AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Waiting for Keris to come to an agreement with her aunt.
Waiting for Serin to try to kill her again.
Waiting for Coralyn to present another opportunity to rid the harem of Silas.
She wanted to scream. Wanted to fight her way out. Wanted to be able to rely on her strengths instead of being forced to face her weaknesses, of which patience was her worst. Where she dominated was the battlefield, with soldiers and weapons and strategies, not in political machinations.
You played your hand,Yrina’s voice whispered in her ear.Now you must see how the other players respond.
“I can’t wait any longer,” she answered, knowing that she spoke to a ghost. That she spoke to herself. “I need out of this room. Need to fight.”
Then you’re going to lose.
A knock sounded on the door.
Zarrah twitched, rising shakily to her feet as one of the guards stepped inside. He looked her over, his mouth curling in disgust. “Make yourself presentable. The King orders you to attend him.”
“I’m a prisoner, not one of his wives,” she answered, ignoring the flutter of nerves in her chest. “How I look matters little. Take me to him now.”
The man opened his mouth to argue, then huffed out a breath and gestured for her to exit the room.
Ignoring how her trousers and blouse clung to her sweaty body, Zarrah moved into the corridor, her bare feet making no sound as she was led to the doors to the covered walkway, where two of the king’s bodyguards waited.
As did an unexpected noise.
Glancing to the walls, Zarrah frowned at the roar emanating from beyond them. It sounded to her like an angry mob. And not one that numbered in the dozens, but rather one that numbered in the hundreds. Possibly thousands. “What’s going on?”
“Not your concern,” the guard snapped. “Hands behind you.”
Zarrah allowed him to fasten manacles to her wrists, then a set to her ankles. Normally they didn’t bother restraining her until she was about to step into Silas’s chambers, and she wondered if the mob was what had provoked the extra caution. What were the people so angry about?
Chains clinking, she walked across the walkway to the tower, her eyes drifting over the gardens below, immediately fixing on Keris.
Her heart skipped, for it had been days since she’d seen his face. Days since she’d heard his voice, and she willed him to look up, needing that connection, but he was deep in conversation with Lestara, several of his younger sisters skipping around them.
“Spends so much time with women he practically is one,” the bodyguard holding her wrists said to his fellow. “Useless weakling. I can’t believe he’s lasted this long.”
It amazed her that these men, trained soldiers, didn’t see the truth. When she watched Keris move, she immediately saw the raw strength in the press of muscle against his embroidered coat. The balance and grace in every step that came from a lifetime on rooftops. The swift instincts of one who might choose not to fight but was more than capable of doing so. But it was his intelligence that made him a force to be reckoned with.
And she expected the day these men realized the danger that walked among them, it would be too late.
The guard opened the door to the tower, cool air washing over Zarrah as she started up the endless stairs. They reached the top, and the guards outside the doors to Silas’s offices searched her for weapons before allowing her inside.
“Good morning, Zarrah.” Silas sat with his boots up on the desk, a glass filled with amber liquid balanced on one knee. Serin stood next to the window behind him, face unreadable. “I have news.”
Her heart skipped, then raced.
“The Harendellians sailed into port this morning,” he said. “With your aunt’s response to my son’s proposal.”
Sweat broke out on her already-clammy palms. Her aunt hadn’t abandoned her. “Oh?”
“I’ll allow you to read it yourself.” He tossed a folded piece of familiar stationery to her side of his desk, the purple wax of the Empress’s royal seal snapped in half.
The chains on her wrists rattling, she picked it up and unfolded it, her eyes skimming over the two sentences of text. The familiar signature.
I’ll allow my niece to die a thousand deaths before negotiating with a Veliant. Do with her what you will, but be prepared for the consequences.
Petra
