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I scoffed in disbelief. “I’d shut up if I were you. You tried to murder me, Pedra, it only seems fair if I try to murder you back.”
“So you were crying.” She sounded triumphant. “Is it because of Zehr?”
“Is it because of Zehr?” I asked in disbelief. As if I’d waste my tears on him, after he’d hurt Arren. “No.”
Zehr hadn’t started this mess. Long ago, my parents, Lysander and Amily, had started us down this road. I couldn’t see the end of the road yet, obscured in the mist, but I could tell we were close to the end.
Whether we’d end in destruction or not remained to be seen.
“Zehr is waking,” she said. “And Kessily said she needed you as soon as you didn’t reek.”
“Kessily seems to think she’s queen of the Scourge.” And she was welcome to it.
Pedra hesitated. “You should hurry.”
“Why?”
“Kessily was arguing with Tor.”
“Yes, well, they have a miserable eternity to work out their issues.”
“Tor is going to try to take Lord Zehr’s crown.”
The images of Zehr’s bone crown rose in my mind. It was a part of him, and I didn’t think anyone could remove it without magic.
And without death.
CHAPTER3
Honor
I wasout of the pool and dressed in the gown Pedra had bought me in seconds, the material clinging to my still damp body. The two of us hustled through the eerie, still hallways, where lanterns hung everywhere, lit with flickering magic that seemed about to burn out.
Because Zehr was dying.
And Tor would either hasten Zehr’s death…or cause his own.
“Why did you come back?” she asked me as we walked. “If you despise Zehr so much.”
“I didn’t come back for him.” The tears had made me feel better, now, even if they’d made me feel weak in the moment. I spun to face Pedra. “I came back for you. For all of you.”
For a second, she looked perplexed, then she scoffed. “You despise us.”
“It’s not your fault you are what you are,” I said. “Other people started you down this path long ago.”
And they started me down it too.
I was halfway down the hall when I realized she had stopped. Quietly, behind me, she said, “That’s worse, you know. If we aren’t responsible. If we’re just victims.”
She was probably thinking of how she’d killed her younger brother.
I didn’t know what to say to her. Things get broken, and people do too. “You can’t change what you already did. But if you hate yourself anyway, if you’re going to be angry… then choose your fight. Take responsibility for fixing this fucked-up world with me.”
“It can’t be fixed.” Her voice came out in a wounded rush.
I didn’t want to abandon our conversation, but I had to get to Zehr, and I was already at the looming wooden door. The door had been plated in gold to contrast with the black marble of the hallway. Wealth was meaningless down here in Zehr’s little kingdom of the dead.
Kessily turned to me with worried eyes, and Tor stared at me resentfully, as soon as I walked into Zehr’s cavernous bedroom. Zehr’s two old lieutenants stood on either side of him. The cages where Arren and I had slept still stood, the doors standing open now. An elaborately carved arched ceiling, the color of bone, framed Zehr’s enormous bed.
