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Then louder still, him shouting, “You will treat her or, for the love of God, I’ll have you hanged in the square for murder!”
“But she’s Valcottan!”
“And I am the Crown Prince of Maridrina.” Through the waves of pain she heard the faint edge of panic in his voice, and it twisted at her heart. “You will do what I say!”
And then nothing.
Zarrah woketo the sound of a rooster crowing, the breeze blowing over her smelling like horse shit and hay. Blinking, she tried to sit up.
Only to find herself tied to the bed on which she lay.
“I’m sorry.” His voice was hoarse. “It was the only way they’d agree to leave me alone with you.”
He rose to his feet, retrieving a cup of water and sliding a hand beneath her head to lift it so that she could drink. “Do you feel better?”
Her head still ached, but the nausea and dizziness and fog were mostly gone. “Yes.”
“It wasn’t the blow to your head.” He set the cup down, then pulled back the bandage, revealing the slice she’d taken during her capture. It looked as though it had been cut open again and all the dead flesh removed before it was restitched. It was going to leave a significant scar. “There was poison on the blade of the weapon that gave you this. Nightbloom.”
Poisons were not her forte, but even she had heard of nightbloom. It hailed from Amarid and was very expensive. Slow to act and always fatal, unless properly treated.
“Who cut you?” he asked. “Whose weapon gave you that injury?”
“I think you know.”
“Otis.” His jaw tightened. “He knew you were dying and said nothing.”
It was possible that the other prince wasn’t aware that he’d cut her that night in battle on the beach. It had been dark, and everything had happened so quickly. But her gut told her otherwise.
Keris breathed out a slow breath, then sat back on the chair, elbows resting on his knees. The sleeves of his shirt were pushed up to reveal his forearms, muscles flexing as he regarded her. In the faint light, she couldn’t make out the color of his eyes, and with his hair pulled back as it was, he again appeared the anonymous Maridrinian she’d made love to. But then her gaze jumped to where his coat was draped over another chair, the brilliant blue fabric barely visible beneath all the gold embroidery, and he once again was the Veliant prince. “What is your intent?”
“Same as it has always been,” he answered. “To help you to escape. And while you were recovering, I think I discovered a way out of this mess.”
Zarrah’s stomach flipped, but she kept her expression neutral. “Why would you take such a risk?”
“I—” He broke off, giving his head a sharp shake. “I care about you, Valcotta. More than you seem to realize.” His face twisted with grief. “Because of my name, because of who my father is, everyone I care about ends up dead. I refuse to allow your face to join their ranks. My dreams are haunted enough as it is.”
He’d said it was real. The moments in the carriage before she’d passed out were blurred with fever and pain, but she remembered that. And with that memory came all the others. Of him pressing a knife into her hand, of him allowing her to hold it to his throat. Logic told her that it was madness to believe a Veliant prince would work against his father, would betray his nation, and yet instinct told her that was exactly what Keris was doing.
“Who did he kill?” she found herself asking, knowing it was her heart and not her head that wanted the answer.
His jaw tightened, then he sighed. “The Fifteen Year Treaty between Maridrina, Harendell, and Ithicana was signed when I was just a boy. Not long after, my father’s soldiers took all of his daughters of a certain age from the harem, giving no explanation for where they were being taken. Or for what purpose. All the women accepted it, except for my mother. She tried to go after my sister to get her back, but she was caught. My father strangled her to death in front of me and the rest of the harem to make a point to us of what happened to those who crossed him. Had his men hold me down when I tried to help her. And then he left her body in the middle of the harem garden for weeks so we’d all have to watch her rot.” His voice caught. “I still wake up in terror with that smell in my nose.”
Zarrah’s breath caught, horror filling her chest because she knew that smell. Knew what it was like to watch a mother’s flesh blacken and foul. To watch the flies swarm and the buzzards circle overhead.
“Fifteen years later, my sister Lara reemerged from the Red Desert and was sent to Ithicana. And given what she did to that kingdom, I think it fair to say that my father killed the sweet little girl I knew and brought to life a creature made in his image. A monster. A queen who leaves the corpses of her enemies in her wake.”
Zarrah shivered, something about the story sending unease through her chest.
“I know you have no reason to trust me, Valcotta. But at least take some comfort that I hate my father every bit as much as you do.”
She shouldn’t believe him. Shouldn’t trust him. And yet in this, every one of her instincts told her that he was telling her the truth.
Rising to his feet, Keris shocked her by unfastening her bindings. As she sat, he handed her a knife. “Beneath the window is a barn,” he said. “Climb across it and you should be able to jump over the pigpen to the neighboring building, then drop down into the alley. After that, escape is whichever way you choose.”
He was letting her go. And not just letting her go but giving her a route for escape.
“Hit me on the back of the head hard enough to knock me out,” he said. “That way, if worse comes to worst and you’re recaptured, I’ll still be alive to try to help you.”
