look. “You will face your failure.”
Keris shoved the spyglass into the captain’s hand, muttering, “Full sail to Vencia.”
* * *
The seas grew rough as they drew closer, the tail end of a storm in the Tempest Seas turning the waves to mountains, though the skies remained clear. Clouds would have been better, because they’d have spared him the hours of watching smoke rise into the sky as they hunted for a cove where he could be safely brought to shore.
“Let us send men with you, Your Grace,” the captain said as they rowed the longboat to shore. “After battle, the worst of men come to pillage and loot. It isn’t safe.”
Keris shook his head. “The Empress will need all the ships and men she has in the battle to come. Return to her with news of what you’ve seen. I’ll send word when I can.”
The man looked as though he might argue, then eyed the towering plumes of smoke that Petra had left in her wake and instead gave a slow nod. “Condolences, Your Grace. May you find honor in vengeance against the Usurper.”
“She’ll bleed,” Keris answered, stepping into the water. But it wasn’t until he was on the beach that he added, “Though not by my hand.”
He made his way inland until he reached the main highway that ran down the coast, following it toward the city of his birth. The sides of the road bore the signs of an exodus, broken carts and belongings discarded when it was discovered that survival was worth more than possessions.
Of life, he saw not a single soul, only flocks of ravens soaring in the direction of the jewel of Maridrina.
He saw the first corpse as the blackened and broken walls of the city came into sight. A woman, long dead, an arrow in her back and eye sockets empty, a morsel in the feast of carrion Petra had left behind.
The gates to the city still stood, but the wall to the left and right was crumpled, the massive stones from the catapults sitting like sentries in the ruins.
A gust of wind hit him, and Keris gagged on the stench of rotting flesh that rolled over him, bits of ash falling from the sky.
Because Vencia still burned.
As he climbed the ruined wall, Keris stopped in his tracks to look down the hill toward the sea, the white city he both loved and loathed now a ruin of blackened and smoldering rubble, the shattered tower of his father’s palace poking up from the ashes like a broken spear.
Keris’s knees buckled and he dropped to a crouch, knuckles pressed against blood-smeared stone as he took in the broken harbor chain, dozens of burned-out merchant ships listing on the waves. The wharves were gone, markets burned, buildings collapsed into the streets, and above it all, crows circled, bellies fat on Maridrinian flesh.
This is your fault.
He forced himself back to his feet, then his feet to carry him into the streets, picking his way toward his family’s home. “Please let them have gotten out,” he muttered, visions of his elderly aunts and his youngest siblings filling his mind’s eye. But Sara most of all, for she could not run. “Please let Sarhina have gotten you out.”
An empty hope, given that his family would’ve been Petra’s primary target, her desire to burn his bloodline from the face of the earth stripping her of mercy.
If she had any at all.
His eyes skipped over the still forms, not as many as had filled his dreams, but somehow worse than anything his imagination had conjured. Men. Women. Children. Eyes gone, bodies bloated, skin rotten.
You were supposed to protect them! the voice screamed. For all his faults, at least your father did that much!
Icy sweat dribbling down his back, Keris stopped in front of the palace, his home, staring at the gaping opening where the silvered gate had once been, now twisted and stained with soot on the broken cobbles. It struck him then that this had been what he’d set upon Ithicana. Only the arrival of Lara and a storm had spared Eranahl from this fate.
Is this my punishment? he silently wondered as he stepped into the ruins, eyes skipping to the bodies of dead guards, to bloodstains, to a chest of silk dresses spilled across the courtyard. Have I finally reaped what I sowed?
The buildings had mostly collapsed, forcing him to climb the rubble to reach the inner sanctum, and then down into the gardens.
They’d been crushed by the collapse of the top half of the tower. The spread of rocks looked like the remains of a fallen giant, and across the ruins, a message was painted in blood.
Death to all Veliants.
Like a breaking dam, panic flooded his veins, chasing away the numbness of shock, and Keris threw himself at the harem’s house, pulling away rocks. Digging. Hunting for the family he’d forsaken.
“Sara!” Sharp edges split open his hands, bruised his fingers, but still he dug, screaming the names of his aunts, of his siblings, needing to find them. Needing to tell them how sorry he was.
“Keris?”
He froze at the sound of the voice, hand finding the hilt of his sword before recognition struck him. “Sarhina?”
His half sister stood alone on the remains of a building. Her black hair was pulled back in a long tail, body encased in the leather and steel armor favored by his people. Her face was drawn with exhaustion, eyes marked with dark circles, but she was alive.
“The family isn’t here,” she said, and Keris clenched his teeth as he waited to hear that they’d all been taken.
“They are in the mountains,” she said. “Along with the rest of the civilians who chose to evacuate.”
Evacuate.
The meaning of the word refused to register, and he stared at her, unable to speak.
“Regardless of what the Ithicanian intelligence said about a pending invasion,” Sarhina said, “I still knew it was a mistake to deplete the city guard. But no one would listen, given that the order was written in your cursed hand, so the soldiers marched south.”
