When I woke, it was all at once, and I felt singingly alive. Con, his big body lax in exhausted slumber, lay curled around me, protecting me even in sleep. Bloodstains dotted the white sheets like crushed roses, the color vivid in the bright late-afternoon sunshine leaking through the cracks in the boards over the windows.
Sunshine. The storm had abated, at last heeding my wishes. That boded well for me getting a grip on Calanthe again. She still roared in the background of my mind but no longer felt entirely beyond my control. I could separate myself from Her again—a relief as visceral as being released from her grinding hunger. I still wasn’t sure how to pacify Her, or if I even could. Anure’s wizards, too, nibbled at Calanthe’s wards, searching for the orchid ring. I could feel their magic needles, poking at Her. I’d have to destroy them before they devoured me.
At least I felt finally able to face the possibility of trying.
All thanks to Con and his extraordinary actions. I studied his face, so much younger-looking in sleep. He’d come after me in Yekpehr, saved my life at least twice, declared his love for me—and shown it in so many ways. My heart wrung itself, full of so many raw emotions. As always, Con had a way of turning everything upside down. I didn’t know what to do about him.
But I did know I needed to get up and save my realm—if possible—so first things first.
Moving as silently as I could, I eased myself from his embrace, sliding out of the bed. I was so focused on not waking Con that I was standing before I thought to test my legs. They held me easily, vitality coursing through my veins. The orchid rustled in agreement, and even my twig fingers looked thicker, the vine webbing from the orchid’s band weaving through the lower part, forming a hand, the hint of a palm.
You are a creation of human flesh, the floral body of Calanthe, and an extension of the goddess. Ambrose had pinpointed a truth I’d only guessed at, perhaps half remembered. Had my father even known the origin of the infant crown princess the priestesses gave into his care? I thought not. He’d only known to protect me, to hide me from the sight of those who’d know me for what I was.
And now the wizards knew perhaps more than I knew about myself. I would have to change that. At least I no longer needed to hide.
My sleeping gown was spattered with blood—and no faithful lady-in-waiting had left a robe for me. So I put on Con’s black shirt, large enough on me to fall to my knees. When I reached the door, I discovered how we’d slept so long unbothered, and slid open the bolt. Con didn’t stir, so I eased open the door and slipped out. He’d been nearly gaunt with exhaustion, and hopefully would sleep himself out.
I padded silently on the thick carpets, seeing my beautifully appointed rooms as if for the first time. The windows out here weren’t boarded over, and flower-scented breezes wafted in filled with sunshine and birdsong, blue skies beyond. The graceful architecture, the works of art on the walls and gleaming in niches, all of it seemed new. When had I last truly looked at any of it? I would now. Pausing, I smoothed my fingertips over a marble sculpture of a bird taking flight. Drawn by a painting of a shrouded woman with a snake’s skeleton at her feet, I admired that, too.
I’d been granted a reprieve, a second chance. I’d returned to my home, my sanctuary and the refuge of so many. I would find a way to save Calanthe, and everything and everyone on Her.
When I opened the door into the outer sitting room, Vesno spotted me first, the wolfhound lifting his head from an afternoon drowse. He bounded for me, waking Sondra who’d been draped over a sofa—boots on and sword in hand, an ugly walking stick lying on the floor beside her. She was on her feet nearly as fast as the dog, lowering her sword soon after and gaping at me.
Ibolya dashed in from an adjoining chamber, most indecorously, skirts lifted high to allow herself to run. She slid to an astonished stop, then threw herself at my feet, pressing her forehead to them. I coaxed Vesno to the side—not easy, as he seemed determined to lick me everywhere—and Sondra came over to urge the wolfhound away.
I crouched down, placed my hands on Ibolya’s shoulders. She was sobbing, shaking with it. “Your Highness,” she gasped. “I—I apologize. I was so afraid.”
“But look,” I said, gathering my poise around me as if I wore my crown and full regalia, “here I am. All is well. Or will be,” I amended.
She lifted her tear-streaked face and nodded. “So many terrible things have happened, Your Highness. Do You truly think it will be right again?”
