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“It’s like watching a blind woman see for the first time,” Silas said. “What was clear to all around her now revealed in shocking clarity.”
Her skin was cold, and for the first time in her life, Zarrah felt as though she stood entirely alone, no one at her back. No one left who cared whether she lived or died, and she had no one to blame but herself.
Silas shifted, his boots thudding against the floor. “Petra leaves me with little choice but to execute you as an enemy of Maridrina.”
His words should have provoked fear, but all Zarrah felt was numb.
A knock sounded at the door, a guard stepping inside. “His Highness is here, Your Grace.”
“Good.”
Keris stepped inside, his eyes skipping between the three of them. “You summoned me, Your Grace?”
“Petra has declined to negotiate.”
Keris’s jaw tightened, but no shock filled his eyes. And Zarrah realized in that moment that he’danticipated this outcome.That he’d seen the facts and known her aunt wouldn’t sacrifice her pride to save Zarrah. Part of her wanted to scream at him,Why didn’t you tell me?
Except she knew the answer: She wouldn’t have believed him. Just as she hadn’t believed Yrina. When it came to her aunt, she’d been, as Silas had said, blind.
Silas said to him, “I told you it wouldn’t work, but you needed to see proof with your own eyes that not everything can be resolved with pretty words and negotiation. Sometimes, you have to take what you want byforce.And sometimes you need to remind your enemies of the consequences of crossing you.”
Keris’s face drained of color. “We can’t execute her. We’d be—”
“Playing into Petra’s hands.” Silas huffed out an amused breath. “Favor for Petra’s pursuit of the Endless War has been in sharp decline over recent years, especially with the rebels in the south contesting her right to the crown at all, for there are many who believe it was not she who was the chosen heir, but rather her younger sister.” He jerked his chin at Zarrah. “Her mother.”
Zarrah blinked, his words entirely unexpected. Especially since she’d never once heard anyone contest her aunt’s right to the throne. But before she could give more thought to the comment, Silas continued.
“Petra is using Zarrah’s imprisonment as a way to fuel the enmity between our nations, and executing her niece would only add fuel to the fire she’s so laboriously built.” He smiled. “I’m not in the habit of giving her what she wants, so I’m inclined to keep Zarrah alive for the time being.”
Alive.
The word should have filled her with relief, but Zarrah felt nothing. Nothing but a gaping void in her chest left by the stolen certainty of her aunt’s love. Her mother had been taken from her. Then Yrina. All she had left was—
“Zarrah will remain my guest in Vencia,” Silas said. “But you, Keris, you need to set yourself on a path to becoming a man worthy of the crown. Get your affairs in order and pack your things, then get yourself back to Nerastis.”
60
KERIS
“You need to leave,” Coralyn said, her eyes fixed on her fellow wives, who were practicing a dance they never intended to perform. “Then there is no chance of you being seen as culpable. As it is, your father grows weary with your excuses for remaining.”
She wasn’t wrong.
It had been days since his father had ordered him to depart Vencia, but Keris had been dragging his feet, coming up with reason after reason why he wasn’t ready to get on a ship to sail to Nerastis, and his father’s temper was burning hot even as Serin’s delight grew.
But Keris couldn’t leave.Wouldn’tleave.
Not with this whole rescue scheme hanging in the balance as they waited for Aren Kertell to solve the impossible problem of how to escape an inescapable palace. Not while Valcotta remained a prisoner locked in a gilded cage.
Valcotta.Unbidden, the memory of her face filled his mind, her eyes numb from the revelation that her aunt saw more value in her dead than alive. He couldn’t imagine how that felt, for while his own father bore no love for him, neither had he ever pretended to. Silas never portrayed himself as anything other than the heartless asshole that he was, whereas Petra had spent the last decade deceiving Valcotta into the certainty that she was loved, only to betray her at her most vulnerable.
Now all the hope rested on Aren Kertell’s shoulders.
Like a caged tiger, Aren tested the limits of his enclosure, never hitting the same place twice. But thus far, all his efforts had yielded was beatings from the guards.
“He’s not coming up with anything that I haven’t already thought through and dismissed,” Keris muttered under his breath. “We’ve put all our eggs in the basket of a dimwit.”
“He’s not a dimwit,” Coralyn chided, giving him a scowl. “You merely decided to dislike him at some point and refuse to see his attributes. Besides, Lara says he’ll deliver, and your sister is most definitelynota dimwit.”
