“Please don’t!” Nerissa held out her hands and shook her head. “Don’t hurt the child!”
“If I do, it will only be because you gave me no other choice. It will be your fault entirely.” Neela shook her head. “And such a waste to spill even a drop of this baby’s precious blood. So here is how this will work. The two of you will leave here immediately and rejoin your friends downstairs, who, no doubt, have been captured by now, as they were the last time they attempted a siege upon the Spear. Then you will all be executed—the more blood spilled at my granddaughter’s Ascension, the better and more memorable it will be.”
Amara hadn’t moved, had barely breathed, as she’d listened to her grandmother calmly explain all this.
“And you . . .” Neela addressed Amara now. “I must say, your actions today worry me.”
Amara shook her head. “They shouldn’t. I am still with you in all ways, madhosha. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have everything I have today.” She needed to play along, needed to convince her grandmother she was trustworthy.
And a horrible part of her, a scared and dark part she wasn’t proud of, wanted to erase her deal with Felix and Nerissa, to have everything go back to the way it was before, when the world was hers to do with as she pleased now that she had enough power to wield.
“I have been your greatest advisor,” Neela said. “I know you’ve struggled with some decisions you’ve had to make, such as with Ashur. But you did choose to kill him, just as you killed your father and two other brothers. You did that, not me.”
“I know,” Amara whispered.
Neela took a step forward. With Lyssa cradled in one arm, she reached her other hand out and stroked Amara’s check.
“You need me, dhosha. I’ve given you everything you’ve ever desired, and yet now you look at me with such doubt that it breaks my heart. But it can still be all right.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Nerissa hissed. “She fills your head with lies.”
Amara tried to ignore her, tried to focus only on her grandmother’s face.
“It can?” she whispered.
“Yes. However, sadly, today it seems that you lost your mind, dhosha.”
Amara shook her head. “I haven’t lost my mind.”
“But you have,” Neela insisted. “I have seen this madness coming upon you ever since you lost your beloved father and brothers. I’ve documented it, but I had hoped it wouldn’t escalate to this.”
“What are you talking about?” Amara’s heart began to beat fast and hard. “I’m not mad!”
“I’ve found a place for you, somewhere safe, where you can recover your mind. It will be peaceful, so very peaceful, and I promise to visit you regularly. There are others like you there, others afflicted by this confusion that has caused you to hurt so many people I know you love, including me. I hope that the actions I’ve taken will help you heal, my beloved dhosha. And during your absence, for as long as it takes, I will rule in your place.”
Amara stared at her grandmother as the rest of her world began crashing down all around her.
“You planned this all along,” she said, the words like jagged rocks in her throat.
Those of a lower class, if they lost their minds, were allowed to leave this life gently, with the hope that they would be cured for their next life. But those of the royal class were given the opportunity to heal during this life.
Locked away in a forgetting room—but one in a madhouse, where its prisoners were told it was for their own good, not because of a specific crime they’d committed.
But Amara knew the experience was the same in all other ways.
Forgotten for years—decades.
Sometimes until their natural death.
Neela sent a glare toward Felix and Nerissa, who were still watching silently. “Put down your weapons and walk away, or I fear my granddaughter will hurt this child, and I can’t do a thing about it.” She moved the tip of the blade upward to Lyssa’s small, vulnerable throat.
Nerissa and Felix finally did as instructed, their expressions dark and pained. They moved backward until they were on the other side of the open door.
“I’ve won,” Neela said. “Admit it and all of this will go smoothly, dhosha. I promise it doesn’t have to hurt.”
Amara tasted the bitter tang of the red dye as she licked her lips, trying to find the strength to reply, to say what she knew she had to say. Her grandmother controlled her life—she always had. Amara just hadn’t realized it until now.
“You’ve won,” Amara whispered. “Now please, please put the baby back in her cradle.”
“Very well.” Neela smiled and gently placed Lyssa down. “Now I want you to thank me for the beautiful gift I’ve given you.”
Amara smoothed the sides of her golden skirts. “Thank you for the beautiful gift you’ve given me.”
“A gift that is valuable and precious.”
“Yes. Yes, it is.”
“Not it, my darling. She. And we still need to pick a new name for her.”
“Oh.” Amara frowned. “I didn’t mean that gift.”
Neela cocked her head. “Then what gift did you mean?”
“This gift.” Amara drew her wedding dagger out from beneath the folds of her skirt and pulled her grandmother into an embrace. “Thank you, madhosha. Thank you so much.”
Then she sank the tip of the blade into her grandmother’s chest. The old woman gasped, stiffened, but Amara held on.
“You poisoned the wine,” Amara whispered in her ear. “I know you did. But even if you didn’t, this still had to happen.”
She yanked the blade out. The front of her golden gown was now stained with her grandmother’s blood.
Neela stood there for a moment, her hand pressed to her chest, her eyes wide with disbelief.
“I did everything for you,” she managed.
“I suppose I’m just an ungrateful grandchild,” Amara replied as Neela fell to her knees. “Always thinking of herself and no one else.”
“This isn’t over,” Neela gasped, but her words grew weak as her blood flowed over the floor. “The potion . . . the resurrection potion. I’ve taken it. I will live again.”
“That potion requires one who loves you more than any other to sacrifice their life in exchange for yours.” Amara raised her chin. “That might have been me before today. But no longer.”
Neela dropped to her side, and the life faded from her gray eyes.
Amara then turned to Felix and Amara, standing in the doorframe, staring at her as if she’d just performed the most incredible feat of magic they’d ever witnessed.
“I really hate to admit it, but I think I’m impressed,” Felix said, shaking his head.
Nerissa had no such reaction as she moved quickly to the cradle and picked up Lyssa.
“Take her and go,” Amara said, surprised that she sounded so calm. The dagger she held continued to drip her grandmother’s blood to the floor. “I have some things to clean up here.”