“Where?” she asked dully. “What is this?”
But the guard clipped the chain to her shackles and tugged hard. Elena stumbled forward, almost losing her balance. She moved in a daze, tripping over her feet as they went down a long white hallway as bare and empty as her cell. She heard no song. No sounds of celebration. Nothing but the rataplan of their footsteps.
Two armed guards stood at a black door at the end of the hall, and it was when she saw their bright oiled spears, their gruff, scornful looks, that Elena finally felt a delayed sort of panic. She stopped.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked. The guard yanked on the chain, but she dug in her heels—like she had done countless times when she danced—and remained rooted to her spot. “Tell me.”
But then the other guards grabbed her arms. Elena cried out as the door swung open. She twisted, kicking, cursing, as they hauled her into the dark, cavernous room. She could see nothing. Not the ceiling or the walls. Just a brooding, living darkness.
They shoved her forward, and Elena fell to her hands and knees with a yelp. The pallu of her black sari fell from her shoulders, and she could not remember when she had donned such a thing, when the lights flared.
Their brightness seared her vision, and she blinked blearily as a figure stood.
“The Kingdom of Tsuana calls this tribunal,” Queen Risha said.
Another light flared, this time to her left. Queen Kysha rose. “The Kingdom of Karven attends the tribunal.”
Another light, this time Syla. He looked wary, and afraid, his expression pinched, his eyes heavy. Daz appeared next, his face stoic, unreadable. Farin came forward, his metal voice grating through the large room, and when the last spotlight flashed, Elena turned, expecting Bormani, but his chair remained empty.
She stared at the vacant seat, dread threading up her spine.
“We call this tribunal to assess the crimes of Elena Aadya Ravence, queen of the Kingdom of Ravence, and give judgment according to the degree of her transgressions,” Risha said, her voice oddly remote.
Elena slowly raised herself to her feet. She stood in the middle of a long circular table, and she could now see the outlines of tall, grand windows, shuttered shut. Surely, she was still dreaming. She gritted her teeth, pinching the inner skin of her thumbs, but the figures did not melt or bend around her. This nightmare did not lift.
Risha continued. “Elena Aadya Ravence, you are charged with conspiring with terrorists and the murder and assassination of King Bormani of Veran. How do you plead?”
Elena blanched. “Th-this is a mistake. Syla. Daz,” she called, but they either turned away or flinched. “What has happened? Where is Bormani?”
“Obliterated to pieces because of your bombs,” Risha said, and her voice, so controlled, buckled under the strain of her anger. Or her disgust.
“Bombs? I have planted no bombs,” she said. “Risha, please. Unbind me—”
The door opened again, and Elena turned to see a Yumi hobbling through, followed by guards. Her mouth fell open in recognition.
“Rhumia?”
Though the Yumi stood tall, Elena saw pain in the dent of her brow, and then she saw the bloody stub of her ear. Rhumia refused to meet her gaze.
“Rhumia of Moksh,” Risha called out. “Tell us what you saw.”
Rhumia said nothing, her eyes flitting to Daz. The general stayed silent,his face impassive. Perhaps it was her imagination, but Elena thought she saw regret lacing his jaw. But then something seemed to pass between them, because Rhumia squared her shoulders.
“I found an Arohassin operative planting bombs throughout the palace,” Rhumia said, her voice dead. “I attempted to apprehend the assassin, but she escaped through the canals.”
She.
A slow terror beat through Elena, like the awful march of an army creeping to the battlefield.
“And were you able to identity the operative?” Risha asked.
“Her name is Jaya, a gamemaster of the Arohassin,” Rhumia said, and then, after a beat, “of Ravence.”
A guard stepped forward, holding a twisted metal scrap that Elena belatedly recognized as one of Jaya’s lotuses.
“We encountered the operative earlier, Your Majesties,” he said. His voice was strong, filled with a conviction only the righteous could conjure. “I found her coming from the direction of the Ravani queen’s chambers. When the explosions began, strange fires burned through the queen’s rooms. All from this device.
“The fire was unnatural. Quicker than anything I’ve seen. It burned half of the western wing before we could stop it. A similar fire was found in the lower second wing. It also sprouted from a similar device, though this time, the flames were blue and came from Samson Kytuu’s room.