Ithicanian intelligence? He blinked in confusion, unable to comprehend why Aren would abuse his trust by forging such an order. Unless something had happened to their ship? Unless it hadn’t been Aren at all, but rather Ahnna, in some form of retaliation? God help him, she had reason enough to do it.
“We learned of Petra’s plans to attack Vencia just before her fleet was spotted coming up the coast,” Sarhina said. “Too late to call back our soldiers, but we were able to evacuate the people into the mountains.”
“Sara?” It was a struggle to get her name out, but she, above anyone else, was his concern.
“She’s in our military camp outside the city. As is Lestara.” Sarhina’s voice soured slightly on the woman’s name, but even if it had not, Keris’s hackles would still have risen.
“Unfortunately, not everyone would abandon their homes to evacuate.” She looked away. “We tried to fight back but were forced into retreat. Petra’s army burned the city, wrote their messages, then got back on their ships.”
“The territory she wants is Nerastis,” he said. “She likely intended to use the attack on Vencia to lure our army back north, then take the city.”
“That’s what I thought as well, which is why I sent riders south with orders for them to hold their ground. If Petra attacks there, she’s in for a fight that won’t be easily won.”
Keris scrubbed his hands back through his hair, trying to think, but his mind was a mess. “If that was her intent, I should’ve seen her fleet on my way north. Even if they realized the gambit to lure our army out of Nerastis hadn’t worked, they should still have been in proximity. But there was no sign of them.” Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to work out the timeline, but he felt ten steps behind.
Zarrah’s prepared, he told himself. The rebels won’t be caught unaware.
It did nothing to calm the trepidation rising in his chest. All this time, he, and everyone else, had believed Petra’s goal was victory in the Endless War, defeating him, and annexing some or all of Maridrina. Had believed that the rebels were an obstacle she intended to remove first before setting her eyes north on her ancient enemy. It was logical. Strategic.
But wasn’t what she’d done.
Instead she’d come north and attacked Vencia with no intention of keeping it. But why? Why kick the hornet’s nest by delivering a non-fatal blow to Maridrina, only to turn her back on it to go after the rebels, who were, by the numbers, a much smaller threat?
“What was the point of this?” he muttered, sitting on a broken piece of wall and staring at the ground. “What did she hope to accomplish?”
“To undermine you.”
Keris lifted his head to meet Sarhina’s gaze.
“The economic toll this will take on Maridrina might be a consideration in her mind,” Sarhina said, “but the most certain consequence of attack is that the people will blame you for leaving the city undefended.”
“I didn’t write that order.”
“But everyone thinks you did,” she snapped. “This was your scheme, and I don’t know what you did to piss Ithicana off so badly that they’d do this, but I can’t see why else it was done. Perhaps Petra made a deal with them. Perhaps she threatened them. Who knows.” Her mouth twisted. “But what I do know is that this attack wasn’t strategic; it was personal.”
Dread pooled in Keris’s stomach as all the pieces fell into place. Petra’s eyes were no longer on winning the war—they were on winning Zarrah. Killing him wouldn’t suffice; Petra needed Zarrah to choose her over him. Needed Zarrah to love her over him. Needed Zarrah to worship her as she had before that fateful night in Nerastis when Zarrah’s path had crossed with his and changed them both forever. And Petra believed that the only way to accomplish that was for Keris to fail Zarrah, for Zarrah to perceive that he’d abandoned her when she needed him most.
“She is truly mad,” he breathed, horror turning his hands to ice. The cost of lives and gold was beyond measure. All played like pieces on a board, with the end goal of turning Zarrah against him, because in her twisted mind, Petra believed that was all it would take to make Zarrah love her again.
“Mad or not, she accomplished at least part of her goal,” Sarhina answered. “You have to let this go, Keris. Let Zarrah fight her own battles. Countless of your people have lost everything because you abandoned them in pursuit of her. You left them vulnerable to the guile of others because you care more about her than you do your own kingdom. Our people believe you left them entirely undefended, and to prove otherwise requires you to admit that you weren’t in Ithicana. That you authorized the Ithicanians to forge instructions on your behalf. That you were in the south, freeing your Valcottan lover. That this attack against Vencia was instigated by your illicit affair. That every bit of this is your fault.”
All true. It was all true.
“You may not have written the order for the city guard to abandon Vencia,” Sarhina said. “But the five thousand men of the Royal Army in Nerastis are there on your order. As are the three thousand lurking on the edge of the Red Desert. And it does not take a military genius to know that you didn’t send them there to protect our border. You sent them there because you want to give Zarrah the army she needs to overthrow the Empress.”
Keris said nothing. There was nothing to say, for all her accusations were true.
“Once our people learn the truth, all you can hope for is a quick death.” Sarhina looked away. “Better that you run. Falsify your own death and return to your lover’s side. Allow someone who will put Maridrina first to lead the kingdom.”
Sarhina was right.
