“Who did he kill?” she found herself asking, knowing it was her heart and not her head that wanted the answer.
His jaw tightened, then he sighed. “The Fifteen Year Treaty between Maridrina, Harendell, and Ithicana was signed when I was just a boy. Not long after, my father’s soldiers took all of his daughters of a certain age from the harem, giving no explanation for where they were being taken. Or for what purpose. All the women accepted it, except for my mother. She tried to go after my sister to get her back, but she was caught. My father strangled her to death in front of me and the rest of the harem to make a point to us of what happened to those who crossed him. Had his men hold me down when I tried to help her. And then he left her body in the middle of the harem garden for weeks so we’d all have to watch her rot.” His voice caught. “I still wake up in terror with that smell in my nose.”
Zarrah’s breath caught, horror filling her chest because she knew that smell. Knew what it was like to watch a mother’s flesh blacken and foul. To watch the flies swarm and the buzzards circle overhead.
“Fifteen years later, my sister Lara reemerged from the Red Desert and was sent to Ithicana. And given what she did to that kingdom, I think it fair to say that my father killed the sweet little girl I knew and brought to life a creature made in his image. A monster. A queen who leaves the corpses of her enemies in her wake.”
Zarrah shivered, something about the story sending unease through her chest.
“I know you have no reason to trust me, Valcotta. But at least take some comfort that I hate my father every bit as much as you do.”
She shouldn’t believe him. Shouldn’t trust him. And yet in this, every one of her instincts told her that he was telling her the truth.
Rising to his feet, Keris shocked her by unfastening her bindings. As she sat, he handed her a knife. “Beneath the window is a barn,” he said. “Climb across it and you should be able to jump over the pigpen to the neighboring building, then drop down into the alley. After that, escape is whichever way you choose.”
He was letting her go. And not just letting her go but giving her a route for escape.
“Hit me on the back of the head hard enough to knock me out,” he said. “That way, if worse comes to worst and you’re recaptured, I’ll still be alive to try to help you.”
This was her moment. Her chance to get away and return to her people in Nerastis. Yet Zarrah found herself hesitating, wondering if escape was truly the path to reclaiming the honor she’d lost.
Silas Veliant was her enemy. The man who’d murdered her mother. The one she desired vengeance against.
“Dawn is nearly here, Valcotta,” he said quietly. “It needs to be now, or the opportunity will be lost. As soon as the sun rises, we travel to my father’s palace in Vencia, and once you’re inside, there will be no escape.”
Not just inside the city, but inside the Rat King’s impenetrable palace—a goal long denied her people. As Keris’s prisoner, she’d have the chance to get closer to Silas than she’d ever dreamed possible.
Perhaps close enough to kill.
Rising to her feet, Zarrah shifted the knife in her grip so that the pommel was down, seeing Keris tense as he readied himself for the blow.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Could she trust Keris with her plan? Did he hate his father enough to see it through? She wavered, uncertainty churning through her thoughts, but then he looked up at her.
And that cursed blue hardened her resolve.
Zarrah swayed on her feet, allowing the weapon to slip from her hand to land with a clatter. “I…” She let her knees buckle, rolling her eyes back as she dropped.
Swearing, Keris caught her, and Zarrah kept her eyes closed and her body limp as he settled her back on the bed.
“Your Highness?” a concerned voice called through the door. “Are you well?”
“Fine,” he snapped and she could feel his frustration. His panic. “I dropped something.”
The doorknob jiggled, and Zarrah forced herself to breathe deeply as Keris cursed under his breath, fumbling to retie the ropes binding her to the bed.
“Your Highness?” the voice called, then again, with growing alarm: “Your Highness, please open the door.”
“Calm yourself!”
Her ears filled with the sound of the latch being unfastened, the door opening, then boots scuffing against the wooden floors.
“Apologies, my lord,” the man said. “But word you are traveling to the city with a prisoner has preceded us to Vencia, and an honor guard was dispatched to ensure your safety. They arrived in the night and are waiting to escort you the rest of the journey.”
“It’s not even dawn, and the prisoner is still unconscious. Tell them to wait.”
The guard cleared his throat. “There is concern that the Valcottans might yet attempt rescue, my lord. Better that we not tarry. I’ll arrange for a stretcher to carry the prisoner to the carriage.”
Silence.
Zarrah held her breath, waiting to see if Keris would argue. Whether he’d find a reason to delay their departure so as to give her another chance to escape. And whether in doing so, he’d stymy her own growing plans.
“His Majesty sent word with them that you were to come with all due haste,” the man finally added, and it was all Zarrah could do not to smile as Keris answered, “Then I suppose we must do so. Arrange the stretcher.”
She kept her eyes closed as they carried her out to the carriage and settled her on the bench, her nose filling with Keris’s spicy scent as he joined her inside. Then a whip cracked and the carriage moved forward, the horses soon urged into a fast canter, pulling them north.
Toward Vencia.
Toward the palace of her enemy.
And once she was inside, Zarrah intended to cut out Silas Veliant’s heart.
37
KERIS
How had things gotten so terribly out of his control?
Keris bit at his thumbnail, staring out the window but not seeing the homes and businesses lining Vencia’s streets as they bounced over the cobbles, moving ever closer to his father’s palace.
Valcotta sat slumped against the side of the carriage, her eyes closed, her cheeks still hollowed from the toll the poison had taken on her.
It had been unreasonable to expect her to be physically capable of escape after how sick she’d been, and yet it had still been a shock when she’d fainted in his arms. There was something about her that had always seemed indomitable, she who, on her deathbed, had still been willing to pick up a weapon and fight. And if not for the fact she’d slept nearly the rest of the journey, he’d have questioned whether her faint had been an act.