Was this truly what she’d once been like? How she’d seen the world? Loathing filled her, but Zarrah mastered her expression and inclined her head. “You intend to act soon? The garrison seems undermanned for such a venture.”
Something flickered across Bermin’s eyes, something dark and hateful, but it was gone in a heartbeat and replaced by a smile. “You know my mother, little Zarrah. Always biding her time, waiting for the moment to be right. If it were me, I’d seek vengeance for your capture this very hour, but I bend to her will.”
“The Harendellian ambassador told me that she locked herself in her room for a day and a night and wept, but I didn’t believe him.”
“It’s true.” Leaning back in his chair, Bermin crossed a leg, boot resting on his knee. “Locked herself in with orders that she not be disturbed for any reason, though whether she wept or raged, I could not say. Only that she emerged and gave the orders you were not to be pursued for any reason. But…” He hesitated. “Yrina disappeared shortly after and hasn’t been heard from since.”
“Serin caught her.” Zarrah’s chest tightened at the reminder that her friend had been the only one who’d tried to help her. “She’s dead.” By her own hand, to protect Zarrah’s secret.
Bermin pressed a hand to his heart, lowering his head in grief she didn’t think was feigned. “How did you come to be captured? What were you doing on the north side of the Anriot alone?”
Zarrah had spent a great deal of time considering how she might answer this question. “You asked how I knew the Maridrinians would attack that night by sea, and I told you that I had informants. But that was a lie. I was spying myself, going in disguise and gaining information from the Maridrinians themselves.”
He frowned. “Why take such a risk? We have spies aplenty.”
“Spies whose caution was reflected in the quality of information they were providing.” She shrugged. “I was ambitious, and it caught up with me. I tarried too long and was caught by Prince Otis’s patrol.”
“Who brought you to the palace, where his elder brother decided you were worth more alive than dead.” Bermin rubbed his chin. “A prince we barely knew existed until he took the position of heir, but whose name is now on the lips of everyone, north and south. Is it true he pushed his own brother to his death and Silas applauded him for it?”
“So I heard.” Keris’s face flashed through her vision, the horror etched across it as he looked down at his dying brother. The brother he’d killed to protect her. “He’s a different sort of Veliant than we are used to. He’s… clever.”
“But not a fighter?”
“I saw no evidence of such skills in the time I spent around him.” She disliked the scrutiny, though it was inevitable. Bermin was a killer, and she didn’t like the idea of his attention focusing on Keris. “He was disparaged often for being bookish, which I’d say is an accurate judge of his character.”
Bermin’s face scrunched in disdain, but before their conversation could continue, a knock sounded at the door. “Come,” her cousin rumbled, and the door opened to admit one of the guards, who passed him a folded piece of paper.
“This just came. Keris Veliant has arrived by ship.”
Zarrah’s heart skittered, but she only scowled as Bermin opened the paper, his eyebrows lifting as he read. Then he tossed the paper across the desk so that she could read it. “Might be time to reconsider that judgment of his character, little Zarrah. It appears the bookish fop has decided he’s a military man after all.”
74
KERIS
Nerastis was a place that had been forced upon him. A tool for shaping him into a proper prince. A place where there was no desire for people like him. A punishment. Yet as he walked through the familiar streets, the stink of rot and sewage filling his nose, and shouts of madams tossing drunks out of brothels, Keris was struck with the realization that of all the places he’d lived, Nerastis was where he felt most at ease.
Where he felt most at home.
Why that was, he couldn’t have said. It was a debauched shithole teeming with violence, the buildings more rubble than not, and the poverty worse than anywhere in Maridrina. But as he watched the people of the border city go about their business, faces and clothing a blend of Maridrina and Valcotta, Keris realized what he found so compelling. Nerastis was a place where a seed could take root. Where an idea could grow into reality, because for all this city was the heart of the conflict between the two nations, it was also populated by people who set aside politics every night and lived as one.
It was fitting that this was where he and Zarrah had met. It wouldn’t have been possible anywhere else.
The thought had him turning south, eyes latching on the Valcottan palace on the far side of the Anriot. Was she already there? If so, how had she been received?
Was she all right?
Anxiety rose in his stomach as his mind provided him with endless scenarios where things had gone horribly wrong, each worse than the last.
I shouldn’t have let her go.
Even as the thought rolled through his mind, he grimaced. Zarrah was not one to be controlled. And neither was he interested in controlling her, for all it would make aspects of his life easier. Being controlled was as much a prison as any cage.
As it was, right now, he had to look to his own survival, which was precarious. This garrison was full to the brim with men who’d respected Otis, and there wasn’t a chance in hell they didn’t believe Keris had killed him.
Because you did, his conscience whispered, but he shoved the thought away, burying it deep, where he kept his grief for all the others he’d lost.
Then he stepped through the gates into the palace.
“Your Highness.” A captain named Philo waited for him, the man bowing low. He was in his later years, hair more grey than brown, skin tanned dark from a life spent on duty in the sun. Keris had only minimal contact with him, given his penchant for avoiding all things military, but he recalled Otis describing him as a good leader and popular with the men.
So he inclined his head and said, “I’m pleased to see you well, Captain. It’s Philo, isn’t it?”
Surprise flickered through the man’s eyes, though whether it was for the courtesy or the fact Keris had remembered his name, Keris didn’t know. That either was a shock was a reminder that he had a great deal of damage to undo as far as his past behavior toward the men of this garrison.
Philo recovered from his surprise swiftly, gesturing to the palace. “Your rooms are ready, Your Highness. I’ll have your things brought up if you care to recover from your journey.”
Resting his hand on the man’s shoulder, Keris pushed him in the direction of the entrance. “What I’d like, Captain, is a report on the state of Nerastis. With recent happenings in Vencia, the situation is more volatile than in recent history.”