“You handled Ranen well.” The first queen's voice comes to me before I see her. When she appears, her face is bright with a smile. “I disliked him from the start.”
“You and me both.”
“How did you handle him so well? How did you handle all your attackers?” she asks.
I shrug. “Some people are just good at things.”
“Hmm.” She stares into my eyes, and I don't look away. “You should have him put to death,” she says.
“Do you think so?” The thought makes my hands quiver. It’s against the way I was raised to leave someone like him alive. Unless it was Daros. He was never to be harmed.
She moves closer but doesn't reach out to touch me. “I know this is hard for you. I can't pretend to understand why, but you need to do this. He will come back to haunt you if you don't.”
He will if I do, too. “He's well tucked away in the dungeons.”
“For now. But will he stay that way?”
“I'll put extra guards on him.” I'll do anything not to have to give a death sentence.
“Why do you fight so hard against it? Ranen is an evil man.”
My throat feels tight, though I'm not awake. “Maybe. Doesn't putting a death sentence on him make me equally evil?”
“Sometimes you have to get rid of an evil man so he doesn't bring an entire nation down.”
“Do you think he’d do that?” I know he's bad, but is he that bad?
“I know he would.”
“How do you know?”
“Because of past evidence. Ranen has been around for two different queens before you. I know you don't want to hear it, but he manipulated them both.”
“But he's imprisoned now. We're safe from him.”
“If that is your choice, you should stand by it.”
“It is.”
He’d better not make me regret it.