Keris turned to stare out over the harbor, the weight of defeat dragging him down as a vision of the future played out in his mind. With no allies, Petra would destroy the rebels, either killing or imprisoning Zarrah. But it would not stop there. She’d once again turn her eyes north, and with victory fresh, would attack Nerastis. Would annex Maridrina bit by bit as she expanded the Empire, eventually reaching her claws out to Ithicana, screaming for revenge for the murder of her son.
In trying to end the war, all he’d managed to do was ensure a future more violent and bloody than the past. Maybe it was better that he disappeared, for Maridrina was better off without him.
Petra had won.
“Did Royce survive his injuries?” he asked, still staring at the fog that concealed Ithicana.
“Yes,” Sarhina answered, her voice filled with disgust. “Lestara has ensured he be given the most excellent of care, and in exchange, he has ensured that every person in the kingdom knows that she’s responsible for their survival.”
Keris’s nerves jangled at the mention of the Cardiffian princess’s name. “Pardon?”
“She learned of Petra’s pending attack via her father’s spies. Without her warning, we’d never have been able to evacuate the city, so now the civilians fall to their knees when she passes, calling her the Savior of the People.”
“Just how,” Keris asked softly, “did the King of Cardiff, who is on the far side of the Tempest Seas, know of Petra’s plans to sack Vencia?”
“As one who looks every gift horse in the mouth, I have wondered the very same thing,” Sarhina answered.
Surely Lestara would not stoop so low… Yet on the heels of the thought, he remembered how Zarrah had asked whether he’d taken up with Lestara, a question fueled by a supposed spy report Petra had received. At the time, he’d believed it a fabrication created by Petra to undermine him in Zarrah’s eyes. But what if it was more than that? What if it had not been a fabrication, but a plot intended to achieve mutually desired ends: Lestara on Maridrina’s throne and Keris forever vanquished from Zarrah’s heart? “I assume you investigated her source?”
“She provided the spy’s report.”
Wheels began turning in his head, a thousand little pieces of information falling into place to form a damning picture. “Where is she?”
“We have a camp outside the city. The tent she shares with Sara is there.” Sarhina cleared her throat. “She’s kept our little sister very close.”
His stomach tightened. “I need inside that tent.”
“What you need to do is run before anyone realizes you’re here and starts to cast blame.”
Keris rose to his feet, meeting her glare. “No.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
She led him back over the rubble to where a group of Maridrinian soldiers waited on their horses, their eyes widening in shock at the sight of him. “Say nothing of His Grace’s presence,” she ordered them, and though he could see the blame in the men’s eyes, they obeyed. Testament to their loyalty to Sarhina.
One of the soldiers sacrificed his mount to Keris, and then the group made its way through the city. On the eastern half, soldiers worked to gather bodies, loading them into carts to transport out the eastern gates.
To where the mass graves had been dug.
At the sight, Keris leaned over the side of his horse and vomited. Sarhina said nothing, only handed him a waterskin and then led the group onward to the tents in the distance. He pulled his hood up before they reached them, not wanting to be recognized.
Away from the city, the stink of ash and rot was absent, but not the marks of war. Injured soldiers rested on rows of cots, bodies bandaged, many missing limbs. Babies cried, and children, many of them likely orphaned, sat staring with blank eyes as they rode past.
A slow burn of fury filled Keris’s chest that this had been done to them, no small part of it directed at himself.
Sarhina dismounted near a tent. “Is Lestara inside?” she asked the guard standing out front, but the man shook his head.
“Just the young princess. The lady Lestara is checking on the welfare of Prince Royce.”
“Something she does with regularity, despite his wounds being well healed,” Sarhina muttered. “You go. I’ll keep watch.”
Keris entered the tent, his eyes immediately going to his little sister, who sat reading on one of the narrow cots.
Sara’s eyes widened at the sight of him. “Keris! You came back! I knew she was a liar!”
He held a finger up to his lips, then crossed the room to sit on the cot next to her. “Are you all right?”
His little sister nodded. “It’s been awful.” Her eyes welled up with tears. “The Valcottans destroyed Vencia. The palace is ruined, everyone forced to live in tents or outside. And many died in the attack.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here to keep you safe,” he said, wishing there was time to comfort her, but he needed answers. “Has Lestara given you anything to keep for her? Papers? A locked box?” His heart sank when she shook her head. “Has she given you anything?”
“Clothes and shoes.” Her eyes brightened. “And a book about stars.”
Keris’s stomach dropped. Even before Sara reached down to retrieve the book hidden in the folds of the blanket, he knew what volume it was.
With icy fingers, he took the familiar small book from her hand, a tremor running through him as he opened it to flip through the pages of constellations and the stories the Cardiffians believed that they told. The book she’d all but begged him to return despite having had it in her possession this entire time.
But how?
Keris wracked his mind for when he’d last seen it. Zarrah had been holding it when she’d leapt across the spillway. It had been in her hand when he’d fumbled the lock to the room in the inn. And inside, she’d set it on the table.
Where it had been abandoned.
Unbidden, Serin’s voice filled his head. I thought the whore in Nerastis would yield something, but all she could tell me was that you wouldn’t touch her and that you’d disappear into the night, returning hours later smelling of lilac. She believed you were visiting a lover, and an innkeeper swore a man of your description rented one of his rooms in the company of a Valcottan woman.
