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“He brought me back this trophy,” she says, a vicious smile painted on her mouth.
My mother gasps, but I can’t find the breath for that.
It’s a signet ring, an achingly familiar one. I’ve traced its ridges from my father’s lap as a child, watched the light catch it on the hand that taught me how to hold a deck of cards.
“Francis,” Madame says in a patronizing tone. “I’m going to tell you what I once told my daughter, and I sincerely hope that you will listen better than she did.”
I force my gaze up from the ring, to behold the face of the woman who had my brother killed, and now, my father.
“You are an excellent liar,” she comments lightly. “Better than most. Almost as good as my Aika.”
A choked cry escapes Maman’s throat as she tries to rise to her feet, but Madame throws out a hand to stop her. “I wouldn’t, Katriane. Not unless you want to risk the only son you have left.”
My mother stops in her tracks, unending fury in her features, but Madame has eyes only for me.
“And just as I told her,” she continues as if the interruption never happened. “That is a usefulskill to have, so long as you never again use it against me.”
Each word comes out colder than the last, her fake smile gradually giving way to a far more genuine snarl.
She leans close to me until her icy breath freezes my face, or perhaps that’s just the shock settling in.
My father is dead.
Is Aika dead, too?
As if on cue, quick as lightning, her hand is on my neck, her fingernails digging into my flesh. “Remember that I know everything that happens in this kingdom.”
Movement behind her catches in my periphery. I don’t make the mistake of looking away from her face, though.
We have underestimated her too many times to count, but she does have weaknesses. She has been so focused on me that she has missed the quiet opening of a panel in the wall.
And the silent footfalls of the woman who emerges from it.
“Not everything.” The words are barely a whisper, forced through the pressure on my throat.
Madame narrows her eyes, turning her head slowly to follow my gaze.
The room is deathly silent, enough to hear the swish of fabric as the newcomer’s hood falls back to reveal smooth brown skin and golden eyes that burn with defiance.
Madame goes slack, her hand falling from my neck, her lips parting even before the daughter she presumed to be dead opens her mouth to speak.
“Hello, Mother.”
CHAPTERSIXTY-ONE
ZAINA
Aika will not survive Remy’s death.
I know this with a certainty. If she devolved into a self-destructive arsonist mess whenIdied, losing her husband will cost her all that is left of her humanity.
It’s possible that Madame wouldn’t have killed him, but it wasn’t a chance I could take.
At the very least, she was getting ready to leave. I have to buy us time so that this entire plan wasn’t for nothing. So that we can trap her and get to Aika.
This is the only way.
Einar’s furiously measured steps behind me tell me he disagrees. He stops to stand at my side, Khijhana poised to attack on the other, and still, we are entirely unmatched for the creature before us.
