Page 143 of A Dance of Lies

If anything should happen to me, Aemon’s first order is to kill him.

It’s Anton or Rurik. I can only have one.

My pulse speeds fast as the wind. I feel weightless, like it might toss me into the sea. I almost wish it would, because my next move is clear.

I unsheathe the katar, carefully brandishing its H-shaped hilt. I don’t know how to wield it properly.

I think of Queen Sadira, of her knife-sharp gaze, the way she’ll wish me dead for what I’m about to do in her name. In the name of Razam.

She will never forgive me. Neither will Anton.

Don’t do it, Vasalie,he would say.There’s another way.But I shoot back angrily,I have to save you!

Ihaveto save you, and this is the only way I know how.

Miridran needs a king. A good one. In this moment, that feels more important than vengeance, more dire even than the prophecy. More important than me or any feelings I might have, when after this, I’ll never deserve him. Because if anyone can stand up to the evils of this world, the men like my father and Illian, it’s Anton. So I have to buy him time—even if I damn my soul in the process.

Boot to stone, my steps are weightless and sure. I dash across a pool of moonlight as Illian’s eyes connect with mine. And when I reach the Northern King—the king I grew up reciting prayers for—I grab the back of his head.

And drag the blade across his neck.

A sickeningly wet sound bubbles from his lips. One hands flies across his throat, the other gripping the balustrade to keep himself from buckling. That’s when I see his face.

And I can’t turn away.

I will see this forever. This moment, seared in my mind like the ridges of a scar. The blood. The sapphire eye, unusually bright, and his other one, widened with shock.

Blood coats my now-sticky hands, the katar locked in my trembling grip.Watch him suffer,a voice inside me says. The voice that knows I deserve for this to haunt me until I take my last breath, and maybe after that.Watch every second of it.And I do, the breath still in my chest, the blood in my ears throbbing a vicious beat.

His knees hit the ground.

And now I am a murderer indeed.

I should die for this. There is no redemption for my soul now that I have killed him.

Ikilledhim.

A cold hollowness sinks into me. As if whatever goodness, whatever lovely thing that fought to keep a remnant of my soul pure, has now abandoned it for good.

I sense Illian’s gaze on mine, hot like the blood on my hands. Shuttering my eyes, I try to pull myself back, to feel what I know I should.

His boots come into my vision. The katar slips from my grip and clanks to the ground. I had forgotten I was still holding it.

I face Illian, and for the first time, I feel equal. We deserve each other, this king and I. He deserves my fate, and I deserve his.

Shouts echo from nearby balconies, the observers Illian knew we would have. Then from inside, too, a moment before a bevy of guards sweep onto the veranda.

“Guards!” Illian rasps in their direction, his hand fisting my cloak. “The killer is getting away!”

They race for us.

He smiles down at me.

“Thank you,” he says, soft as the whistling wind, before tipping me over the rail.

Memories of my father and Emilia assail me as I plummet into the roaring waves.

Fighting to reach the surface, I gulp down mouthfuls of water. It stings my lungs, my vision murky and black.I’m not going to make it. I don’t deserve to make it.The thought crowds my mind like the anthem of ghosts, but still I push, swinging my arms with every ounce of strength my limbs possess.