Silence fills the throne room. Somewhere, the forest is burning, my father is raging, and the kingdom staggers. But in here, she is only this story. This dream that was ruined long ago. I don’t want to understand where she comes from. I don’t want to know her like this.
“Will you be a dog?” she asks me. “Will you follow the whistle like your brother?”
Startled and offended, I almost shake my head. Then I think of tonight. I think of the summer, the spring. I think of my whole life up until this breath, and I stay silent.
A hint of a smile appears on her lips. “Your father has a way, doesn’t he? I was his comrade once, too. My gun was hot for his cause, and I remember his rising star, the way it pulled us all into its fire. He made it a joy to burn. He gave my anger what it needed. That’s what he does, you see. He offers a glorious rage that feels very honest, very grand.” She steps closer. “But it isn’t. It’s his star, not yours, and with him you’ll always be the dog.”
I feel sweat along my neck, an ache in my shoulder blades from looking down at her so fiercely. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I know his path, his ways, and you deserve better, little fox.” She tilts her head at the failing expression on my face. “I had a father worth fighting for. When he died in that prison, he died for me. He ruined himself to save us. That’s the man I bled for, the dream I chased. But yours never deserved to be a father. He never had one himself, never knew the meaning of the word, so how could he do any better than this?”
Something aches, and it’s no longer my shoulders. It’s deeper. Heavier. Perhaps I’m what I always imagined—a useful thing, a weapon, an ember to be nurtured and fed to flames. It’s the fear that’s always haunted. The thing that Mother always—
“Your mother saw the truth,” Sinora says, seeming to read my thoughts, “and it’s why I considered her loyalty a—”
“Never mention my mother!” I say suddenly, violently, too far into my own misery. In my confusion, I want to grab Sinora by her slender throat. “You killed her. You took her from me.”
Her certainty is unflinching. “No, only your father takes from you, clever boy. Understand this and you’ll never see your world the same again. You’ll see how perfect her death was. How it gave him the war he longed for, the respect he needed to become strong. Wasn’t it all very perfect?”
Her meaning strikes, and I struggle against the words, terrified by the suggestion in them. Everything lined up, ticking to the clock, but not this. Not this one thing. It can’t be true. It isn’t.
“I’ve said enough now,” Sinora continues, “but there is one last thing I want to share, and I hope you’ll hear my heartbeat in this. Are you listening? Think you are honouring your mother’s memory and bury me in hatred, yes. Think of me what you will. But I believe there is still a gentleness in you, a thing he hasn’t ruined. The thing she gave you. I won’t bury you in hatred yet, Athan Dakar. You may follow your father of steel if you wish, but I have a daughter of warmth, and you don’t have to live as a ghost. Not if you lived here.”
Before I can acknowledge her impossible offer, she’s taken five steps back. Her gaze doesn’t falter. “Now return to your father, little fox. Run to his side again and prove your loyalty. But you might also tell him this—you tell him I will not be chased like a dog, not even with all the armies of the earth behind him. You remind him this old comrade still holds his secrets in her clever palm.”
And then she smiles again, the silent promise of war.
AURELIA
It’s been hardly an hour since the terror began, yet I’m sure an entire century has breathed and died in it. There’s nothing in me anymore. No fear. No sorrow. No relief. I’m a murderer now, a pale shadow, and truthfully, all I want is to sleep.
I’ve had enough of being seventeen.
As I lie in bed, heavy and weightless at once, fighting tears, Heathwyn tells me about the battle at our gates, about how Lord Marcin himself was wounded at my masquerade and it doesn’t look good.
I listen, far away, as Safire planes rise once again into the night. They’re leaving for Norvenne, Heathwyn says. The General will speak for us there. He’s going to explain what’s happened, defend the Queen’s innocence before the allegations of murder, and though I’m grateful, I know what it cost me, a gamble and betrayal that will haunt me the rest of my life. A gamble no one, not even Heathwyn, can ever know.
I try to soothe myself by remembering what we’ve gained. Reni, who trusted me when I whispered the only thing I could in his ear—that if he took the crown, Mother would die. Perhaps he should have become king like this, as a hero. Perhaps this was the right path. His fate. But in that moment, when I realized what he wanted to do, it was Havis’s face in my mind. Havis’s dark desperation, in the University, clutching at my neck.
I couldn’t explain anything else to Reni, hoping the horror of this night made anything seem possible. I could only pray to Father that Reni would trust the bond of blood between us, the place where we meet, where we speak only truth to each other. I’m his sister. And he heard the fear in my voice.
Now he remains a prince, his address issued on behalf of our Queen.
This is a victory, I tell myself numbly.
Heathwyn leaves me to my thoughts, since I have no words, and I lie watching the smoky haze lessen beyond the window. It’s gradual. A slow clearing of sky and stars, the fire doused in water and smoldering, skeleton trees left in its wake.
I feel Lark’s gun resting against my temple.
I wonder if he would have shot me. Did I never imagine that he, a Nahir fighter, might be capable of it? Did I underestimate him, as Havis predicted? But no matter how I try to rationalize it, I keep seeing his panicked eyes. His lungs filling with blood, struggling for breath, and all because of me. The girl he considered his friend. The girl he taught to shoot the gun. I hear Athan’s voice saying, “You did what you had to,” but something deathlike heaves inside me.
What if Lark hadn’t meant to fire at all?
What if it was only a threat?
The truth is—I shot first.
In my fear and panic, I left him tortured on the floor, terrified of the thought of losing Athan, of losing the evidence that could save Mother. It was me, choosing between the worth of lives, and I pray Father didn’t watch from his world of lights and stars. He’d be ashamed, his own daughter abandoning children and firing her gun in a selfish fury.
Oh, Lark …
I rise from the bed in a daze, remembering suddenly, from another lifetime, from a time when I was not a murderer, that Lark said he’d left a gift for me. It doesn’t take long to find it. A simple, tiny package on my desk, an envelope beside. With trembling hands, I pull apart the brown paper. I find a pair of turquoise earrings, elegant and lovely as anything I own.
I open the letter.
There’s an address listed first, from Resya.
Dearest Cousin, Whatever happens tonight, you cannot forget our mission. If I have to leave, please meet me at the place I’ve written here. Find your way there. The only hope we have is for your mother and Seath to talk, or else we’ll all be in hell.
I’m sorry to say this on your birthday. I’ve included a gift from my sister. She wanted me to give these to you. Meet us both in Resya and we’ll find a way through this.
There’s always a way, Cousin.
—L.G.
I stare.
I read the words again. Then again.
One after another after another.
And that’s when I cry. At long last. I curl up on the bed, shivering even though it’s warm outside, and cry and cry until there’s nothing I have possibly left to give.
39
ATHAN
3,000 feet.
I know I’m in trouble by 3,000 feet.
I’ve spent the better part of tonight jumping without thinking, right from the first shots. When a guard approached us on the dance floor, reaching for his gun, targeting Ali, I did the only thing I could. I took evasive action, a maneuver of quick thinking. A way to let these men, bought by Father, know she’s precious to the Safire and can’t be harmed.