“Yes,” I told her with all the confidence she required of her queen. “I’ll see to it. But first, I need to bathe and dress, hmm?”
“Oh, blessed Ejarat, what am I thinking?” She scrambled to her feet, assisting me to rise at the same time, then curtsied. “Allow me to summon a bath for You.” She curtsied again, paused as if tempted to do so yet another time, then hurried out to take care of it.
“It was hard on her,” Sondra said, sitting again on her sofa, rubbing Vesno’s ears, “being locked out all this time. Especially after Conrí acted so crazed, waving that knife around and kicking everyone out. I did manage to talk them out of knocking the door down. You’re welcome.”
“How long has it been?”
“A little over eighteen hours. But hey, You look considerably less like a corpse now.”
“Thank you, Lady Sondra. I wish I could say the same for you,” I replied with a lift of my nose.
She snorted, surveying her bedraggled appearance. “Yeah, holding vigil and all. Maybe I’ll go have a bath now, too.” She stood and cast a glance in the direction of the bedroom. “Conrí is still alive, also?”
“Yes. Sleeping hard. I think he missed a lot of sleep.”
“No doubt. He was out of his mind worrying about You.”
She seemed to be asking a question, but I didn’t have an answer, so I nodded. “Thank you, Sondra,” I said instead, “for being there, in that place, with Me.”
“I didn’t exactly have any more choice than You did.”
“Nevertheless, I appreciated your … companionship.”
She gave me a crooked grin. “Is that what we’re calling it?”
“For lack of a better term.”
“Fair enough.” She swept a gallant bow. “It was an honor. But let’s not do it again, shall we?”
I had to laugh. “Agreed.”
“Your Highness?” Ibolya, makeup repaired and composure restored, glided in. “Your bath is ready.”
Sondra gave me a cheerful salute. “And I’m off to mine.”
“One moment,” I told Ibolya, and with a thought to Vesno, I took him to sit with Con, easing open the door to the bedchamber. Vesno, heeding my mental instructions, climbed gently onto the bed to lie next to Con, so he wouldn’t wake alone.
Finding Ibolya in my bathing chamber, I shed Con’s shirt, stepped into the steaming tub, and sank in, sighing at the bliss of hot water. It seemed so quiet, to bathe with only Ibolya there and no Morning Glory, none of my other ladies. Good thing I had no intention of donning my normal costume, as the two of us would never have been able to manage without more help.
“Does Your Highness have a preference in gowns today?” Ibolya asked, her thoughts clearly going in the same direction. “I have not yet sent for Lady Calla and the others, but I can.”
“No, don’t bother.” I rolled my neck on the edge of the tub, watching her bustle about. “I’ll be going to the temple as soon as possible.”
“You will—I mean, we will, Your Highness?”
“Yes.” To Calanthe’s center, the wellspring and the vortex of Her power and the rapidly collapsing ties that bound Her to the physical world. I sensed them keenly now, as if my time away—the brutal ripping of my roots and blood-fueled grafting of myself back into Her—had made me consciously aware of what I’d always taken for granted. Now that I knew myself as a person away from Calanthe, I recognized where I ended and She began. Though it wasn’t a clear demarcation, so perhaps grafting was the wrong analogy. An extension of the goddess. Our connection flowed in a circle, and I was both part of Calanthe and my own person.
“Yes,” I said again, recalling myself from riddles I might never fully resolve, “I must travel to the temple immediately.”
“Surely not today, Your Highness?”
“The sooner the better. I have to address the problems with Calanthe, and I can’t do it from here.”
“Will a night make that much difference, Your Highness? It will be sunset in another hour or so. And You’ve only just arisen from Your sickbed and a terrible trial. You look so much better, but … perhaps go a bit slowly?”
She had a point. “Tomorrow morning, then. Tonight I’ll show Myself to the court.” If Ibolya had been that distressed at thinking me dead, when she had better reason to hope than many, then I needed to reassure everyone. Calanthe’s thrashing wouldn’t be helped by the people’s panic.
