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Hard as it was, Zarrah tore her attention from Lara to glance to the shadows where the other women were cowering behind the guards, sobbing in feigned fear and begging the men to protect them.
Lara wasn’t the threat. She was the distraction.
The other dancers moved, hands flitting out to palm knives from the belts and boots of the soldiers whose eyes and weapons were trained on the Ithicanian queen.
“You lied to me. Manipulated me. Used me—not for the benefit of our people, but for your own benefit. To satisfy your own greed.” Lara’s voice filled her ears, and Zarrah felt the other woman’s fury.Knewthat fury, because it burned in her heart.
Zarrah tore her gaze from Lara and her sisters and found Coralyn wasn’t watching them. She was staring at Zarrah with such hatred that it was hard not to recoil. Not the political hate between people of enemy nations—this hatred was personal.
Zarrah’s skin turned to ice, dread filling her stomach, some sixth sense telling her why Coralyn despised her so much.
She knew.
Coralyn knew there was something between Zarrah and Keris, and she hated Zarrah for it. Hated her for pulling her precious son away from the path she intended for him.
The path to the throne.
Though Coralyn had been clear of her intentions, Zarrah only now truly understood them. Coralyn hadn’t brought Zarrah here just to ensure Silas died. She’d brought her here to kill any chance of Keris pursuing peace with Valcotta. To kill any chance of Keris pursuing Zarrah by ensuring she murdered Silas in front of the ambassadors, who were impartial witnesses.
Kill him,Coralyn mouthed.Have your vengeance.
Once, Zarrah would have leapt at that chance. Would have seen no greater honor than putting this vile man who’d caused so much harm, had causedherso much harm, in his grave. But now… now she saw how the consequences of her actions would unfold. How word would spread that the King of Maridrina had been slaughtered in his own house by a Valcottan, and Silas would cease to be a monster to his people.
He’d be a martyr.
As Silas’s heir, Keris would have no choice but to march his armies south in pursuit of blood and vengeance, for to pursue peace in the face of his father’s murder would be nothing short of suicide. And the Empress would meet him head to head, generations of hatred culminating in a war of such violence that the ground would be soaked with blood. Thousands dead. Thousands more orphaned.
And for what?
So Zarrah could have a moment of righteous delight in achieving vengeance for her mother’s murder? So that she could go back to Valcotta and be honored by the Empress who’d abandoned her? Was what she’d gain worth the horror she’d be unleashing on so many others?
It was not. Seeing it so clearly now, Zarrah questioned how she’d ever thought it could be.
There was nothing to be gained from her killing Silas tonight, not even the knowledge it would protect Keris. Because if she killed his father, it would mean condemning him to a fate he’d see as worse than death.
Zarrah refused to do that to him.
So she met Coralyn’s gaze and mouthed,No.
Panic flooded the old woman’s face even as Lara’s laugh filled the room, Keris’s sister declaring, “Do you really think that I’m such a fool as to come alone?”
The sisters cowering in the shadows moved as one, slitting the guards’ throats with shocking proficiency, gurgles filling the air even as bodies thudded to the ground. Then they dropped their veils, saying in unison, “Hello, Father.”
In that moment, Zarrah could have closed the distance between her and Silas and put that nail in his skull. Could have satisfied the need that had driven her for so many long years. But she only took a steadying breath as the room erupted into chaos.
Guests screamed and scrambled toward the door, colliding with what remained of Silas’s guards as they moved to attack his daughters. But the women only picked up the swords of their victims and met the men blow for blow, cutting them down.
“Never mindthem—gether!” Silas shouted at his guards.
The men all rushed Lara, and Zarrah kicked off her high-heeled shoes, not willing to let the woman stand alone. Picking up her chair, she swung it at one of the guards, smashing him in the head. The wood broke, and holding tight to one of the legs, she struck him again, blood splattering her dress.
Whirling, she saw Coralyn unchaining Aren, Silas’s shriek of “Kill him! Kill the Ithicanian!” filling her ears.
Follow his lead.Keris’s voice rippled through her thoughts, reminding her that Coralyn wasn’t the only one with a plan. Yet it wasn’t her dependence on Aren for escape that had Zarrah moving, it was that she refused to stand by and watch another Ithicanian die.
Guards leapt to attack, and Zarrah swung her fist, the nail that had nearly been her damnation now Aren’s salvation as the steel plunged into the guard’s ear. He dropped, and Zarrah plucked up his knife, moving on to the next.
The noblemen, seeming to sense that if they didn’t fight, they’d die, picked up fallen weapons and flanked Silas. With steel in their hands, they rallied around their king, now a force to be reckoned with. The ambassadors cowered in the corners, looking like they weren’t certain which side they were on.
