“Karu,” said Arajo, as if Juliet should know who that was. “He was delightful in bed, but that poem? That handwriting? Ugh.”
Juliet’s mind was still clogged with the sacrifice. It took her a moment to put together the slip of paper—so like the ones Romeo had given her—and Arajo’s words, and realize that this was a morning-after poem.
She knew what the Mahyanai permitted their women to do, but it still sent a hot flush crawling across her face.
Arajo giggled. “Of course, I say that, but I’m not too good for him. I’ll send him a reply and pretend his poem was lovely. I just had to tell someone first.” Then she looked at Juliet. “What, you’re blushing? You’re not a virgin either, you know.”
Juliet couldn’t help flinching at the word virgin. That remark would have started a duel among her own people.
“And I’ve heard Romeo was terrible at poetry too,” Arajo went on, “so I hope he made up for it in other ways.”
“Don’t,” Juliet snapped. “Don’t talk about him that way. He was my husband.”
Arajo gave her a pitying look. “Husband, lover, truest of all true loves. You do realize it doesn’t matter anymore? You’re not still among those monsters who’d cast you out just for kissing him.”
They would have. There probably was not one Catresou who would have forgiven Juliet for kissing Romeo, let alone taking him to her bed in a ceremony they would not have acknowledged as marriage.
They were still her people.
And she was going to help kill them tomorrow.
“I’m sorry,” said Arajo, the laughter melting from her face. “You loved him and he’s dead, and—and I’m the worst. I think a thing, and I can’t help saying it. Ask anyone.”
She was genuinely sorry. That was the worst part. Arajo didn’t want to hurt Juliet. She just couldn’t imagine that Juliet having to slaughter her own people might hurt.
The Master Necromancer didn’t want them to stop the sacrifices.
Romeo could not believe that the Catresou were going to accept it.
“There will be a better revenge soon,” said Meros. “When he has gained his full power, he will drive the Mahyanai from their homes and slaughter them as they meant to slaughter us.”
But meanwhile, twenty of the Catresou prisoners would be killed, and they would have no Catresou burial. Romeo was furious at the injustice of it, and he wasn’t even one of them. He was baffled when he saw the other Catresou lords nod in agreement.
“It’s not right,” said Romeo. “They’ll burn the bodies—”
“Paris,” said Meros, “silence him.”
The slap across Romeo’s face was precise, stinging; the next moment, Paris’s cold hands were wrapped over his mouth, muffling him.
Romeo couldn’t help begging silently, Paris, please—but he knew that Paris couldn’t hear him. The bond had been broken when Paris died.
“Don’t imagine that obeying our orders once gives you the right to tell us what to do,” said Meros, and Romeo felt like a fool. He’d only made sure that the other Catresou would want to obey Meros so they could spite the enemy in their midst.
But later that day, when he was cleaning weapons under supervision, Gavarin said to him, “What’s it to you, if our people don’t get buried?”
“Don’t you need it to rest?” said Romeo.
“Don’t tell me you believe in the Paths of Light.”
“No,” said Romeo. “But Juliet did. You do. And I swore to serve your people.”
“What does your obedience mean to you?” asked Gavarin.
Romeo went still, his hands halted on polishing the blade. “What do you mean?”
“We Catresou, we live under obedience. To the Lord Catresou, but to zoura first of all. And our lord has told us to obey the Master Necromancer and leave our people to die. Some of us would rather obey zoura. How about you?”
If he disobeyed Meros’s orders even once, he would be killed. Romeo had no doubt of that, and he was not unafraid. Even now, after everything, he did not want to die.
He also didn’t want any more Catresou to die while he could do anything to stop it.
“Yes,” he said.
Half a day left.
“Supervising sacrifices is not my usual duty,” said the subcaptain to Lord Ineo. She was a tall woman; her white-gold hair wrapped around her head in a six-strand braid, marking her as not just an Old Viyaran but an aristocrat.
“Nothing is usual about this situation,” said Lord Ineo. “And who better than you? After all, you helped bring the Catresou necromancers down to begin with. The Exalted greatly desires you to have this honor.”
The subcaptain tilted her head slightly and regarded him. She didn’t seem the least bit impressed by his status as the Exalted’s right hand. Juliet would have liked for her that, if she hadn’t been preparing to assist in murder.
“I’m told you have an extra weapon for me,” said the subcaptain, her gaze sliding beyond Lord Ineo to Juliet and Runajo.
“Several. I’m sending eight of our best guards, and also the Juliet.” Lord Ineo reached back, laid his fingertips on Juliet’s shoulder, and drew her forward. “Juliet, this is Subcaptain Xu. She will command all the guards at the sacrifice, including you.”
“Is this also the will of the Exalted?” asked Xu, studying Juliet the way outsiders always did: like an exotic artifact.
Juliet stared back at her. The woman at least met her eyes, which was more than many did.
“Yes,” said Lord Ineo, proving that he didn’t lack for either nerve or influence. “We must show the city that the Catresou will never be a threat again.”
“The Exalted is wise and glorious,” said Xu. “But I’d prefer to command soldiers who follow orders.”
“That won’t be a problem,” said Lord Ineo. “She can’t disobey her Guardian, and Runajo will command her to obey you.”
“We both saw that girl kill two men,” said Xu, “one of them against orders and the other her own father.”
Juliet was aware of Runajo flinching behind her. But her own heart didn’t skip a beat. She’d lived with that memory every day: the moment she’d looked in her father’s eyes and felt the power of his blood guilt seize her. The moment after, when her hands inevitably gripped his head and snapped his neck. She’d remembered it so often, she no longer flinched from it.
Of all the blood on her hands, her father’s was not the worst. At least he had actually been guilty.
So Xu was the subcaptain who had been there on that terrible morning. Juliet remembered that she had protested Lord Ineo seizing a Juliet for himself and claiming the old Catresou right of swift vengeance. She might be as vile and murderous as all the Old Viyarans, but at least she cared for the Accords.
“Keep the Mahyanai guards alive,” said Juliet, “and I won’t be a problem. I don’t need to avenge any of your blood.”
Xu’s eyebrows rose; then one side of her mouth turned up slightly, as if reluctantly pleased. “I’ll see what I can do.”
He was having trouble with his name. Some days he knew it, but not today.
He could remember hearing somebody say it. Somebody calling it, voice alight with desperation.
That boy. The one he had seen when he killed the traitor family. There had been a speech that his master wanted him to deliver.
Had he killed that boy, or left him alive? He could remember seeing him among the main body of the Catresou, but he now he couldn’t remember if that had happened before or after.
The question bothered him more than it should have. Whatever he had done, it had been his master’s will. He told himself he could be sure of that, and that was all he needed to know. That was the only real thing.
Now his orders were to guard the Little Lady, and stop her if she tried to harm herself again. His master had been very firm about that, as if it were likely to happen. But she had sat in the chair for hours, not a single golden curl moving.