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“And get every member of this family killed in the process?” Her voice was filled with fury. “You will do no such thing, Keris Veliant. I will not allow you to risk this family in a futile attempt to save my life.”
“What makes you think you can stop me?” He twisted away from her, bending his knees to jump and pull himself out of the pit, because he needed to prepare his lieutenants.
“Keris.” She pulled on his coat, her voice tight. “You’re right. I can’t stop you. But perhaps the truth will make you rethink sacrificing so much to save my life.”
“I doubt that.” He pried at her fingers, but froze as she said, “I know about you and the Valcottan woman. About Zarrah.”
A chill ran down his spine. “What are you talking about?”
She exhaled a pained breath. “Don’t insult me, boy. I knew from the moment you marched that woman into my rooms that there was something going on between you two. Never mind that the tension was thick enough to cut with a knife, you’ve spent your whole life running from your duties as a prince of Maridrina. Running from the politics and machinations and power plays. Yet the moment Otis captured her in Nerastis, you suddenly decide to play the game? Your idiot of a father believes that it’s becoming the heir, and your own desire to survive, that has caused this change in you, but I know you better than that.”
Denial seemed pointless, so Keris only stared at her in silence.
“If it had been only lust, I might have turned a blind eye. Except when I dressed Zarrah like a courtesan and paraded her in front of you, you didn’t look at her as someone to be bedded and discarded; you looked at her like you wanted to get down on your knees and beg for her hand! As though you loved her!”
He couldn’t help but flinch, especially as tears poured down her face.
“I knew she’d be your damnation. That if anyone discovered what was between you, your father would kill you, because what you two are doing is forbidden by both your peoples. If you were dirt-poor farmers, it would be forbidden, but you are the heirs to the most powerful families on the continent!”
His throat was thick as he said, “Do you think we aren’t aware of that? We both know there’s no future in it.”
Coralyn’s face crumpled as though some part of her had hoped she’d been wrong and he’d ripped that hope away from her. “You know it, but do you accept it, Keris? Or is there a part of you that believed if you took the crown, took power, you could force Maridrina to accept her as your consort? That believed you could force peace down the throats of two nations that have hated each other for generations? Some stubborn part of you that believed you could have it all?”
Keris’s lips parted to deny it, to scoff in disgust at such a suggestion, but the words wouldn’t come. Because hearing it made him wonder if it was true. “I wanted peace long before I met Zarrah.”
“But it wasn’t until you met her that you risked anything to achieve it.”
It was true, but not in the way she framed it. Meeting Valcotta,knowingValcotta, had changed him. Made him believe himself capable of achieving things he had never believed possible. And made him understand that anything worth achieving required sacrifice.
“Not just your own future, your own life, but the lives of everyone in this family. For if you pursue this future, you will see the Veliant name, and all those who bear it, burned to ash. I couldn’t allow that to happen, so instead, I resolved to kill Zarrah. Aided her quest for vengeance for her mother’s death and got her all the way to your father’s chambers in the tower, knowing his guards would slaughter her. Knowing that I’d kill two birds with one stone and you’d never be wiser to my involvement.”
His breath came in fast little pants, his anger rising. Not just anger, but blistering fury. Coralyn hadn’t just tried to murder Valcotta; she’d manipulated her using the wounds her mother’s murder had left behind.
“But she didn’t take her chance, choosing instead to protect you from your brother, never mind that it was your affair that set him against you in the first place.” Coralyn was shaking, the words coming out between sobs. “Not even your brother’s death was enough to turn you from her. Instead you sought to make it worse with a coup, willing to let a hateful mob into our home for the sake of freeing your goddamned whore.”
“Don’t you fucking call her that,” he hissed.
“Why not?” Coralyn spit between sobs. “The Empress will call her that and worse should she ever learn what Zarrah has done.”
“Then call me the same, for she’s done nothing that I haven’t done!”
“It’s not the same.”
“It is!” He didn’t care if the guards heard. Twisting away from her, Keris pressed his forehead against the wall of the hole, sucking in breath after breath as he fought for composure. Fought to master the grief he felt over this betrayal by the one person he’d trusted all his life.
“You convinced Zarrah to kill him tonight in exchange for the chance to escape with Aren, didn’t you? You never intended to take the fall—you intended to use her to martyr my father so that all hope of peace between our nations would be lost.”
“Yes.”
He rounded on her. “You were willing to escalate a war that would see thousands dead just to destroy any hope I might have of being with Zarrah?”
“To protect you.” She choked out the words. “And to protect the family.”
“Have you ever stopped to think that maybe this family doesn’t deserve protection?”
Before she could answer, someone shouted in the distance, “Your Highness?” When Keris didn’t respond, boot steps echoed down the corridor.
Panic flashed in his aunt’s eyes. “Climb out! They can’t see you down here!”
