“Surely they could just do it anyway,” she posed.
“Not without breaking the law,” he informed her, “and even the king has laws he must follow. Once you’re Uprisen, you’re the only one here who will be able to use the pool’s healing properties. It doesn’t slow down aging, but the Basileus and Basilissa don’t have to worry about that anyway. If, however, one of them is shot with a fritz, or worse…”
They’d be screwed, would most likely die, and then she’d be the surviving ruler. The new Basilissa. Which was so not an option.
Tilda moved over to her, taking Delaney’s hands in her own and squeezing lightly. “Please try to understand. We’re doing this for our people, and for our daughter.”
Delaney sighed. “I just want to go home.”
“And you will,” Magnus promised. “As soon as Olena is found, we will honor our agreement. Until then, however, you will be standing in her place for the Uprising. I’m sure Ruckus can show you what to do, what’s expected. It’s not very complex, so you shouldn’t worry about screwing it up. But it is important that you pull it off without mistakes.”
“If she’s already the Lissa…,” Delaney started. She kept her attention on Tilda, seeing that she was the only one of the two who actually seemed to care what they were putting her through. “Then what’s the actual purpose of an Uprising anyway? She’s already the heir, isn’t she?”
Hadn’t she asked if Olena had siblings and been told no?
“It’s sort of like an exchanging of power…,” Tilda began, clearly struggling to find the right words. “It’s more than simply telling the universe that she’s our heir; it’s expressing that we’re prepared to step aside for her. Once she’s Uprisen, we”—she glanced at her husband—“will stop using the Alter Pool ourselves. It will be her decision then, if one of us should be fatally wounded, whether or not to allow us entrance.”
“You’re going to give Olena that kind of control?” Delaney yanked her hands out of the Basilissa’s grasp. “Look, no disrespect or anything, but I have yet to hear one good thing about your daughter, and are you forgetting? She did this to me!”
“And she’s about to be bound to the Zane of Kint,” Magnus reminded her. “Who also happens to be the heir to his father. We’re well aware of who our children are, Miss Grace, but together they’ll be forced to grow up.”
“Because if they don’t, they’ll never have children.” She was still disgusted by that notion, and after this conversation, she was even more so with the Basileus. “You don’t care whether or not she’s happy, do you? She ran, and you still don’t care.”
“Delaney,” Ruckus said, giving her a low warning and reaching out to touch her elbow.
“She’s allowed to speak her mind.” Magnus waved him off while maintaining eye contact with her. “So long as she does so here, behind closed doors. If anyone outside this room should discover your true identity, Miss Grace, let me remind you—”
“Don’t bother,” she cut him off. “I know the stakes. I don’t want war for my people any more than you want it for yours.”
“Ah.” His eyes lost some of their edge, though the calculation remained. “So you think I’m a terrible father, but you believe I want what’s best for my people? Has it not occurred to you then, that those things conflict? I can’t have both my daughter’s happiness and the safety of Vakar. I must choose. Should I place the well-being of my single daughter above that of the thousands who live here in Vakar?”
She really hated it when people she was arguing with made valid points. It was so much harder for her to continue to discredit them, to hate them. And she found she really wanted to hate the Basileus right now.
“Fine.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “So I’ll do the Uprising ceremony. Then what? We can’t keep this up forever.”
“We won’t have to.” Satisfied, Magnus went back around his desk, lowering himself dignifiedly back into his black leather chair. “They’re close to finding my daughter. Who knows? They might end up bringing her back here the day after the Uprising, and then you’ll get to return to your family.” He smiled, but it was less than kind. “To your loving father.”
Had she been thinking about fitting Trystan in the fireplace? Forget that. Burning Magnus alive was starting to have a certain appeal.
CHAPTER 17
“They’re scared, Delaney,” Ruckus told her the next day. He’d brought her to another section of the castle, this one filled with weapons, none of which were recognizable. Explaining some of them to her, he’d walked her through the room, pointing out the most popular technology, including a spray that apparently melted through flesh.
Awesome.
The room housed most of the castle’s main weapons. The floors were slick and onyx, the ceiling high. There were no windows, and two doors, one leading in from the main hall and another he’d told her led up a stairwell to another part of the castle.
There were four long tables, two on either side positioned with about six feet between them and the walls where more weapons hung. To the right was a sectioned-off area surrounded on one side by glass.
Many of the weapons here seemed extreme, but recalling that they’d been at war for many generations up until five years ago eased some of her judgment. She certainly didn’t know what that was like, living in constant fear, always afraid a Kint ship was going to come up over the horizon and attack.
He told her about one of the worst attacks, something that happened ten years ago, not long before the shaky peace talks had begun. They’d bombed an entire Vakar city, killing thousands in a matter of minutes. There’d been nothing that the Basileus could do to stop it.
And that’d just been the beginning.
“We’ve gotten word that they’re working on something,” he was telling her now. “Something big. Worse than the tech they used on the city. It could destroy huge chucks of Vakar. Kill millions. We might not survive it if the intel is true.”
“Is that why this peace treaty is so important?” she asked, walking around to the other side of a table. There were guns hanging on the wall behind it, some of which looked very similar to rifles back on Earth. How strange, that all this existed and she’d gone her whole life without knowing it.
“Partly,” he said as he slowly trailed her, “yes. The Rex denies these claims, of course. He says there are no mass weapons being built.”
“Do you believe him?”
“The Basileus—”
“No,” she interrupted, turning in time to see him step up to her. “Do you believe him?”
“I believe if there are weapons being created of that caliber, the Rex doesn’t know about it.”
“How’s that possible? He’s the king.”
“Who runs an entire population,” he pointed out. “A lot can happen in a day, let alone a few years.”