“Reports say it was an isolated scuffle, Your Highness,” he said. “There were two protestors, and they’ve been apprehended. But if you are feeling unwell, we can return to the palace.”
“No, it—it’s all right,” Elena said as their hovercar entered a large boulevard. She could see a tall, shrouded monument up ahead.Jangir’s statue.
“These rebels grow too bold. I will see to them, Your Highness,” Jangir said, his voice cold. “They’ll regret the day they were born. I willpersonallysee that they are—”
“Jangir, enough,” Elena said. She touched her throat, willing her heartbeat to slow as her thoughts raced. In any other circumstance, she would have ordered that the men be imprisoned for attacking a royal entourage. But the hovercars were not marked to show which one held the heir, so the young man could not have known that he had hit hers. And their sign had named Jangir. But instead of feeling triumph, Elena felt only fear, like a blade within her ribs. If the young man would dare to protest against Jangir among gold caps, then it could only mean two things: that the people were growing fearless enough to openly defy her father’s men; and that if she did not do something soon, more clashes would spark through the city.
“If I turn for Palace Hill now, they’ll think I don’t care for their voices,” Elena murmured, more to herself.
“Your Highness, I assure you, I can take care of him,” Jangir said. “Enjoy the festivities.”
Elena looked at Jangir, sitting before her with hands smoothly folded, gold cap perched starchily, and she thought of Varun and his false promises, of the victims in the park, lying facedown in the sand, clothes cold and damp with their blood, of the young man screaming in defiance.
Damn you for not caring, she wanted to say, to Jangir, to Varun, to her father.
The hovercar came to a stop, and cheers erupted around them as gold caps rose in greeting, but their voices were dimmed by the sound of her blood beating in her ears. By the decision sitting dark and heavy in her pocket.
She still had the pod with the reports, had kept it with her ever since she had given Varun the deadline.
I’ve waited long enough.
She met Jangir’s gaze.
“You’re right,” she said, “I will enjoy the festivities. But my guards will bring the protestors to me. Unharmed.”
A muscle worked in Jangir’s jaw, but the door was already opening, the roar of the crowd rushing in to greet them.
He bowed his head. “It will be done, Your Highness.”
“Delightful,” she said and took the hand of the awaiting guard.
The man gripped her fingers, and Elena turned in surprise to see Yassen, who hurriedly pulled her aside as Jangir opened the opposite door.
“Yassen,” she gasped and was stopped short by the look on his face. “What’s wrong?”
He wore his palace uniform hat, but he had pulled it so far down that the rim sat right above his eyebrows, covering his hair and shielding his eyes.
“Did you tell them? Did you tell Jangir?” Yassen asked, voice thin.
“Tell them what?”
“Who I am?” Yassen hissed. “Is that why you were at the club, seeing a gold cap? To tell them that an Arohassin agent now served the Crown?”
“Yassen, I don’t—” and then she understood.Of course.Her father used his gold caps as his eyes and ears in the city. Ferma had said that the king had secretly circulated the photo of an Arohassin agent, a key operative who worked out of a stepwell, to the top-level gold caps like Jangir. Maybe he had done the same with Yassen, long before the assassin had agreed to serve them.
But even she knew her father was not foolish enough to tell the gold caps of Yassen’s new allegiance. He had killed Jangir’s brother, all those suns ago. The fanatics would storm Palace Hill and drag Yassen out themselves, kicking and screaming.
“Yassen,” she said, grasping his hands and forcing him to look her in the eye. “They will not harm you. I promise you. I didn’t go there to tell them about you. I went there to turn them against each other.”
Yassen blinked, eyebrows crinkling in confusion, when she took out the pod and held it out for only him to see.
“I am setting a timer,” she said, thumb pressing against the silver button. “In about an hour, all the contents of this pod will go out to the media. It will be the end of the gold caps.”
“Andwhatare those contents?” Yassen asked.
“Your Highness, they are waiting!” Jangir called.
“You, come here,” she said, quickly gesturing to a guard as she pocketed the pod. “Give him your visor.”
