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“What the hell do you all care what happens to him?” he spat, waving a hand at me. I saw Isobella’s father quietly pull her back into the crowd while the false king’s attention was elsewhere. “He’s a son of Temar who was raised Mazekhstani: the same fuckers who are slaughtering your brethren at the border!”
“Becauseyouincited war,” I hissed out, clawing my hands beneath me so I could lift my head. Pain thrummed through me, incessant and fuckingloud, but I redirected it into the effort it took to get the words out. Fuelling the rising anger, both mine and theirs. “Youtook these people’s chance at peace, and you don’t even fuckingcare.”
Murmurs of assent danced through the crowd, not traceable to any one individual and nothing him or his guards could pin down. Shifting moods that held dangerous threat. It felt like we stood on the edge of a precipice; one wrong move from either of us, and it could all come crashing down.
“I will have your oaths,” he snarled at the people gathered around us, fighting to reassert his power over them. “Any man who does not do so, on behalf of himself or his woman and children, will be branded a traitor and executed alongside this one.” He flicked a dismissive hand in my direction without looking. “Do you stand with Quareh, with your friends and your country, noble in heart and loyal in spirit? Or do you seek damnation of your souls and wish destruction upon us all?”
The court shifted uneasily, growing even louder in its collective protests, yet this time no one dared to stand up against the man who would claim to be their ruler. No one spoke loud enough to be heard. No one stepped out of line. But they were clearly unsettled, dragging their gazes down to mine and then back to their king.
With my tendons slashed, I could do nothing but kneel, bleeding and unwilling, on the floor at his feet.
Welzes may have gotten his bow from me, but it had cost him dearly.
*
Chapter Forty-Two
“Fuck.” I smacked the edge of the lounge, hard, relishing the hot burn that shot across my palm. “Fuck!”
Starling and Valeri were silent, watching me with a quiet wariness that bordered on pity.
“It doesn’t mean youarea bastard,” said Starling eventually, her words slow and reluctant as if fearing my reaction. “Mathias said that Yanev only offered circumstantial evidence that supported a conclusion of illegitimacy, not...”
“It seems no one knows for sure,” I said dully. “Perhaps not even my mother did.”
I heaved in a breath, the familiar scents of the room tangling in my nose and throat. The cedar and oak furniture. The oil of the lanterns lit each night, which were currently hanging cold on the walls. The underlying scent of stale sweat and baked food that told of its many years as a home for my guards.
“What Yanev saw and knows gives the rumour credence, which will be enough for most of my people,” I said. “It’salreadyenough for them. I have nothing with which to prove them wrong.”
Valeri’s blue-grey eyes met mine. He didn’t blink, a ferocity burning behind them that was bittersweet in its familiarity.
“We force Yanev to recant,” he growled. “Make him publicly admit that he was lying. Without his word to rely on, even the accusation that you’re not Iván Aratorre’s son would be treason.”
He was right. It wasn’t much, but it wassomething.
“Velichkov,” I accused, feeling a flicker of hope. “That sounds deliciously dishonourable of you, and I’m all fo-”
“You can’t get anything out of a dead man,” said a voice, unpleasant and nasally, and I spun on the spot to find Councillor Navar with his hand pressed to Yanev’s chest.
No, not pressed. It was curled around a knife that Navar was now yanking back out, blood gushing onto his sleeve. Yanev’s eyes were wide, uncomprehending. He gasped loudly as he fell backwards and slapped his hand into the bloodied mess, but just as Mathias had described, the old man didn’t have enough magic to save him. Feeble sparks flickered and faded.
Starling lurched forward across the floor, her fingers outstretched, but Navar slashed the knife wildly at her and she was forced to roll away before it could make contact. I grabbed her collar and yanked her backwards out of his reach, hearing her curse when Yanev’s choking fell abruptly silent.
“Navar,” I snarled.
Fuck him for immediately quenching that small pinch of hope I had dared to indulge. Fuck him for making everything we’d done to get Dima here…the miraculous existence of a Hearken, entirely pointless. Fuck him for taking everything I had left.
No, not everything. I still had Mathias. We just had to escape the palace and find him and…
“Renato.” Navar drew himself up to his full height and it was then I realised he was wearing one of my Blessed gowns. Never mind the blood on it; the fact that the silk had touched his skin made me want to burn the entire wardrobe of clothes I’d left behind here inla Cortina.“That didn’t take you long, but I’m surprised you sought out Yanev before going after your feral little pet. Don’t tell me you were having trouble finding him with all the screaming I expect he’s doing.”
I returned the disdainful expression. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
The councillor blinked. “You didn’t…youdon’t know?” he asked, seemingly perplexed. Then his face slackened and he glanced between me and the heir at my back, his countenance lighting into one of sheer delight. “Nathanael Velichkov, my dear princes.”
“What about him?” Valeri growled, but I knew. I justknew.
“We have him,” Navar answered, confirming my worst fears.
