“I don’t care about the pain,” Kalie lied, wishing her stomach didn’t turn at the grotesque image of Ariah and the knowledge that she could end up like that, if Carik chose not to grant her a quick death. “I just want my friends to be spared.”
Iliana gave her a feeble smile. “An admirable instinct.”
She bit her lip. She was going to die anyway. There wasn’t any harm in asking. “What about our uncle?”
“Jerran? I will neverforgive him for what he did to me,” Iliana spat, as her face darkened. “I’ll free your spy, I’ll spare Ryker and Stone and the other traitors, but our uncle will rot in the same cell he trapped me in. And when he dies, I’ll pray every day that Zagan is roasting him over a spit in hell.”
Kalie blinked away stinging tears. She’d already won far more than she’d expected from this bargain. Uncle Jerran had been lost to her since the day of the coronation, and she couldn’t haul him out of the grave he’d dug for himself.
“I pray you find forgiveness,” Kalie murmured, “so you go to Azura without regrets.”
Iliana slumped forward, resting her bony elbows on her knees. “Some things can’t be forgiven.”
The words were so soft that they barely reached Kalie, but despite the stretch of stairs spanning between them and the distance of the vaulted hall, the words rang clearly in her head. As she glanced at Selene, she clenched her teeth. Iliana was right. There were some things which could never be forgiven.
Slowly, Selene raised her head.
Their eyes met.
Theireyes. Eyes they shared.
We’re sisters, she wanted to scream.How could you?
Before she could decide whether to speak, rough hands gripped her arms, and heaviness settled on Kalie’s chest. Her time was up. She wrenched her gaze away from Selene, turned her back on the mosaic of Azura, and faced the towering doors. The legionnaires guided her down the silk carpet.
A soft gasp, impossibly loud in the silence, then— “I’m sorry.”
Kalie stopped in her tracks, blinking at the carpet. Sorry… Selene wassorry? Her nails pierced her stinging palms. She would never see her friends again. The words she needed to say to her family—to Zane—would die with her. And Selene was sorry, was she?
She glanced over her shoulder, wishing she could strike Selene dead with the force of her glare. But Selene wasn’t looking at her—with a swish of cerulean fabric, she fled through a side exit.
Despite her words about forgiveness, she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to forgive her. She didn’t have a lot of time left to decide.
Dalian guards hauled the gilded doors open, bowing their heads in a gesture of respect. Kalie’s heart leapt into her throat.
Her pulse kicked into overdrive, her eyes widened, and she gasped, “No.” She blinked, praying to Azura and the whole court of gods to change the nightmare that loomed before her.
But in the entrance to the hall, with Dalian guards flanking him and his hands bound, stood Zane.
Dali, Sector 4
Undecemmensis-22, 817 cycles A.F.C.
“What the hellare you doing here?” Kalie cried. She thrashed against the legionnaires, trying to break free and run to him, to help him, but their grips were too strong. He’d been safe on the ship, they couldn’t have seized him, unless?—
Oh, gods.
Unless he’d turned himself in.
Zane glanced at her, and his face turned ashen. Kalie’s pulse thundered. Legionnaires shoved the Dalian guards aside, seized him, and marched him into the throne room.
His expression closed off as he turned to Iliana.
They were speaking, but the words were a thick sludge, like she was hearing it all underwater. Formalities, maybe. The legionnaires tried to shove her out the door, but a muted voice rang out—Iliana’s?—and again, hesitation, uneven breaths and tightening grips, before they stopped trying to push her. It was truly a scene from her worst nightmares. Zane strode down the carpet, escortedby legionnaires, with dozens of others aiming pulsers at him. Dalians, too. Dalians who’d been on the guard with him, who’d probably cracked jokes and eaten in the lounge with him.
Zane kept walking, with his hands shackled behind his back.
Kalie’s jaw hung open. Her eyes were so wide they hurt, and the heat had drained from her body, leaving her cold and hollow. Mira had promised to stop him from doing this. But here he was anyway, ready to throw his life away in a duel he couldn’t possibly win.
