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A sour taste of anxiety filled Zarrah’s mouth as she watched Coralyn pace the room, the underarms of the woman’s gown darkening with sweat, her fear very real.
Keris was in danger.
Coralyn was presenting her with the chance not just to kill Silas, but to protect Keris. For if Silas was dead, he’d be king. He could put an end to Serin with an executioner’s axe. And that was just the beginning of what he might achieve, especially if the Ithicanians managed to get her out alive. Zarrah could return to Valcotta as the woman who’d killed Silas Veliant with her own hands. An honorable kill. Her aunt would have no choice but to grant her favor, keeping her as heir. And when the day came that she inherited the throne, she fully intended to be the woman who ended Valcotta’s role in the Endless War.
Squaring her shoulders, Zarrah met Coralyn’s gaze. “Tell me Ithicana’s plan.”
62
KERIS
He’d watched Lara and his other half sisters walk through the gates of the inner sanctum, and if he hadn’t known it was them, he’d have been as fooled as the guards who’d searched them.
Dressed in the gowns and scarves of the wives who’d left with Coralyn earlier that day, they’d laughed and chatted with one another as they strolled into the gardens, greeting the women and children they passed by name as they made their way into the harem’s house, where they’d remain until the moment they attacked.
No one suspected, not his father, not Serin, not any of the guards, because the harem never risked their own. But tonight, they risked everything to kill his father.
There were a thousand ways this could go wrong, for everything depended on Keris successfully manipulating the players in this vast scheme of moving parts. Depended on him tricking enemies into working with enemies, each of them with a different vision of what the events of tonight would achieve, none aware of one another’s goals.
Lara believing she’d get her husband back.
Aren believing he’d gain an ally in saving Ithicana.
The harem believing his father would breathe his last.
The mob believing they’d crown a new king.
They weren’t wrong in holding such beliefs, but what none of them realized was that Keris stood at the heart of this scheme and that every move they made was to achievehisgoal: freeing Valcotta.
It was no small amount of irony that she remained the wild card in this mad plan. Valcotta had no idea what would descend at dinner tonight, no idea the critical role she played, which meant she was walking into the line of fire completely blind. And he had no way to warn her.
Reaching her was impossible.
He knew because he’d tried. Over and over, but between Coralyn and his father’sprecautions, he’d been stymied at every turn.
“You will not attend dinner tonight,” Coralyn had ordered him. “If you’re there, the survivors will question why you didn’t fight. If you do fight, you might get yourself killed. You’ve done your part. Now let Lara do hers by killing your father. By midnight tonight, you’ll be the King of Maridrina.”
Which would mean exactly nothing to him if Valcotta didn’t get through this dinner unscathed.
She could be killed by his father’s guards.
She could be killed by Lara or his sisters.
But what terrified him most was that she’d be seated, unshackled, in a room with his father. The man who’d killed her mother. Who’d ordered the death of Yrina. The man she’d already tried to kill once.
And there wasnothingto stop her from trying again.
The plan was for him to stay out of it, to let Coralyn ensure all the pieces were in play, to trust that those pieces would do their part. But…
“Fuck the plan,” he muttered, then pulled on a coat and headed down the stairs.
63
ZARRAH
Every time she’d gone into battle, Zarrah had worn leather and steel and been armed to the teeth. But tonight, in what might be the most important battle of her life, she wore a silk gown and had only a dull nail for a weapon.
It felt like enough.