“Conrí held court yesterday and let it be known that Your Highness had returned to the palace.”
“Ah.” That’s right—even in my near-death delirium I’d noticed his handsome clothing, wondering if he’d appeared formally. Would wonders never cease. “I’ll meet with Dearsley, too, do what I can to set things to rights. I’ll require a gown, but not underpinnings. Something unstructured—no corset or other padding. I shall go as Myself.”
“Of course, Your Highness,” Ibolya murmured. “The black wig?”
“Did you bring it from Cradysica?” I asked, startled by the thought.
“Yes, Your Highness. None of Your things were damaged.”
No, just me. Don’t think about it.
“No wig,” I declared. I intended to grow out my own hair—vines or flowers or sticks, or whatever it would be—and until then, I’d go bald proudly. If I were You, I’d just wear my crown on my bald head and let the critics go fuck themselves, Sondra had said. Unfortunately, I lacked a crown to put on my bald head, actually now quite fuzzy with soft green growth. I’d last seen the crown of Calanthe with my other jewels, tossed onto the heaps of treasure piled on the steps of Anure’s obscene throne, as if he were a dragon of old, hoarding every bit of glitter and keeping it from the world. “We’ll have to devise a crown.”
“I have ideas, Your Highness.”
“You always do.”
Ibolya seemed unsurprised when I refused the body makeup. The patterns of petals, leaves, bark, and thorns shimmered over my skin in subtle counterpoint to the dramatic crimson-black of the gown Ibolya brought out. Scarlet as fresh roses—or new blood—the pleated gauzy silk fanned over my breasts from narrow straps that otherwise left my shoulders bare. A crisscross of silver-edged strips of silk gathered the fabric over my ribs and waist asymmetrically, cupping my hips on one side.
From there, panels of bloodred, sheer black, and crimson silk swirled around my legs, parting to my hips as I walked. Gauzier scarves in the same colors floated from one shoulder, balancing the asymmetry of the gown. The fine silk floated around me like a mist of sunset fire, backed by the surcease of night. Yes, it suited my mood exactly. Perfect for someone arisen from the dead.
Ibolya did my makeup in rose and charcoal, mild and smoky. We discussed my feathery, flowery lashes and brows at some length, and finally elected to emphasize their natural colors in deeper shades of the same. We decided against false lashes, and added only a few small jewels, mostly as a nod to what my people expected to see.
“We just need jewelry and something of a crown,” Ibolya mused. “Let me—”
The door flew open, a shirtless Con glowering in the doorway, barefoot and wearing only his black leather pants, rock hammer in his hands. Vesno charged past him, far more cheerful, blazing a joyful circle around me and then setting to sniffing out every corner.
“Really, Conrí.” I lifted a brow. “Must you?”
His snarling gaze raked me, then traveled over me again. “You’re dressed.”
“Indeed. Preferable when one makes public appearances.”
He blinked at me, and I decided he wasn’t up to being teased yet. “I thought you’d sleep longer,” I said more gently. He clearly still needed it, judging by the shadows under his eyes. The dried blood flaking off his chest and the angry-looking wound at his throat didn’t help. Bruises radiated from it where I’d sucked, drawing his blood as I rode him through that astonishing interlude. Feeling my cheeks heat with an unaccustomed blush, I tore my gaze away.
He snorted, then shook his head. Dragged his fingers through his wildly mussed hair. “I woke up alone.” He sagged a little, looking around at the tub still waiting to be emptied, at Ibolya’s discreetly retreating back as she slipped out of the room.
“I left Vesno to keep you company.”
At the sound of his name, the wolfhound trotted over, nudging his head under Con’s hand and gazing at him with rapt adoration. Con ruffled the dog’s ears. “Yes. Thank you for that. When I saw you were gone, I … I overreacted.”
I held out my good hand to him. After a moment’s hesitation, he came over and threaded his fingers through mine. “I’m fine, Con.”
“It might take me a while to feel confident in that,” he confessed.
For me, too. “I’m feeling like Myself again—and there’s a great deal that needs My attention.”
