But all that comes out is, “He sure as hell isn’t, Kalt!”
Everyone turns in their seats, stunned, Kalt the most. Arrin raises a brow at me. He waits for more, sensing an ally. But Father’s looking at me too, and my throat constricts.
Arrin strikes on alone. “Father, I’m not saying I won’t bring her down. Believe me, I will. But Mother’s murder is a charge no one in the North will buy. They want to believe it’s the Nahir, not one of their own. How would we ever convince the Royal League of her guilt?”
Father circles Arrin, hawk-like. “Do you think I got to where I am by being as foolish as you’re suggesting? When I finish Sinora off, every royal will applaud my good work. The League itself will carry out the verdict. I swear it.”
Arrin finally stops his ticking. “What I thought. And that’s the problem, Father. You want to do it by their rules. You want their approval for it. But we don’t have the luxury of time. We need something better than this impossible murder charge. Something irrefutable. And we need it before we reach the South—God knows her camp will be waiting there to pounce.”
“You’re scared of fighting a real war?” Kalt taunts.
Arrin throws up his hands. “Yes, that’s it, Kalt. You’ve caught me. Though I suppose I’ll have to hide back here with you, since your boat won’t be very helpful in a landlocked kingdom like Etania.”
“I was talking about the South,” Kalt clarifies indignantly.
Father slams a fist on the table. Everyone jumps. Malek, Evertal, and the rest drop their eyes. Arrin and Kalt shut up. Father’s anger has built like a storm, and suddenly, for some horrible reason that doesn’t even make sense, he jabs a finger at me. “You. Let’s hear what you think about all this. Clearly you have an opinion. Won’t you say it to my face?” He waits a fraction of a second—hardly enough time to answer—then snorts. “No, of course you won’t. You never do. You just carry on and avoid the real work.”
Heat creeps along my neck. All six officers are gaping at me now, the seventeen-year-old kid no one ever thinks about much but who apparently has earned himself an entire dressing-down in the council room. The humiliation scalds.
“Father, this isn’t the time,” Arrin intervenes, a slightly pitying move, which only makes things worse.
Father raises his hands. “Isn’t it? They say he’s very smart. Brilliant, even.” His smile is cruel. “So what do you think I should do? Come on, boy. For once in your life say something useful!”
His mockery is too much on top of everything else. I stand abruptly. “I think she’d hate you for this,” I spit. “She’d never want her death used for more war. She’d weep in her grave, and you know it.”
Kalt gasps. His hand starts to move, like he’s going to yank me back down, as if that will undo what I’ve just said, but I don’t care. I stare at Father and he stares at me and I wait for the gun, the one that certainly has my name on it now. It feels damn good to say the words and not even think.
For a long moment, Father doesn’t move, dangerously still. I watch his hand, terrified. The pistol is an inch from his fist, the trigger a moment from my head. Blood on the floor like oil. Just like the traitor, but this time it’s going to be mine. This is it. Then he says, “You’re dismissed.”
I’m turning before he’s finished the order.
I don’t look at Arrin or Kalt or anyone else and their stupid pity.
I march out the door, blistering with anger, overwhelmed by fear, every emotion crackling through the numbness in a glorious rage, and nearly trip right over something small and blonde. I catch myself against the wall as the door slams shut.
Leannya scurries back, quick as a mouse, but there’s no guilt in her eyes. No regret at having been caught spying. Only an equally furious rage in her eyes. “How could you?” she demands in a whisper. “You and Arrin both!”
Her words are spoken so delicately it’s like they might dissolve between her mouth and my ears, but they slap me still. “Leannya, it’s not—”
“How dare you speak for Mother! You don’t know what she’d want. None of you do. You were never here, but I was, and she’d have done anything in the goddamn world for you!” Her fury is almost as shocking as her language. She’s every bit as dogged as Arrin. “I hate the way you all sit around and talk. Baiting each other, like it’s a game. I hate your talk. I hate you!” She shoves me with more force than I expect.
Then she darts down the hall. A fleeing gold shadow.
I stand there, trying to figure out what’s just taken place between us, the fact that my own sister hates me—hates all of us—and it’s completely illogical, then realize I might be doing the exact thing she despises and chase after her. Through the main foyer, up the stairs, to our family quarters. I find her in Mother’s parlour. She screams as perfume bottles shatter against the wall. Glass splintering, like the brandy bottles. She hurls each and every one until there’s nothing left but a thousand useless shards and the stench of perfume—rose and vanilla and lilac, rotten when flung together in a mess.
She stops. Trembling.
Then she drops to her knees, whispering, “No, no, no,” pale hands trying to pick up the broken pieces, cutting herself on sharp edges. “These were mine. She said I could have them. She said I could. Why did I do it!”
I don’t dare touch her.
She lets the hurricane unleash, in tears, in fists. Then it subsides, and she stands again, swiping the tears from her face. Her eyes accuse me. “You gave in to them. You’re supposed to be better than that.”
“Better?”
“Yes. I used to tell Mother how scared I was for Arrin, because I know when he goes to the front he doesn’t think of anyone else, not even me. He just wants to win. I can’t watch over him there. And Kalt would hang his own neck if it pleased Father. But she said I shouldn’t worry, because we’d always have you. She said you’re better than that and you’ll always come home.”
God in heaven. Mother’s finding a way to speak to me from the grave. Leannya waits for me to contest her words, and a new kind of ache throbs beneath my ribs. Mountains. That’s what I’ve wanted forever. The escape I’ve always craved. The nobler life. But it’s not more noble—it’s only more easy, away from here and these impossible decisions, away from expectations. If I go, if I trap every weakness, kill all the guilt, and do what I want, then I’m exactly the same as Arrin and Kalt and Father.
I’m a Dakar.
The truth startles me with its sudden, shameful intensity.
Leannya waits. I reach for her hands, now pricked with blood, and hold them gently. I try not to think. “Mother was right,” I say. “You’ll always have me.” It might be the worst promise I’ve ever made, an impossible vow to keep with whatever the hell’s going on in Father’s council room, but in this moment, it’s the one thing I know I want to be true. The thing that needs to be true. “I’m here for you. I swear it. I’ll fight for you.”
She studies me a long moment. Tear marks on her face, blood on her hands. Her stare is careful and searching, scouring my bones, looking for lies like a true Dakar, then she reaches a verdict and throws her desperate arms around me.
She believes me.
And maybe I do, too.
* * *
I go to Father’s room in the evening.
I’m not exactly sure why. It’s a terrifying decision, one I go back and forth on, but the words I hurled at him in front of his men were rotten. I’m old enough to admit it. I need to be better, for Mother at least. For Leannya. I won’t let this family become a stalemate of battle lines.
I swallow my wounded pride, my fear, and when I reach the door, I knock once. The quick kind that’s not very committed.
Gathering courage, I try a bit harder.