KARDIA, LAMPROS CITY, KALONICA, DROSERO
Peering out at the training yard, Kersei held the parchment that might restore control. Protect her unborn child. Her son, as Marco suggested on Iereania.
How had it come to this, she powerless and Darius the villain? Scores had he killed with his complicities in the attack on Stratios—her parents, her sisters, their friends, sergii, machitis, regia, his own father and brother. Now possibly his only remaining brother, the man she loved with every beat of her heart, Marco. Arrogance so thick blinded a man she once had been proud to know and call friend.
The cord of their union had been severed in the throne room when Darius confessed his guilt before all. Kersei ran a hand across her overlarge belly, swollen with his heir, and grieved that their child would bear such a tarnished name and legacy. Naught could be done to repair the damage. Her hand tightened around the parchment.
“You are sure of this, my lady?”
Kersei sniffed at Myles’s question, the same one posed by another on a very different day, when she had been brash, daring, and reckless in challenging the aerios who now challenged her in this solar. Gone were those days and that woman. In her place stood a woman broken. Bereft. Bitter.
Ma’ma had warned not to give soil to the root of bitterness, but those were the words of someone not betrayed. Now she was dead, and the bitter root—the one that had dug into Kersei’s heart on Iereania when Darius removed all hope of life with Marco—had been watered at the trial with the blood of her family and loved ones. Judgment that day stripped him of title and sentenced him to death, the latter stayed by a very unexpected person: Isaura.
The woman who had been delivered to Kardia a few short months past with the hearts of Kalonicans and the regia firmly in her hand. A woman who had also powerfully stolen Marco’s affection. The woman who now possessed everything Kersei had dreamed would be hers.
Kersei hated Darius. Ladies grant her mercy, but she did. Hated his foolish, feckless actions. For the toll she and their child—even Marco, now missing four months—must pay for Darius’s vain conceit.
Batting aside a tear, she swallowed against a raw throat. Glanced again at the parchment, as if doing so could infuse her with the necessary courage to see it through. It was there, in ink and parchment, her only chance to give her son a future.
“Never has it been done in the Kalonican court.” Myles’s brusque words were filled with caution.
“Aye, neither has Kalonica before seen the murder of two medoras and the slaughter of hundreds in a cowardly act of arrogance by one of its princes.”
Face grave, Myles frowned. “It is not known that our medora is dead. We must yet hope—if not for us, for our kyria and the heir.”
The heir. Marco’s heir. Carried by . . . Isaura.
Had it not been for her, the one person Kersei had thought to resent for the rest of her life, Darius would be in the cold earth with their parents, and she would be penniless and homeless. Yet Isaura, with her beguiling naïveté and wastelander strength, had shown royals and nobility alike that their haughty lives were shallow, frail, and weak. Empty.
Though grateful for the kyria’s well-intentioned transfer of Stratios Hall and its lands—a royal decree ensuring her provision of shelter and sustenance—a curious anger simmered within Kersei that her father’s legacy had been laid in the hands of the man who murdered him.
With her family’s lands conferred upon Darius, her family gone, Marco and his love attached to another . . . what was left for Kersei but the child she carried? So she must protect him in the only way she knew how. As for her . . . “I no longer remember how to hope,” she murmured to herself. “He has stolen everything from me.”
“He is much changed, my lady.”
She scoffed, pulled from the morose. “Aye, he lost his crown and coin, thereby forfeiting the ability to buy loyalty and favor. It is no wonder he has changed.”
“Baron.” Myles’s tight utterance of Darius’s new title came even as the door clicked shut.
Kersei stiffened as steps drew closer. She hastily tucked the parchment beneath her woolen wrap. With vigor, she drew up the walls around her heart and mind, the only way to shield herself. Never again would she believe his lies or smooth talk. Even as she brooded, she sensed her regia’s disapproval. But she would not—could not—cry for Darius. Plenty had been shed in the first weeks after the trial.
“Kersei.” Gone was Darius’s authoritative tone, but no longer would he beguile her. “Please, speak to me. Even if it is to say you hate me.” He touched her elbow and angled in. “I cannot endure this.”
“Good.” She turned aside to the fire, her belly a constant reminder of him. “Then you know what I feel—”
“I cannot know your feelings if you will not speak them.”
“You did not care about my feelings the night of Adara’s Delta Presentation.”
“Not true!” The wound of that accusation pricked in his blue eyes. “I saw your anger and we talked—”
“You talked!”
He hesitated, considering her. “Do you so wholly regret me? Our relationship?”
“Yes!” She whirled on him. “I regret everything about you. Knowing you. Binding with you. Letting you have your way with me. This child!”
Darius staggered, his scarred face white. Eyes as round as his gaping mouth.
Hot tears raced down her cheeks. At his clear hurt and stunned disbelief, Kersei finally heard her own words through her fog of anger. Shamed by their sting, she turned to flee and tripped on a table leg. Stumbled.
Darius caught her.
“Leave me!” She threw off his grip and stumbled again, steadying herself on the desk. She slapped the wood. Swept everything aside, sending pens, inks, and papers flying. The crash of ink bottles made her still. Palming the desk, she hung her head. Choked back a sob. Bent, she cupped a hand over her mouth. Cried.
Within her their son squirmed, likely responding to the eruption of grief and rage. A momentary flicker of alarm—what if she somehow stressed the babe and lost him?—forced her to calm. Considering the cruelty of life this last cycle, she dared not tempt the Ancient’s Hand.
Darius was at her side, arms encircling her. Though she wanted to pull away, she had neither strength nor will to fight. Long had it been since she had been held. Since she felt comfort.
“Somehow, I will make this right,” he breathed against her ear. “I swear to you.”
“You have done enough, thank you. Is your conceit so wholly intact that you would risk us more injury?” Then, she did nudge him aside, feeling the parchment close to her heart. “Leave it, Darius. It is done.”