The very innkeeper who would have found the book when the room had been cleaned for the next customer, later to be given as proof to Serin. Who had subsequently given it to Lestara, sowing seeds that would see to Keris’s destruction even after the Magpie was in his grave.
“Keris, are you all right?”
“No.” His throat moved as he swallowed hard, his fingers tracing over the inside of the cover, which was bulkier than he remembered. Pulling a knife from his boot, Keris cut open the stitching and extracted a piece of paper with Serin’s spidery writing.
Lady Lestara,
I wish to return to you this book, which you once gifted to His Grace as a token of great sentiment. I regret to inform you that he abandoned the tome in a Nerastis inn, where it was subsequently discovered by the owner. I was told that he had spent the night with a young Valcottan woman, though her identity has yet to be proven. His disrespect of your gift is not surprising, for it is in his nature, but I hope having it back in your care is some comfort to you.
Serin
Keris stared at the letter. Why hadn’t Serin revealed Zarrah’s identity?
Understanding flowed over him, along with renewed appreciation for the Magpie’s cleverness. Lestara wouldn’t have trusted anything that came from Serin’s lips, but the letter would have been enough to spur her to investigate herself. And the conclusions she’d come to had clearly been damning.
Setting down the book, Keris shifted to look at Sara, who was staring at him with wide eyes. “You ruined my book.”
His only regret was that Zarrah hadn’t thrown this book into the waters of the Nerastis spillway along with his coat. “When I came in, you said something about someone being a liar. Who were you speaking of?”
“Lestara.”
“What did she lie about?”
Panic filled her gaze, and Sara looked away, shaking her head. “Not long after you left for Ithicana, Lestara told me you weren’t coming back. That you’d told her you were tired of taking care of all of us, especially…” She swallowed hard. “Me.”
His hands fisted, mind readily supplying a vision of Lestara manipulating Sara’s greatest fear.
“I told her she was wrong. That you’d gone to Ithicana to see Aren and Lara to negotiate, but that you’d be back once that was completed. She said, if that were the case, why hadn’t you brought me with you?” Sara chewed on her bottom lip.
“You know why,” he said. “Because we were going to sail south to rescue Zarrah, which would be very dangerous.”
Silence stretched, and Keris fought the urge to drag the details out of her. Except this was his fault. He’d burdened his little sister with the truth and then left her in the clutches of Lestara, a grown woman raised on deception and intrigue.
“She told me that you were angry that I’d returned to the palace. That you’d deliberately left me at Greenbriar because I was too much of a burden, and that you regretted not allowing Royce to take me.” Her chin quivered. “She was dreadfully upset, because you’d apparently said you loved her and wanted to marry her, but you’d run away because of me. She said that it was my fault she wouldn’t be queen. That’s when I knew she was lying, because Zarrah is the one you love.”
“Did you tell her that?” he asked, already certain of the answer.
Sara wiped her nose on her sleeve, then nodded. “She called me a liar. Said that you’d never tell me your plans because I’m only a child. That I was making up stories to feel important. She made me so mad, so I told her that Lara and Aren were going to help you rescue Zarrah, and that you were going to marry her. That Zarrah would be queen and that you’d send Lestara back to Cardiff.”
Keris squeezed his eyes shut, imagining how well Lestara would have taken that statement.
“She left me alone after that, and has been kind ever since.”
Because the Princess of Cardiff had gotten what she wanted. “You’re right, Sara. Lestara is a liar, and it’s time she and I had a little chat.”
Rising to his feet, Keris left the tent, finding Sarhina still waiting. Their half sister Athena was with them. “Do you have the supposed order I wrote sending the city guard south? And the Cardiffian spy report Lestara supplied?”
Sarhina’s brow furrowed. “Locked in my tent. Why?”
“I’d like to see them.”
At Sarhina’s nod, Athena departed into the camp.
“While we wait, where might I find Royce’s tent?”
“What are you planning?” Sarhina said as she led him through the camp. “What did Sara say?”
Keris didn’t answer, his eyes locking on a tent with a purple flag above it. A guard stood before the entrance, and beyond, the squeals and grunts of enthusiastic sexual pursuits emanated. “You might want to wait a few minutes, Your Highness,” the guard said to Sarhina. “They’re—”
“I think not,” Keris said, pushing back his hood. The guard’s eyes bulged. “Your Grace. I… They…”
Keris walked around him, pushing aside the tent flap and stepping inside.
To be greeted with the sight of Lestara on her hands and knees, Royce fucking her from behind. Lestara was gasping Royce’s name as though it were the best sex of her life, but the bored expression on her face spoke volumes. As did the shock that grew in her eyes as they latched on Keris.
“Your Grace!” she squeaked, scrambling away from Royce and pulling a blanket around her body, leaving his brother naked and gaping at him.
“Keris.”
“In the flesh.” Keris crossed his arms, giving Royce’s rapidly deflating cock a pointed look. “Speaking of which, you may wish to cover yours up.”
