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Razak’s pace bounced with glee. He left my side and hurried forward.
A guard shoved me in the back, jolting me into motion.
Years ago, I’d walked this same track, climbed the same hill. Umair, the King of Pain, had been beside me then, his thin fingers locked around my upper arm like a steel armlet.
Who was this? Who was Razak about to hang? I had nobody left who mattered. No one he could reach.
Sloshy mud sucked on my boots. Rain pattered against my umbrella. The woman wore a blue, hooded gown.
Noemi?
Oh no… He knew… I stumbled forward, but as the woman lifted her head, she wasn’t Noemi. Her skin was dark and weathered with age. Razak drew to a stop in front of her, and tilting his umbrella, he spoke at the woman. “As promised, here is the man you demanded to meet. The man so important to you that he will cost you your life.”
She blinked, lifted her chin. Old, wise eyes narrowed on me.
Razak watched her, admired her even, as though studying what would surely be her final moments. “You were adamant you must speak with Zayan, yet now you are silent.”
I clutched my umbrella’s handle tighter. Noemi had promised to tell Justice Ines everything. But instead of taking that information back to the Court of Justice, Ines had confronted Razak.
And now here she was, on the end of his noose.
“This man”—Razak half-laughed and flung a hand toward me—“is, indeed, my brother, as you claimed. He was also Prince Arin’s fool, put there, by me, to undermine Love’s court. And so, while you deign to judge me from high upon your stool, perhaps you are now wondering if you should not have trusted Zayan’s revelation.” Razak placed his right boot on the stool, threatening to tip it over. “Or perhaps his sudden appearance was all part of my design?” He tapped his chin. “Did you think I’d allow my brother to run amok within my court after having him leashed for so long? No? Or is it more likely I sent him to you with those truths upon his lips?”
He was claiming to have orchestrated my appearance in Noemi’s room. I wasn’t a man crying for help, I was Razak’s accomplice. And when Ines met my gaze now, accusations lay heavy in her stare. I was Razak’s secret brother, I’d destroyed the Court of Love, I’d condemned her. I wasn’t a victim, I was the villain.
I stepped forward. “I didn’t do this. He’s lying…” My words sounded like lies though, and I didn’t know how to make them sound true.
Razak’s head tilted. He looked at me curiously, patiently. “You wanted the truth to be known, brother? For the world to see who you really are? Well, here you are. This is your fault.”
“Brother? I’m a tool.”
He shrugged. “Rest assured, Justice Ines here sent her aide away with the information. Soon all four courts will know you as Zayan, my beloved brother, redeemed of his mother’s treacherous ways. A brother who now sits at my side.”
He didn’t care what the four courts knew, this was about breaking Arin’s heart and making the world think Razak was capable of forgiving, making them think he cared. If Arin learned I was Razak’s brother, he’d doubt every moment we’d shared. Before, I was a victim, a pawn. It was one thing to be Razak’s tool, quite another to be his brother.
I had to get a message to Arin, somehow. But that could wait. Ines was in a far more precarious position. “Fine, you’ve won,” I said, lifting my voice over the relentless rain. “This was all our plotting and scheming. So, what now? You can’t kill her. Justice will come.”
Razak glanced around us. “And who is going to stop me? You?” He laughed.
“You’ll start a war.”
He sighed. “The courts are fragmented and weak and so engrossed in their own affairs that by the time they’ve discussed how terrible I am and voted on action, it will be too late.”
“Why?” Justice Ines asked. Her voice held all the grace and power of her court in a single word.
“Why?” Razak echoed. “Finally!” He laughed. “Someone asks why! Because I can, and because a crown is much more than its court. The crowns are the key. And that key will soon be mine.”
He was mad. I knew it, but now I saw it. “The key to what? What can be worth the lives you’ve already taken and the war you’ll ignite?”
“What else, brother? But power.” He kicked Ines’s stool out from under her.
The noose snapped tight. Ines bucked, thrashed, and for all her grace and poise, in death, she was the same as all the others the Court of Pain had killed, my mother included.
Razak leaned closer to me. “They writhe like worms on hooks.”
Her twitching slowed. Her eyes swelled, and so did her face. To look away would have been an injustice. Because, like before, this was my fault. I’d thought I’d done the right thing, I’d believed I could do some good, but Razak had poisoned it.
The choking gulps stopped.
