He looked toward the dead general, his face impassive.
“You looked as if you had it all in hand.”
His voice was amused, as if he were bored. I stood up finally, praying my legs held my weight and that I didn’t faint to the floor in front of this scholar. I needed all the finesse I could muster for this one.
“He deserved it,” I said bluntly, looking pointedly at Mishah. “He was attacking her.”
“Oh?” That same faint smile, those too-bright eyes roving over me, as if I were a book and he were reading every word.
I didn’t have time to react to him, or explain, because at that moment soldiers poured through the door of the library, their strange silver helmets blocking their faces, their twisted spears pointed at me.
A shadow of hope whispered in the dark dread that had settled in my chest. This scholar was my witness—surely they might consider the possibility that the general’s death might have been self-defense.
What if this had happened in the Citadel? Would they still let you live?
No.
That was the answer I was most afraid of. If I had killed a lead excavator, I’d be dead myself. But perhaps in this land, things were different. Perhaps those taken advantage of still had some power left.
“Please, help me,” I pleaded with the scholar, and his eyes widened with surprise as they met mine. “Tell them I had no choice.”
He smiled again, and rage filled my chest at his nonchalance, at his amusement.
I was covered in the blood of the Viceroy’s general and surrounded by soldiers about to kill me, and he was laughing at me?
I wished I’d stabbedhimwith the knife.
“Didn’t you?” His head tilted.
I processed his question, shock sweeping over me. “Can you only pose confounding questions that don’t really have answers? You saw me. If I have a witness maybe the Viceroy will spare me. Maybe they’ll be mercy.”
“Perhaps.” He leaned in close to me then, so close I even smelled the cloves from his soap and saw the dark stubble dusting his cheeks. “But perhaps I might have wanted my general alive still, to win me a few more battles.”
A sound was ringing in my ears, and I thought it might have been Mishah screaming again. But it was just his words, repeating themselves over and over as bile rose in my throat and my stomach twisted.
Mygeneral.
My general.
“Arrest them.” He waved his hand in my direction. “They’ll stand trial for the murder of General Faisal.” He met my gaze then, the mirth in his dark eyes increased, his teeth bright in the torchlight of the room. “Don’t look so frightened. Perhaps you’ll be spared if awitnesscomes forward.”
The Viceroy left the room with a laugh and didn’t look behind him as the soldiers shackled me and Mishah together.
Chapter 21
I’ve gotten a job at the palace. It seems strange, working at the place where I used to live, but we’ve reached a point where we are losing too many friends. I can hear your voice in my head, telling me that hard choices have to be made. But I wish you were here, and I didn’t have to make them alone.
—Letter from Kiyan to his family, unsent
Kiyan
“Faisal’s dead.”
His blunt pronouncement was the only warning I had before whirling around and seeing the Viceroy striding toward me, anger pinching his features.
Rage gripped me, as it always did when I came face to face with Reza. When I looked into his cold eyes my desire to rip them from his head never eased.
But the words he’d just said stuck, and I waved a hand in the air, halting the Salt Guard training practice.
