She squared her shoulders and nodded, and then her eyes drifted over his shoulder. “You should go. Auntie Coralyn is giving you a look.”
“Thank you for the warning.” He kissed her forehead. “Keep this conversation between us.” He rose, fixing the waiting women with a long stare that promised there would be hell to pay if he was crossed before offering his aunt his arm.
“I see you’ve stooped to threatening nuns,” she said as they stepped outside. “I can’t help but wonder if there’s much lower you can go, boy.”
“One can always go lower.”
She sniffed. “In the effort to save yourself, please don’t forget yourself.” Stopping in her tracks, she said, “I fancy taking some air.”
“It’s pissing rain.”
She cast him a baleful glare for his language. “Find a canopy to hold over my head.”
Cursing under his breath, Keris retrieved one from the carriage, his consternation not for the rain, but for the conversation that was to come, for he was certain that it would pertain to Otis. Already his chest was tight, his mouth dry at the thought of not just having to relive the moment, but of having to spin lies to hide the truth of what had happened.
Together, they walked around the rear of the building, Keris angling the shade to keep the rain from dampening her, though it meant he was soaked through by the time they reached a gazebo. Climbing the steps, he set aside the shade and took a seat on one of the benches. “As much as I appreciate the opportunity to say goodbye to my sister, Auntie, perhaps you might explain your true reason for dragging me out of Vencia.”
“There’s always someone listening in Vencia.” She sat next to him, frowning as the wind tugged a lock of her hair loose from its coif. “And we both know Serin takes a particular interest in you, Keris. You are not the sort of man he wishes to serve, and he aims to see you removed from succession. We’ve already seen the proof of that.”
He stiffened, and she gave him a sideways glance. “We both know it was Serin who drove Otis to attack you. His plot failed, but that only means he’ll try again and again until he succeeds. We need him dead, but your father relies too much upon him to give him up. Which means for you to survive, we need your father dead or removed from power. I imagine you’ve come to the same conclusion, and it is your efforts to achieve his removal that have been occupying your midnight hours, not whoremongering.”
Keris crossed his arms, unwilling to reveal anything, given that his last alliance with his aunt had netted him nothing.
“I know it’s you riling the masses against your father, boy. You’re pushing them to overthrow him, possibly to even kill him, but what is less clear is why you believe they’ll put you, another Veliant, on the throne in his place. What’s more likely to occur is that they’ll slaughter this entire family, and Maridrina will descend into anarchy. You’re wielding a cudgel when what you need is a knife.”
There was far more finesse to his plans than that, but Keris only said, “What do you propose?”
“That you use your sister as your knife. An option made much more feasible given that Lara is in Vencia. And she isn’t alone.”
Shock rippled through him with enough force that his jaw dropped. “Lara? How—”
“Aren gave me a contact in the city, his hope that I’d give the individual a message to desist in their attempts to rescue him. I went to meet this contact but found more than Ithicanians. Lara is with them, as are your missing half sisters, warriors, all.”
Keris abruptly found himself pacing, though he had no recollection of rising, a mix of emotions churning in his gut, the foremost of which was anger. Lara was a liar and a traitor and a killer. She’d started a goddamned war. Was responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. If not for her… “Why is she here?”
“Because of Aren. She and his people are united in the desire to see Ithicana’s king freed.”
How Lara had gotten the Ithicanians to stomach her presence, Keris couldn’t begin to imagine. “She’s a creature of Serin’s making, and we can’t trust her.”
“He left his mark on her, to be sure, but she’s not his creature. And certainly not your father’s.”
“I’ll have nothing to do with her,” Keris snarled. “What she deserves is a knife in the heart, and while the Ithicanians might not have the balls to do it, don’t think I’ll show any such hesitation if she crosses my path.”
Though he refused to look at her, Keris could sense his aunt’s scrutiny as she asked, “What happened to you that night in the bridge?”
Turning his back on her, he closed his eyes, the vision of Raina gasping for breath, blood bubbling from her chest, filling his mind. “I told you. They trussed me up like a pig when I protested their actions and I was left in a cart until the battle was finished.”
“Yes, I recall your bitter complaints.” She hesitated. “But knowing you as I do, it wasn’t what was done to you that you blame your sister for, but what was done to someone else.”
“They murdered my escort. They were good people.”
“That was your father’s doing, not Lara’s.”
“Bullshit!” He rounded on her. “She enabled him by being his tool.”
“You think she had a choice?”
He stared his aunt down. “Yes. The same one I had. The same one I still have.”
Neither of them spoke, the only sound the rain pattering against the roof of the gazebo and the wind racing across the land, the echoes of the typhoon over Ithicana.
“You two could be twins, you are so alike in face,” Coralyn finally said. “And both equally unforgiving, though your sister is significantly less self-righteous about it. She erred, Keris. She knows it and is trying to right wrongs. In that, I say she is your better, for while you have not erred, you do nothing but point fingers at the wrongs around you.”
“I’ll hear no more of this.” Turning on his heel, Keris made for the entrance to the gazebo, but his aunt’s voice stopped him in his tracks.
“For the sake of your mother, you will sit. And you will listen.”
Grinding his teeth, he turned.
“Lara intends to free her husband, and the harem has decided to assist her and the Ithicanians in this venture.”
Less Lara’s involvement, this was exactly the alliance he’d hoped for, but now he found himself not wanting any part of it. “Why? And why, for that matter, did you go to see Aren’s contact? You indicated to me that by winning my father’s promise to leave my sisters alone, you were content. What changed?”