“To Ravence, of course,” Farin said. “Right into the arms of our dear queen here. They were lovers.”
Silence—sudden, claustrophobic—squeezed the room. Bormani stared at her with confusion while Risha pursed her lips, as if tasting something foul. Kysha smiled cruelly.
“I found them in my mountain, right before the attack on my southern mines. You said you don’t work with terrorists, young queen. Fine. Perhaps Samson Kytuu is not one. But Yassen Knight?” Farin tutted. “He tried to kill our friend.”
“That is not true,” Syla snapped. “Right, Elena?”
She could deny it. Throw Yassen in the mud and pretend she had never loved him, never ached for him, never cared. That she had planned to execute him as soon as he had served his purpose.
But he died trying to save her. On that mountain when she had felt lost in the storm of her grief, he had helped her find safe passage. He had stayed.
She could not ruin his memory. She would not.
I am not as ruthless as you think, Sam.
“Yassen Knight chose to repent for his crimes and seek a second chance,” she said. “He was a man of honor, even until his death.”
“Honor?!” Bormani shot up in his seat. “He snuck into my home like a thief in the night and tried to kill me. There is no honor in that. There is no honor in opening your fucking legs to a criminal,you whore!”
“Bormani!” Risha hissed.
He raised a shaking finger. “How dare you.How dare you come to us seeking help when you offer refuge to that assassin. You are not fit to sit on this council. I refuse to even be in your presence.”
“Bormani, wait—” Elena began, but he slammed his fist on the table, and she jumped.
“You are in no position to plea,” he growled.
He wrenched open the doors, scaring the guards outside, and stomped out.
Kysha rose smoothly from her seat, her silver dress skimming across the floor as she left with a smirk. Elena called to Risha, but the Tsuani queen ignored her. For a wild moment, Elena thought of calling her Agni and forcing them back in, trapping them in the room until they listened, until they saw, until—what? They agreed? They would more likely turn their armies against her and hunt her down to the far reaches of the continent.
How quickly the world could turn, in a matter of a seconds.
She rose quickly, meaning to go after Bormani, to explain, but Daz stopped her.
“Let me take Bormani,” he said. “Syla, you handle Risha.”
Syla nodded, but his face was drawn, his shoulders stiff. “I know we’ve recruited the Arohassin, but Yassen Knight? You did not tell me you were so… close.”
“He’sdead, Syla,” she said, with more anger and hurt than she intended. “In the end, Bormani had his justice.”
“Come,” Daz said to the Cyleoni king. “Let us wrangle the fools.”
As she watched them go, Elena felt a numbness spread down her arms and legs, a heavy sinking sensation. After all she had done, after all she had suffered, they still saw her asless. How easily Farin had maneuvered the conversation around her. How easily he had taken her accusing finger and turned it to blame her as the perpetrator of her own torments. And she hated herself because what if he was right? Elena remembered the people crushed at the wall, the mountain, burned alive on the ships. What had she to prove other than her own wretched wrath?
“Why don’t you sit down, Elena?” Farin said.
Slowly, she turned to find Farin still seated. Without his attendants, without his guards. The two of them, alone at last. “Perhaps it is time you and I settle this.”
Elena eyed him warily. She did not sit.
“I have a proposition for you,” he said. “A fair one where we can all win.”
“I doubt it.”
“I will remove all my armies from Ravence. I will even sign a new treaty with you, tonight, to prove my conviction. I will give you back your kingdom, as long as you stop this farce about Sesharian independence.”
“I think you’ve already proved how much you value treaties,” she sneered.