He grimaced ruefully. “There is. There’s a lot of news I should probably tell you.”
“Yes, I understand you held court the other day.”
Narrowing his gaze, he assessed me. “Are you pissed about that?”
I laughed, squeezed his hand, and let go. Ibolya had set out several pairs of heels for me, and I gestured to them. “Which ones, do you think?”
“Stand up and let me see,” he answered, surprising me when I’d expected a gruff disinterest.
Bemused, I stood, then turned when he circled a finger. “No wig?” he asked.
“You said I didn’t need to?” I sighed at myself for making it a question, but it still felt odd to go without that weight, that layer of armor that provided protection and disguise. Checking myself in the mirror, I ran my good hand over the soft shoots of spring colors. “I told Ibolya not to shave it, but she still can.”
“No, don’t.” Con put his hands on my bare shoulders, standing behind me, easily looking over my head with me barefoot. He made a darkly masculine frame for my colorful and slender form. The flesh-and-blood man to my … exotic orchid self. He pressed a kiss to my scalp. “I meant it when I said you should let it grow.”
“It will be very strange,” I warned him.
“Spectacular and unique,” he corrected with a grin. Then he bent and picked up a pair of shoes. “These.”
They were not the ones I would’ve picked. Unobtrusive, with narrow straps nearly the same shade as my skin, only the stiletto heels themselves were striking, a gleaming deep crimson that looked nearly black.
“They’ll show off your gorgeous legs,” Con explained, kneeling to slip one onto my foot, “and that dress. Which is something, by the way.”
Well pleased with Con’s sincere, if gruff compliment, I stepped into the shoe, balancing myself on his broad, naked shoulders while he deftly laced the straps and buckled them, then repeated the process with the other heel. Taking a moment, he rubbed a thumb over my bare toes and glanced up at me. “Nothing to cover your toes, either?”
“No. Nor My nails. It seemed silly with this.” I flicked my twig fingers, which still moved more like a wooden doll’s than human ones. “We thought about trying a glove, but that would just look odd and not really hide anything anyway.”
Nodding, he stroked his rough hands up my calves to my thighs under the filmy skirts. “If you’re going to show yourself as you are, then do it all the way.”
“I was thinking that there’s no point in hiding My nature any longer,” I ventured.
He shook his head in grim agreement. “Hiding won’t do either of us any good.”
“What will?”
He considered me. “I think we have to be prepared to fight.” He said it with some hesitation, the knowledge that we’d argued bitterly about this before in his eyes. Along with guilt that his winning that argument had led to disaster.
“I think we have no choice,” I agreed, smiling at the ghost of surprise crossing his face. “I can acknowledge now that we never did have a choice. And no, Conrí, I’m not at all pissed that you held court. I’m grateful that you handled things when I could not. It’s a great comfort to Me to know that…” So much I couldn’t quite put into words. That I couldn’t afford to say aloud. “That I’m not alone in this.”
A crooked smile lifted one side of his mouth, and he caressed my cheek with a callused knuckle. “Not as long as I’m alive.”
Uneasy, well aware I couldn’t make a similar promise, not with the choices that lay ahead of us, I touched a finger to the wound in his throat. He didn’t flinch, exactly, but definitely twitched. “Does this pain you?”
“Nope.”
“Liar,” I said softly, then took up one wrist to examine, then the other. “These look much better.”
“The neck one got chewed on more,” he replied with an intimate rumble, the heated look in his eyes and slow smile reminding me again of that incandescent sex, unlike anything I’d imagined, much less experienced. “Lia—are you blushing?”
I resisted the urge to clap my hands to my warming cheeks. A great disadvantage of wearing only light makeup. The heavier creams would’ve hidden such a traitorous response. “Obviously not, as I never blush.”
“Obviously not,” he agreed with a widening grin and brushed his fingers over the blush, cupping my cheek. “If we’re making an appearance, I should probably get dressed, too.”
I smiled and kissed his finger, beyond glad that he planned to go with me to face the wilds of my frantic courtiers. “You could always go shirtless,” I said, sliding my palm over his impressive chest. “I went bare-breasted to our wedding ball, after all.”
