“And why is that?” Bermin asked, resting his sword blade against Keris’s neck.
A wild laugh escaped Keris’s lips as screams filtered down from the cliff tops, but it was a clarion voice from behind him that answered. “Because they might have fought for you, cousin. Whereas now, you must fight me alone.”
BERMIN’S EYES LATCHED on Zarrah as she walked down the beach toward him, the clash of
weapons and screams of the injured as battle raged on the cliff tops seeming distant with her cousin’s sword pressed to Keris’s neck.
“You honorless bitch,” her cousin hissed. “You attack your own people. Does your treason know no bounds?”
Zarrah made a face and swung her spear in her hand, limbering her tense muscles. “Pot calling the kettle black, cousin. You made a deal with these Valcottans”—she gestured to the fallen corpses
—“and then slaughtered them.”
“They were convicts.”
“If they weren’t worth giving your word to, you should not have done so.” She lifted her chin.
“You’re the honorless one, Bermin. Proven again by the fact you’d kill a bound man on his knees.”
Bermin’s face twisted with disgust. “He’s the King of Maridrina, Zarrah. Valcotta’s mortal enemy.
The same blood as the man who murdered your mother and my aunt, never mind the countless other
Valcottans the Veliants have slaughtered. You swore an oath to fight to the death in the Endless War, but you slaughter Valcotta’s soldiers to save your lover. ”
“I swore an oath to defend Valcotta against her enemies,” she corrected. “To protect our people and raise Valcotta up high, which is exactly what I’m doing. As long as the Endless War rages on, Valcotta suffers needlessly, and there is no sacrifice I won’t make to stop it in its tracks.”
“Liar,” her cousin said with a smirk. “My mother might be insane, but she was right to say that this one”—he tapped the edge of his blade against Keris’s neck—“has a hold on you that will never cease until he’s dead. You are his plaything, his puppet, and if you ever sat on the throne, he’d rule Valcotta from between your thighs.”
Zarrah clenched her teeth, refusing to allow him to goad her.
“Are you that good?” Bermin asked Keris. “Or is she just so desperate for love that she’ll take it where she can get it?”
Keris made no response, and Zarrah wished she could see his face so that she might know what he was thinking. What he was planning.
This is your plan, she silently chastised herself. Quit waiting for Keris to lead.
She took a step closer, then froze as Bermin said, “Stay where you are, or your lover dies.”
Her cousin was stalling; she knew that. Just as she knew that Daria’s warriors could not defeat so many heavily armed soldiers, especially if reinforcements arrived. She needed to disarm Bermin and get Keris up that rope while there was still time for flight.
“You afraid to fight me?” she asked, hoping to bait him, but Bermin only laughed. “Fool me once, shame on you, little Zarrah. But fool me twice—”
She threw her spear.
Her aim was true. The weapon shot toward her cousin’s face, but for all his failings, Bermin was a warrior through and through. With a snarl, he lifted his blade and knocked the spear from the air before cutting downward at Keris’s neck.
To find empty air.
Keris kept rolling as Zarrah charged, snatching up Kian’s fallen sword. Her blade met Bermin’s with a clash, the strength of his blow making her arm shudder, but she held her ground.
Her cousin did not.
Cursing, he backed away, eyes flicking to the cliff tops. Zarrah barked out a laugh, driving him away from Keris, who was furiously sawing at the rope using a dead man’s knife wedged between two rocks. “For all your talk about taking your mother’s crown, you’re afraid of her,” she sneered.
“That’s why you don’t just kill me and be done with that. That’s why you need to resort to dishonorable trickery to try to undermine me.”
“You undermine yourself,” her cousin retorted. “You’re a silly little woman who betrayed her Empress and nation for a man. My mother might think you redeemable, but I know better. Destroying him won’t change anything because you are weak. Because you are a pawn. Because you were made to be used by others, not to lead.”
Zarrah’s arm trembled, fury rising in her chest. Except it was being lifted by the fear that he was right.
Silence him, her rage demanded. Put him in the ground.
“You never change, little Zarrah.” Bermin’s eyes flicked to the cliff tops, then back to her. “So high on your own ideals, with no realization that every one of them has been planted in your mind by another.”
Something in her mind snapped, and Zarrah attacked.
To fight while she was so angry was the path to an early grave, but Zarrah could no more rein in her sword arm than she could the emotions in her chest. Silence him! her wrath shrieked, the intensity
“I swore an oath to defend Valcotta against her enemies,” she corrected. “To protect our people andof her need giving her strength.
And speed.
Before Bermin could react, she slashed at his ribs, blade cutting deep into the leather of his armor.
He hissed but instead of recoiling, swung at her unarmored chest.
one”—he tapped the edge of his blade against Keris’s neck—“has a hold on you that will never cease But Zarrah was already twisting away.
He stumbled when his blade found empty air, and she stepped past him, the tip of her blade scoring deep into his thigh.
Bermin howled, his toe catching on a rock and sending him sprawling, weapon flying out of his grip. He rolled, reaching for it, but her sword was already cutting down at his exposed spine.
A hand closed around her wrist, stopping the blow. “If you kill him, she’ll use him as a martyr,”
Keris said softly, his breath brushing her ear and making her chest tighten. “He can do more damage dead than alive, and I know that you know that.”
“Giving her instructions already?” Bermin laughed, blood trickling from where the tip of her sword pressed into his throat. “Little Zarrah never has a thought for herself. What, pray tell, does the King of Maridrina want her to do?”
Kill him. Kill him kill him kill him.
“Ignore him,” Keris said, and she shivered as his unshaven cheek touched hers. “He knows she’ll never forgive this. That she’ll name a dog her heir before him. That his only chance to be remembered as anything other than a failure is martyrdom.”
“So obedient,” Bermin said. “That was what she always said about you, little Zarrah. That you Her aim was true. The weapon shot toward her cousin’s face, but for all his failings, Bermin was a listened. That you did as you were told. My mother wanted someone who would follow her instructions even when she was in the grave. Her puppet. His puppet. The rebels’ puppet.”
Tears ran down her cheeks, her sword arm shaking.
“Zarrah, we need to go. Reinforcements will come.”
“Shut up,” she snarled. And though she knew it made her sound like a child, she added, “Don’t tell me what to do!”
Bermin tilted his head back and laughed. “You might not see the strings attached to you, cousin, but they are there. So many little strings making you dance and dance—”
She screamed and lifted her sword, but instead of slashing it down on Bermin’s throat, she drew back a foot and kicked him as hard as she could between the legs.
He squealed in agony, folding in on himself, but she was already turning away. “We need to get up that cliff,” she said to Keris, her voice emotionless. “Much of your plan is still in play, only we’ve lost the element of surprise.”
Keris only cast a backward glance at Bermin before heading to the channel. He paused long enough to collect some weapons, tucking them into his boots and belt, then, without a word, swam out into the channel to the floating rope. He climbed, not once looking down.
“You’ll be back in his bed before dawn,” Bermin shrieked. “You won’t be able to help yourself, little Zarrah.”