“This has nothing to do with ideals.” Keris watched his father warily. “The Empress has guessed your intent and plans to attack while your back is turned.”
His father’s jaw tightened, and he glanced to Serin, revealing that he’d known the risk and had demanded the soldiers anyway. “What of it? We’ve lost Nerastis before, only to take it back a year later. The bridge is worth a hundred times that pile of rubble, and now we might lose it.” He leveled a finger at Keris. “If I lose the bridge because of you, I’m going to cut out your fucking tongue.”
It wasn’t the first time he’d been threatened with the punishment, but it was the first time Keris didn’t feel afraid. “Not just Nerastis, Your Grace. Vencia is the Empress’s target.”
“I’ve heard nothing of this,” Serin snapped, even as his father snarled, “She wouldn’t dare.”
“She dares.” Keris’s pulse was a steady thud, his palms clammy. “Zarrah Anaphora returned to Nerastis and loaded three vessels with soldiers before sailing north, her intent to wait until you abandoned Vencia to attack Ithicana, then to launch an attack of her own.”
“How did you learn this?” Serin demanded.
Keris shrugged. “Spies. I’m sure your own eyes will bring the same information eventually, although if we’d relied on them, it would be too late.”
Serin’s eyes narrowed, but it was Keris’s father who spoke. “And why did you feel it necessary to deliver this information yourself?”
He had to at least try to convince him, even if doing so was a fool’s hope. “The bridge has been nothing but a curse. Is seeing Vencia destroyed and thousands of Maridrinian lives lost worth it, Father?”
Yes, was the answer in his father’s eyes, though he said, “We’ll raise the harbor chains and arm the civilians. They can defend the walls until I return.”
“Old men, women, and children against three ships full of hardened Valcottan soldiers is not a fair fight.”
His father crossed his arms. “Then we evacuate. Let Zarrah content herself with burning an empty city. We will rebuild and then have revenge against her when the time is right.”
God help him, but Keris hated that word. Would strike it from every language in the world if he could, for those motivated by it only brought ruin. “Give up the bridge, Father.”
“You want me to concede?” His father stalked around the table. “I sacrificed nearly two decades of my reign and nearly two dozen daughters to win this prize, and you just want me to give it up?”
Keris tensed, knowing what was coming. But he couldn’t stop now. “Yes. For the sake of Maridrina, you must.”
“I must do nothing! I am king!”
“Your pride will be the death of this kingdom.” Keris’s control of his temper frayed with every passing heartbeat, because his words accomplished no more than spitting into the wind. His father would never concede. “And it will be for nothing, because you aren’t capable of winning this.”
Face darkening with fury, his father struck, fist flying toward Keris’s face.
But whereas once he’d have allowed the blow to land, this time, Keris blocked it. And struck one of his own.
His father staggered, tripping over a chair and falling on his ass, cheek a livid red. But rather than fury, his expression was filled with delight that made Keris sick.
“Guards!” Serin shrieked, but the king held up one hand. “No. No guards, Serin.” He spit blood onto the carpet, and said, “You are always particular in your phrasing, Keris. You say that I cannot win. Not that it cannot be won.”
It felt like a noose was around Keris’s throat, choking back his words, because innocents were going to die. People who’d had no say in any of this and yet would lose their lives because they were pawns in the games played by kings and queens and empresses.
And princes.
So he said, “The key to victory is not attacking the limbs of our enemy but striking at its heart.”
“Attack Eranahl?” His father shook his head. “Its defenses are formidable—it would require us taking nearly every man and ship at our disposal to assail it, which would mean leaving our strongholds on the bridge undefended and ripe for the picking.”
Keris picked up a drink from the table and took a mouthful. The liquor burned down his throat to sit like a lead weight in his stomach. The weight of his father’s approval—something he’d never wanted to earn, because doing so would mean becoming something he loathed. Yet here he was. “Aren fights in the belief he is going to war against you.”
“He is going to war against me.”
“No, he is going to war against me.” Keris drained his glass. “And by the time he realizes it, it will be too late.”
His father’s eyes narrowed. “What do you propose?”
“I propose we use the bridge to withdraw all our men from Ithicana in secret, leaving only enough behind to maintain the illusion that we intend to fight to the death to keep our hold on the bridge. Once Aren commits his forces, and those of the Valcottans, to attacks on our outposts holding the bridge, we sail against Eranahl and take the city.”
His father made a face. “What good is that? Aren will hold the bridge and its defenses, and given he’ll suffer almost no losses to his army in the taking, we’ll never dig him out again.”
Even now, after all this time, his father still didn’t understand that not all rulers were like him. That not all rulers were willing to sacrifice their people for the sake of political, strategic, and financial gain. Except what made Aren Kertell a better man than Silas Veliant would ultimately be his downfall. And the end of Ithicana.
So Keris detailed the rest of the plan, a part of himself withering and dying as his father’s smile grew, pride radiating from his gaze. “You are my son after all. A true Veliant. I knew it. I’ve always known it. And I think so have you, no matter how hard you tried to fight it.”
As much as Keris wanted to deny it, he knew his father was right.
Keris gave a slight nod, and he sent out a silent plea to wherever Zarrah was on the high seas.
Forgive me.
82
ZARRAH
“The harbor chain is still up.”
Zarrah glanced left at the captain of the ship, who was lowering his spyglass from his assessment of Vencia. “That’s two days it’s remained up, with all merchant vessels turned away to seek berth in other harbors. And the seas are growing rougher, the winds higher. Storm season is nearly upon us.”
“Agreed.” The captain rested his elbows on the rail. “I’m afraid we may not be able to pursue the Empress’s desired course of action, General. Not with the updates we received last night.”
Zarrah had sent a longboat to shore under the cover of darkness to meet with Valcottan spies, who’d told them with no uncertainty that not only had Silas not emptied the city’s defenses to bolster his forces engaged with subduing Ithicana, he’d doubled them. Which meant attacking would be a death wish.