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I recoiled from the window. I didn’t know who he was.
This man I’d trusted, who I’d loved as a friend, had turned me over to my enemies. The betrayal burned so deep it turned ugly and vicious. I spat, but when the spittle dashed his cheek, it wasn’t enough. “You’re no friend!”
He wiped his face and held my gaze. He didn’t explain, just stared, his gaze flat. Did he not care? I was looking at a stranger.
“How could you?!”
The wagon jolted, throwing me against the window’s bars. “Draven, why?” The wagon rocked and jolted. I clung to the bars, needing to know what had possessed him. I’d done nothing to him, nothing except… almost kill him, and join with him then cast him aside. And break his heart?
He hung his head. “Take Arin away.”
Don’t trust Draven.Lark had known, somehow. He’d known.
But it was too late. I had trusted Draven, and he’d burned my trust to ash. “Damn you to the bottom of Dallin’s great ocean.”
The wagon carted me off. Draven and the Overlook shrank in the distance, until they were blurs through the filter of my tears. I bowed my forehead against the cold bars. I was going to Justice, and there, I’d be tried for treachery against my people.
I should have been relieved; Justice was balance, and balance was all. I knew I was innocent.
But I also knew the courts were corrupt. And in all likelihood, Justice would be too.
I’d be tried as a traitor, and my only defense was truth.
In a court of lies, the truth was worthless.
CHAPTER25
Lark
Nobody noticedme stride by them in the tower’s narrow corridors. I was Bendrik, why would they question me? I had the swagger, the confidence, the clothes, and the flat cap to top off my flawless act.
The majority of the council—except Bendrik and his pleasure pool—lived in the main tower. Malvina’s chambers would be among theirs, and as she’d been on the council since Umair’s reign, she’d have one of the larger, luxurious accommodations.
I knew the floor, knew the rooms on the corner of the building were the largest.
While chained to Bendrik’s wall, I’d lost track of time. I couldn’t be sure what hour of the day or night I’d be greeting her—and was beyond caring. I had Bendrik’s blood on my hands and a desperate need to destroy all those who had watched me dance until I’d fallen to my knees, bleeding and raw both inside and out.
They all deserved to die.
This whole fucking court should burn, like Razak had burned Arin’s.
If Arin were here, he’d tell me to stop, tell me this crusade wasn’t worth the risk of getting caught. I knew it, laughed at it, didn’t care. My one regret was that Razak wasn’t here so I couldn’t choke him with my leash in his sleep. It would happen, one day, eventually. I’d see him swinging from that hanging tree.
But I was getting ahead of myself.
I tried the first luxurious room, found it unlocked, and ventured inside, but whoever it belonged to didn’t have Malvina’s ambience, or her perfume, with its lemony notes. The memories tumbled… Her cloying perfume, her acrid laugh. The idea of vengeance tasted sweet. She’d be behind the next locked door, I was sure of it. If I’d had a hairpin. I could have crafted a pick, but as there was no time to hunt for one, I tried what would have been Draven’s method and slammed my shoulder into the door, rattling it on its hinges. Once, twice, pain flared, and on the third try, it sprang open, spilling me inside. The lemony spice hit me, rolled over me, trawling memories up from the depths I’d buried them in.
“You!”
She stood in a gown by her bed, her hair a grey mass about her pale face. She brandished a letter opener, or a stiletto dagger.
“Oh, I’m so terribly sorry, did I interrupt your beauty sleep, Malvina?” I veered right, around the end of her bed.
“You will be sorry, Zayan. I knew we should have killed you.”
“Hm, no, you wouldn’t have. We both know why.”
Razak was here with us, even now. Nobody could kill me, only him. Everyone knew it. I belonged to the prince. He’d made me untouchable, fuckin’ immortal. I lunged from the end of the bed. Malvina swung the blade down, and I skipped right, then grabbed her thin neck.