His younger brother hastily pulled on a pair of trousers. Lestara had taken the opportunity to put on her dress, her long blond hair covering her face as she fastened her sandals. “We didn’t know you were back,” she said, and Keris could tell it was taking all her effort to meet his gaze. “Or we would have prepared. I…” She glanced at Royce. “We… You said you were not interested in me, so I hope you won’t take offense to me—”
“Fucking the next in line to the throne?” He gave her a smile that was all teeth. “Come with me. We have a great deal to catch up on. You as well, brother.”
Offering Lestara his arm, he escorted her out of the tent, Royce following at their heels. There were perhaps two dozen civilians in proximity, mostly women. Their heads turned, a commotion rising as he was recognized, and Keris called out, “You’ll all be wanting an explanation for why Vencia was left undefended, why Petra was able to raze it so easily. I have answers, if you care to listen.”
“Are you mad?” Lestara demanded, eyes wide. “They blame you, Keris. You’re going to get yourself killed.”
A wild laugh tore from his lips, and he looked back over his shoulder at the women who followed, fury in their eyes. “You have every right to be angry. Every right to demand answers for why this was allowed to happen. But if you stab me in the back, the truth of who betrayed us all dies with me.”
Eyes narrowed, but behind the rage, he saw curiosity bloom. A few women splintered away from the rest, racing into the camp, and he heard shouts. “The King is here! He says there is a traitor! He’s going to give a speech!”
The crowd behind them grew.
“Keris, this is insanity.” Lestara kept glancing over her shoulder to the mob of women, some holding the hands of their children, others carrying babies, all with anger in their eyes. All wanting answers for why their homes had been allowed to burn. “Let us take a carriage, at least.”
“I find myself relishing a walk,” he answered, then placed his free hand on the arm linked with his, tightening his grip as Athena approached, papers in her hands. She gave him a nod of confirmation, then fell in with Sarhina, who walked silently next to Royce.
Lestara’s breath caught, the sound betraying her unease. “Where are we going?”
“There’s something I’d like to show you.”
Her steps grew halting as they walked down the road to Vencia, the stench of smoke and rot growing stronger as the city came into view. But before they reached the gate where traitors’ heads were typically spiked, Keris cut inland to where the mass graves were being filled by the unfortunate dead.
The mob kept growing, the tread of their feet a thunder of judgement, but as Keris stopped in front of the largest hole and held up a hand, they fell silent.
“Why are we here, Your Grace?” Lestara demanded, looking anywhere but at the bodies. “There are flies everywhere. Flies spread disease.”
“Because I want you to look at their faces.”
“No.”
“Why?” he said loud enough for the nearest women to hear. “Does looking at the corpses of your victims make you uncomfortable?”
Lestara’s whole body stiffened; then she jerked away from him. “What are you talking about? I was the one who brought warning to Vencia about the attack. That they chose not to listen doesn’t make their deaths my fault.”
“It’s true,” a woman shouted. “It’s because of Lestara that all of us yet live! She is the Savior of Maridrina, whereas you are its curse!”
“It was by your order that we were left undefended!” another woman shouted. “They are your victims!”
Keris held out a hand to Athena, and she handed him two documents. One was on heavy paper and bore a wax seal, the other on cheap scrap. One glance at them confirmed everything that he’d come to believe, but it was the one with the seal that he held up. “This order?”
In his looping, familiar script, the letter claimed that Ithicanian intelligence had learned of Petra’s plans to attack the coast south of Vencia and that the city guard needed to travel with haste to bolster the patrols. A single letter that had been the damnation of an entire city, and had thus become his own damnation. It was a fair forgery in both style and content, but there was a fatal flaw.
“Did you know,” he said, letting go of Lestara’s arm to face Royce, “that each signet ring gifted to a Maridrinian prince upon his coming of age is made of the melted-down gold of those of his ancestors?”
“This hardly seems the time to share scraps of your useless knowledge,” his brother hissed, eyeing the mob. “You’re going to get us all killed.”
Keris smiled at him, feeling strangely calm despite being as close to death as he’d ever been. “Did you know each of them is slightly different?”
His brother blinked at him, then down at the gold signet ring on his hand. Much like the one currently in Ahnna’s possession, it was a circle with a V at the center, a pattern of indentations in the gold around the perimeter of the circle. “They are?”
“Yes, one of the benefits of hiding in a library is that I learn things,” Keris said. “The pattern of the indentations is a code that represents your birthdate and time, rendering each ring unique.” He lifted the order, which bore a red wax seal beneath his signature. “This seal was not made with my ring. This is a forgery.”
Before the crowd could react, Athena kicked Royce in the back of the knees, then was on him in a flash, pulling off his ring. “It wasn’t me,” Royce shrieked. “I swear it, Keris! I’ve done nothing!”
Keris ignored his brother, holding up the ring to compare it to the wax impression. It was a perfect match. He handed both to Sarhina, who nodded in confirmation. “This was the ring that sealed the forged letter ordering the city guard out of Vencia,” she shouted. “Not the ring of your king! We have been betrayed!”