“As if I could forget. I thought my brains might fall out of my skull.” He feathered his fingers down my jaw and throat, the tenderness in the gesture at odds with the fierce desire in his eyes. The fire burned hotter than ever between us, but born of something different now. Before it had flared like this when we fought. Now it seemed to come from a deeper place, something raw and needy. “Lia,” he breathed. “I—I’m so happy to have you back.” He grimaced, shaking his head. “That’s not what I mean. I wish I had better words for you.”
“It’s all right, Con,” I whispered. I knew what words he’d swallowed back. I wished that I knew how to handle the tumult of emotions he stirred in me, but I didn’t.
“Shirtless would be easier, but I think I’ll wear actual clothes,” he said, breaking the spell. “Preferable when one makes public appearances,” he added in a posh accent completely incompatible with his hoarse voice.
“I do not sound like that.”
“Sometimes you do,” he said, as if confiding a secret.
I swatted at him, and he caught my hand, laughing.
“Your Highness, Conrí, I beg Your pardon,” Ibolya said, carrying a chest into the room, quite heavy by the look of it. Con immediately stepped to relieve her of it, raising his brows as he tested the considerable weight, then eyed Ibolya’s slight frame. She smiled sunnily at him. “Your Highness, there’s something here that might work for a crown. I’ll return in a moment.”
“A crown?” Con frowned.
“Anure kept Mine,” I said as Con set the chest on the vanity under the mirror. The dress swirled and flamed around me as I walked to it, the heels making me feel tall and powerful. Most satisfying.
“I’m sorry, Lia.” Con looked stricken. “I didn’t think about your crown.”
“Why would you?” I opened the chest, which was cleverly wrought with springs, the many trays within spiraling open to display their glittering treasures.
“I could’ve gotten it for you.”
“The way I heard it, you were occupied with rescuing Sondra, retrieving My corpse, and smuggling the lot of us out of Yekpehr.”
“Agatha, too.” He raised his brows when I looked up sharply. “Maybe you don’t remember that bit.”
I frowned, thinking. Oh yes, Agatha had been on the Last Resort. “Agatha,” I said, musing over that oddity.
“She’d been a prisoner—or a servant—or both, at Yekpehr before. She volunteered to guide me, use her contacts there to locate you. I couldn’t have found you without her help.”
The memory pieces fell together into a full picture. “One of her contacts was Rhéiane.”
Con nodded, watching me carefully.
“You’re sure it’s your Rhéiane?”
“It’s not a common name, but no—how can I be sure?”
“How indeed,” I murmured, turning my gaze to the glittering jewels but not seeing them as I processed the implications. “We never saw anyone else after that initial audience. Sondra and I were always locked in our prison chamber or I was—” My heart clenched. Ah. Apparently I wasn’t so recovered as to be able to speak those words.
Con’s fingers trailed down the exposed skin of my back. “I know,” he said, more hoarse than usual. “Sondra told me.”
I nodded. Swallowed. Focused on the jewels, though they made a glittering blur.
“I can’t ignore the possibility that it’s her,” Con continued matter-of-factly, though his voice was rough. “You were the one to speculate that the Imperial Toad is holding royals hostage to maintain control of their lands. Even before Cradysica, you thought Anure might have my sister.”
More than speculated, I’d known it must be the case. The information from my spies had been too consistent for false rumor, and my intuition too certain. “You’ll be wanting to go back for her,” I said, marveling at how well I modulated my tone to sound as if we discussed plans to walk in the garden.
“I—” He cleared his throat and traced my spine with one finger. “I think I have to.”
I nodded. Of course he had to.
“You don’t have to think about it, though,” he said, still tracing my spine, up and down. “I can only imagine how difficult that is for you.” He was right. The very thought of Con going to Yekpehr brought back the stink of the burning walls, the sulfur sticking in my throat, the fetid taste of despair and metallic shiver of terror and pain. “Lia?”
“I’m fine.” I even managed to make it sound like not a lie. Blindly, through the blur of unshed tears, I picked up something pure and glittering with white light. “I plan to go to the temple tomorrow morning. When will you leave for Yekpehr?”