The mob of women stirred, the rising tension rendering the air unbreathable, a single word echoing through the masses. Traitor.
Lestara had a hand pressed to her mouth. “I didn’t know,” she said. “I knew he hated you, but not in my darkest nightmares did I believe he’d betray Maridrina.”
“She’s lying,” Royce shrieked. “I am loyal! Please!”
The mob was pressing toward them, the women without weapons bending to pick up rocks, expressions feral.
“My God, Keris,” Lestara cried out. “Why didn’t you execute him when you had the chance? You might have saved us all!”
If he hadn’t been so angry, Keris might have admired her perseverance.
“Executing my idiot brother would not have spared us,” Keris shouted above the noise of the crowd, “because it would not have stopped you from conspiring with Petra Anaphora in a twisted plot to make yourself queen!”
His words rippled over the mob, shocked silence following in their wake.
“Lies!” Lestara snarled. “Desperate lies! While you were gone, I watched over Vencia. I am the Savior of the People.”
“Tell that to the dead,” he said, and when she refused to look at the corpses, he caught her by the hair and forced her to her knees. “Look at them. Look at the people who died because their lives were worth less than your desire to be queen.”
“I didn’t do anything!” Lestara said between her teeth. “I’m innocent!”
Keris laughed, knowing he sounded like his father and not caring. “There is nothing innocent about you, Lestara. But if you confess, perhaps I’ll show mercy.” Then he shoved her.
Lestara toppled forward, falling to land on her knees on the pile of bodies. She screamed in horror as her hands sank into rotting flesh, the pile shifting and moving beneath her weight.
“Confess your treason and I’ll let you out,” he said, watching as she crawled to the sides of the pit and tried to climb out. But the women in the mob surrounding them had been the ones with the shovels, and they’d dug deep.
“I’m innocent! Please, Keris. Please, you know I’m loyal,” she howled. “You know I love you.”
Keris glanced down at his brother, who was on the ground beneath Athena’s booted foot. “Ah, yes. How better to show your love than to conspire with my enemies and then jump into bed with my brother.”
“I’ve conspired with no one.” Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she looked to the mob. “He said he didn’t want me. Broke my heart and left me alone. What would you have done?”
“I doubt any of them would have picked up a pen to conspire with Petra Anaphora.” Keris rocked on his heels, his calmness gone, rage having taken its place. “But that’s what you did. When I refused to make you queen, you tormented my little sister until she gave you my plans; then you sent the information to Petra. Forged a letter with orders that would leave Vencia ripe for the taking.” Bending down, he met her gaze. “Petra got what she wanted, but given that I still live and breathe, it appears you did not.”
“That’s not true! Why would I conspire to destroy Vencia and then provide warning that the Valcottans intended to attack?”
“So that you would be named Savior of the People?” Keris brushed dust off one of his sleeves, then gave Royce a long look. “Thereby making yourself a valuable ally to the man next in line to the throne just in case your bedroom skills weren’t incentive enough.”
Royce paled. “Lestara, is this true?”
“It’s not true! He’s lying because he needs a scapegoat!”
Their conversation was repeated back through the mob, the same accusations and denials over and over, but Keris kept his eyes on his brother. “Didn’t you question why one of our father’s wives just happened to receive critical intelligence about Petra’s changed battle plan just in time to evacuate?”
“She said her father has spies. That they give her information.”
“You really believe that Cardiff’s spies discovered information that ours failed to learn?”
Royce appeared ready to be sick in the dirt. “Sarhina has the spy report. She can show it to you.”
Keris regarded the second document Athena had given him. It was written in the language used in northern Cardiff, so he could only read some of it, but in truth, the language didn’t matter.
The handwriting did.
“Petra wrote this herself,” he said, handing it to Sarhina. “I’ve seen her writing before, though there are others who can confirm if you choose not to believe me.”
“A forgery!” Lestara shouted.
“Why would one of your father’s spies forge Petra’s writing in a report to you?”
Lestara didn’t speak, but it was far from silent. The mob was in the thousands, perhaps in the tens of thousands, the camps full of the survivors having emptied to come hear the explanation of why their home was ash and rubble.
And they were angry.
“You’re a traitor, Lestara.” And Petra had wanted Keris to know how she’d gotten to him. Had wanted him to know that it was his choices and missteps that had allowed her to strike this blow. “All those dead beneath your feet are your victims, but so are the living.” He gestured at the crowd, which was full of furious faces, marriage knives that had never known an edge until now drawn from their sheaths, the steel glittering. “Perhaps I should allow them revenge.”
All the color drained from Lestara’s face, but she shouted, “I have done nothing. I am loyal to Maridrina!”
“Enough, Lestara. Confess the truth, and I’ll consider mercy. Continue this farce, and I’ll listen to your confession as your victims pull you to pieces.”
Picking up a shovel, he scooped up dirt from the pile and tossed it at her face. As he did, Keris was suddenly struck with a memory of Raina. Of how she’d told him that there was honor in shoveling cow shit in the bridge because it demonstrated loyalty and a willingness to do what it took. It felt like a lifetime ago that he’d laughed at the idea, yet now he wondered, if he filled enough graves, if he might earn back the trust of his people. He tossed another shovel full of dirt at her, clumps sticking in her long hair. “Confess, Lestara.”