“Not yet. I’ll go with you to the temple.”
I glanced up at him, surprised, unbearably relieved. “You will?”
“I wouldn’t leave you to face that alone.” He hesitated. “You remember that Tertulyn is there?”
“Of course,” I replied tartly. “I’m not an imbecile.”
“No, you’re not.” His grin at my attitude faded. “You should know that we found her in the aftermath of Cradysica, on one of Anure’s ships.”
That shouldn’t sting. I’d accustomed myself to the likelihood of Tertulyn’s betrayal. And I’d clearly suffered far worse wounds in the interim, physical and emotional. Amazing that I could still feel any pain on top of the rest. “I’m surprised you didn’t kill her.”
“I wanted to,” he replied with blunt honesty. “I would have, but Calla and your other ladies begged me to spare her life. Besides, it would’ve been like putting down a rabid dog. Tertulyn is … She’s not right in the head.”
“How so?”
“Some kind of magic. Nobody knows. She can barely speak, can’t care for herself.”
“I see. I’ll handle it.” Though how? With a mental sigh, I added it to my list of problems to solve.
“Tomorrow is soon enough.” Tugging the sparkly crown from my hands, Con held it up. “This is pretty.”
It was. Formed of gold instead of silver and platinum, this crown nevertheless had a lighter look. A twelve-pointed sunburst sat at the apex, glittering with diamonds. Beneath it, a crescent curved upward, like Ejarat cradling and receiving Sawehl’s brilliant light. A star flanked either side of the crescent, all of it shining with the pure clarity of perfect diamonds. It spoke less of Calanthe than of all the world, of the land flourishing under the benevolent fire of the sun and stars.
“It is pretty,” I echoed Con with a teasing smile, “but does it go with My gown?”
He didn’t tease back, turning it in his big hands, unexpectedly grave. With an almost reverent mien, he raised it and fitted it gently onto my head, the metal cool but warming rapidly. “I’d say it goes with the woman. It’s perfect for you.”
Looking in the mirror to check the position, I found it needed no adjusting. A perfect fit, indeed, as if it had been made for me. Ibolya with her finely honed timing returned then and clasped her hands at the sight, smiling in triumph.
“Where did you find this?” I asked her.
She shrugged a little. “It must’ve arrived in a smuggled shipment at some point, Your Highness. It’s been in storage for some time, I believe.”
Ah. A treasure hidden from Anure’s looting, painstakingly transferred from hand to hand until it found refuge on Calanthe, as so many works of art—and the people who created them—had over the years. Who knew what realm it had once belonged to, whose brow it had once graced. Likely we would never know.
I took it as an omen, however, of what I needed to do.
As much as I’d tried to cling to a relatively small responsibility—the island I’d been born of and had sworn to die for—the many forgotten and orphaned lands had still cried to me in the night. I had died for Calanthe, and now I must face that I couldn’t pretend to owing a duty only to my realm. All the kingdoms suffered and slowly died under Anure’s uncaring, rapacious rule. Con and I were the only ones free to help them, so help them we would.
“So,” I said, lifting my eyes from the crown to Con’s intent gaze, “any plan we devise to rescue your sister should include rescuing all of them.”
“That … we devise? Lia, you don’t have to—”
“I want to. I can’t go with you, but you’ll let Me help you plan this one.”
He capitulated immediately, surprising me. “I would be grateful for your help. But … all of who?”
“All of the captive rulers,” I explained patiently. “Anure can’t be allowed to keep them captive any longer. This has gone on far too long already.”
He studied me, clearly bemused. “I didn’t realize we’d been allowing it.”
“We haven’t stopped it, either. It’s time we did.”
“Oh.” His mouth quirked in a half smile then went serious. “It won’t be easy.”
“No, but we can do it.”
“How do you know?”
“You told Me,” I replied with just a bit of impatience. I quoted, “Take the Tower of the Sun, Claim the hand that wears the Abiding Ring, And the empire falls. We’re two-thirds of the way there. We’re going to bring down this cursed government before it grows even more powerful, more depraved, and destructive enough to take the world down. And now I see the way to doing it.”