The crowd was seething, screaming for blood, demanding their vengeance. “Keris,” Sarhina muttered, “we won’t be able to stop them.”
His heart was hammering in his chest, pulse roaring, because he didn’t want to stop them. Didn’t want to deny them a chance at revenge. “Confess!” he shouted, throwing another shovel full of dirt in her face.
Lestara’s amber eyes met his, and the manipulative, power-hungry viper who’d been told at age seven that she was destined to be queen finally revealed itself. “Fine,” she hissed. “I’ll confess what I know, Keris. I’ll tell them exactly how their king has betrayed them.”
He could silence her. Could allow the tide of violence to flow over Lestara before she had the chance to speak the damning truth and allow her death to absolve him of wrongdoing in the eyes of his people.
It was the smart move. The strategic choice.
It was also what his father would have done.
Rounding on the mob, he lifted his hand and shouted, “Listen!”
And his heart skipped in his chest as they fell still, heeding him as their king for the first, and probably the last, time ever.
“The only thing I confess to is trying to rid Maridrina of a traitor,” Lestara shouted, voice rising out of the pit as she moved to stand at the center. “Of trying to rid Maridrina of its king.”
The mob didn’t attack, though Keris didn’t know if it was on the weight of his command or their desire to hear what Lestara had to say.
“The reason your king has cast aside his good Maridrinian harem is that he’s in love with a Valcottan. And not just any Valcottan. The Empress’s niece, Zarrah Anaphora.”
And there it was.
Out in the open in a way that could never be undone, and though Keris knew the revelation might be the death of him, it felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.
“Before your king threw him to his death, the spymaster Serin sent me a message, which I came to understand was his attempt to protect Maridrina from the traitor who’d taken the throne,” she shouted. “Serin’s message told me that your king, Keris Veliant, took up with a Valcottan woman during his time in Nerastis. Not just once, but night after night, because he was in love with her.”
I knew she’d be your damnation, Coralyn’s voice echoed through his thoughts. What you two are doing is forbidden by both your peoples.
Lestara gave a slow shake of her head. “I didn’t want to believe Keris would stoop so low. Refused to believe it, even though Serin offered me proof.” She turned to address him. “But when you, who treats his precious tomes like children, could not bring yourself to recall where you’d left my book, I knew Serin spoke true. You abandoned my book, which I’d given to you with love in my heart, in a tawdry inn where you coupled with the enemy.”
She lifted her chin, expression full of defiance as she panned the crowd like a queen delivering justice from her throne. Keris held his breath and waited for the judgement that had been held over him for so long. Waited for them to turn their weapons on him. Waited for them to hurl stones for violating an unwritten law that ruled every Maridrinian.
Silence.
“Do you hear me?” Lestara shouted. “Your king is in love with a Valcottan! He hasn’t been in Ithicana; he’s been in the south, rescuing Zarrah from Devil’s Island. He plans to make a Valcottan your queen! The sacking of Vencia was Petra’s retaliation for his audacity!”
Her accusation carried over the heads of the crowd, but no one spoke, though tension hummed through the air as everyone waited to see how he would respond. It occurred to Keris, as he listened to the moan of the wind and the shuffle of feet, how exhausting they must all find it to be endlessly at the mercy of those in power. To have their lives torn apart as the result of a petty feud between members of a single family, and to now listen as it was all dragged before them like dirty laundry. He could not change what had been done.
But he could tell them why.
Keris cleared his throat, knowing that his life was very much on the line at this moment, and he’d be lying to say that fear didn’t thrum through his veins. But it had always needed to come to this. The truth had always needed to be revealed, else the dream of peace that he and Zarrah had nurtured between them would never come to pass. “It’s true. Zarrah Anaphora holds my heart, as I hold hers, and together, we hoped to end the war between our nations. Hoped to bring peace and prosperity to our people. Petra knew our intent, and sacked Vencia because she knew that a union between Zarrah and me was the death knell for the Endless War.”
Every muscle in his body tensed as Keris braced for the outburst, but instead, the only sound was his words being repeated back to those in the rear.
“What’s wrong with you?” Lestara screamed. “Seize him! Kill him! All of this is his fault!”
One of the women watching picked up a handful of mud and chucked it at Lestara. “Shut your gob. He might have shit in Petra’s porridge, but it’s clear enough that you were the one who opened our back door for her to fling her own mud.” Then the woman looked directly at him. “Ain’t never thought I’d see the day when a Veliant claimed to want to end the war. War’s all your family ever wants, strutting about like peacocks while our men bleed and die. We’ve been wanting an end to it since it began, but Veliants care only for their pride.”
“You’ve seen the day,” Keris answered. “I want the war to end. Though if I’ve learned anything, it is that wanting something will not make it so.” Squaring his shoulders, Keris raised his voice so that it would carry out over the crowd. “One must fight for it.”