“You do?” He still seemed bemused, struggling to wrap his head around me not resisting him every step of the way, perhaps.
“Yes. All this time, I’ve played Anure’s game, and I paid the price.”
He winced. “Lia, I’m so—”
“That’s not what I mean,” I said, cutting off his apology. “We paid the price. Because Anure’s been a step ahead of us all along.”
“He played me at Cradysica,” Con admitted, folding his arms. “He knew exactly how to do it.”
I nodded. “But now I know how to defeat him. We’re going to use what he cares about to undermine his grip on the empire.”
Con shook his head. “That’s what makes the Imperial Toad such a difficult foe. He cares about nothing. I tried to be like that, and I couldn’t do it.” His gaze burned into me as he again swallowed back the words. That I hadn’t reciprocated, couldn’t tell him I loved him in return, lay between us, huge and invisible, with sharp edges I had to avoid, lest I carelessly cut either of us.
“That’s not true,” I said, using the deflection ruthlessly. “Anure does care about something. One thing.”
“The land,” Ibolya murmured, and I nodded at her.
“Yes. Anure cares about power, and control, and possession. It’s all he lives for.” I’d looked into his florid face and soulless, empty gaze, and known it. “He’s a man so bereft of anything meaningful in his life that he hoards everything he can grasp, trying to fill that pit inside. The land gives him some of that, so he cares about the one thing that allows him to keep it.”
Con stared at me with dawning understanding. “The captive royals.”
“Precisely. If we liberate them, then we take away Anure’s power.”
“And the empire falls,” he breathed. Then he frowned. “I hate to mention it, but what about his wizards?”
“I’m working on that,” I said with cool poise that covered the quaking fear in my heart. “Suffice to say that they must be dealt with.”
“You make it sound easy,” he commented, expression grave and not in the least fooled by my bravado.
“Not easy, no. But necessary.”
Abruptly, he grinned. “Well, you know me—I love nothing better than a potentially catastrophic plan.”
I rolled my eyes at him but couldn’t help the smile. “If we succeed, we’ll also have to restore the rulers to their lands,” I pointed out. “It won’t do the world any good if we destroy the empire and leave nothing in its place.”
“Restore the lands,” he mused with a hint of awe. “Restore Oriel.” The cautious, wary hope flickered in his face that he could perhaps reclaim the realm he’d been ripped from. A feeling I now knew well. Con hadn’t been king, so he hadn’t experienced the same level of profound loss as I had in being bereft of Calanthe, but part of him—the intuitive king in him—longed for that connection. More, I wanted that for him.
The consuming love I felt for him swelled in me, pressing to be spoken, but I pushed the words down with all the ruthlessness I’d practiced all these long, lonely years. For if the Rhéiane at Yekpehr wasn’t his sister, or, even more likely, if it was and she’d suffered too greatly, was too far gone to be recovered, then Con would have to return to Oriel and take his place there as king. Even if Rhéiane could be recovered, he would have to do that. He was Conrí, rightful king of Oriel, and everything in him would long to make that a reality.
Con couldn’t be king of both Oriel and Calanthe. If we managed to defeat Anure and free the royals, then there would be years of rebuilding. I couldn’t leave Calanthe again, and Con couldn’t stay here and let Oriel go to dust when his realm could be saved.
It was meant to be that our marriage bonds had dissolved. I could see that clearly now, also. All part of the cascade of the prophecy. The marriage had served its purpose—if it had even been needed in the first place, since Con had claimed my hand regardless—and we’d both eventually go our own ways. I loved Con with all my heart, and fiercely enough to spare him the agony of deciding between his love for me and his true destiny. If he believed I didn’t love him, he’d feel better about choosing Oriel.
That choice would be inevitable for us both. After all, kings and queens were born to sacrifice themselves for the land. The form that sacrifice took wasn’t always to bleed their lives away.
Sometimes the sacrifice required far more lasting suffering than mere death.