Knowing that he was close to losing them, he shouted, “Petra Anaphora is not the lawful ruler of Valcotta. On his deathbed, Emperor Ephraim voiced his desire for Valcotta to know peace and named his younger daughter, Aryana, heir to his throne because he knew that under Petra’s rule, the fires of war would only burn hotter. Instead of acceding to his wishes, Petra usurped the throne…” Zarrah’s story poured from his lips, the crowd watching with rapt eyes as he unveiled the truth.
“It is true that I was not in Ithicana negotiating terms of trade,” he continued. “But it was Ithicana who aided me in sailing south to rescue Zarrah, allowing us to join the rebels who have fought so tirelessly against Petra’s rule. Zarrah commands them now, with the intent of challenging Petra for the crown, but they cannot hope to defeat her alone.”
Sweat ran in rivulets down his spine as he paused, because this was the moment. This was when he needed to ask Maridrina to fight for the very people who’d just destroyed their homes, whose blades had been the death of those in the grave before them. “You.” He pointed at the woman who’d spoken. “You claim that Maridrinians have long wanted this war to end. Have wanted the fighting to cease. Have wanted peace, but my family wouldn’t allow it. That it continues only because of Veliant pride. Do others share that belief?”
Nods and shouts of agreement rolled across the crowd, a rising tide of vitriol against his warmongering family.
“What if I told you that Valcottans feel the same way?”
The crowd fell silent.
“Like you, they wish for the end of the war, but under Petra’s rule, they are forced to fight. Forced to send their young people to join the Imperial Army’s ranks, many of them never seen alive again. And while she wears Valcotta’s crown, Petra will never allow the war to end. It is her pride, her identity, her legacy, and to seek peace is beyond comprehension to her. Valcotta is at the mercy of a tyrant, but so is Maridrina. If Petra will not allow her empire to stop warring against us, we are forced to fight back, forced to send the youth to the border to fight and fight and fight. And no matter how much I might wish to do otherwise, I’ll be forced into the role of my father, and grandfather, and great-grandfather, for like you, I will have no other choice!”
His mouth was dry, throat hoarse, but it was worth it, because he could see that the women were listening.
“Maridrina did not liberate itself from my father,” he shouted. “Ithicana fought that battle for us. Their queen, my sister, defeated him, and in doing so, offered me the opportunity to change this kingdom for the better. And my greatest error has been underestimating the villainy of those like Petra who see the Endless War as a way to maintain their power, even if it means standing on the backs of countless dead. She will not be defeated with passivity, will only grow stronger if our complacency leaves her free to destroy those who rally against her. So I ask you, will you stand not just with me, but with Valcottans, and lift arms to bring Petra Anaphora’s tyranny to an end? Will you fight for peace?”
“You’ll let us fight?” the woman at the front of the crowd asked. “You’ll allow women to defend our families?”
“You have always fought,” he answered. “Always defended them. It would be an honor to have you in my ranks as we cross the border to put an end to this war for good.”
She stared at him, this woman he’d never met, never seen, whose name he might never know, and Keris’s heart felt like it was in his throat. Then she gave a nod. “All right, then. If you say that Petra is the one to blame for this”—she gestured at the smoking ruins of the city—“then I’ll gladly march for her blood. Though what about her?” She jerked her chin at Lestara, who was still standing, pale-faced, in the grave.
Keris considered his father’s wife, who was a traitor to the nation and who deserved to be executed. But he was trying to take Maridrina down a different path, which meant trying something different than heads on a spike. “Death seems a paltry punishment for what you’ve done, Lestara, for I don’t think you fear it. I think you fear irrelevance. I think you fear powerlessness. I think you fear failing to secure the destiny that a witch whispered in your ear as a child. And there is one place I can think of where you will face all three of your fears day after day after day.”
All the color drained from Lestara’s face.
“The Harendellians revile your people, Lestara, but none more than Queen Alexandra herself. So I think I’ll ask a favor of my friends in the north and request they take you into their care, where you will be fed and clothed like a lady but looked upon as one does shit discovered on the sole of one’s shoe.”
“No!” Lestara dropped to her knees, tears flooding down her cheeks. “Please, Keris. Just kill me. I’d rather die than go there!”
“Which is why it is the perfect punishment.”
Lestara screamed and screamed, but her shrieks were drowned out by the sea of voices, all declaring that they’d march. That they’d fight.
That they’d bring Petra Anaphora to her knees.
“Ithicana stands with you as well,” a familiar voice said from behind him. “We will join this alliance against tyranny.”
Keris turned, his chest tightening as he found Aren standing behind him, Lara at his side.
Farther down the slope from them stood Dax and Jor at the head of hundreds of armed Ithicanians. As Keris’s eyes moved over them, the winds gusted, clearing fog out over the water and revealing dozens upon dozens of ships. Fishing boats and merchant vessels and naval vessels that Ithicana had collected over the years, few of which would be good in a fight but all of which were capable of carrying an army south.
Turning back to his people, Keris said, “Let us to war. And by God, let’s make it the last war fought in our lifetime!”