“No,” Zander blurted. Loud enough for Safi to hear. To feel him tensing with surprise. Vaness had lured him in with her sweetness.
“Liar,” the empress proceeded, no more sugar to lace her tone. Only iron. “You killed the people I love, and you will pay for it. I will bleed you dry, Hell-Bard from the North Sea. So I hope, for your sake, that you had nothing to do with it.”
The empress’s words sang with truth. A major chord of such purity, the intensity almost swallowed the promise’s meaning.
Which made Safi smile. Her second for the day. Because she would do the same if it turned out the Hell-Bards had been responsible for the explosion. Even if they hadn’t, she would still bleed dry the commander. The Chiseled Cheater who had ignited all this hell-fire and burned Safi’s life to the ground.
She would make him pay.
She would make him bleed.
ELEVEN
“Not now,” Vivia said to the eight thousandth servant to approach her since returning to the palace. She was sweaty, she was hungry, she was late. Yet the sun-seamed gardener didn’t seem to care as he scurried behind her through the royal gardens.
“But Your Highness, it’s the plums. The storm took down half the fruits before they were even ripe—”
“Do I look like I care about plums?” She did care about plums, but there was protocol to follow for these sorts of conversations. Besides, the King Regent’s inevitable displeasure at her tardiness was a lot more compelling than this gardener. So Vivia slanted her foulest Nihar glare and added, “Not. Now.”
The man took the hint, finally, and vanished into the shadows of said plum trees, which indeed looked worse for the wear. Then again, so did everything in Nubrevna.
Vivia had spent too long at the dam. Oh, it had taken her no time at all to sail her dugout over the northern Water-Bridge of Stefin-Ekart, and the ancient dam and its ancient splinter up the middle had quickly taken shape against the evening sky. Up Vivia had ridden the locks—up, up, until at last, she’d reached the waters abovestream. There, she’d dunked her toes into the icy river, stretching, feeling, reaching until she’d sensed every dribble of water that entered the witch-controlled funnels of the dam. But all was as it should have been. The crack was still only surface level on the stones.
So Vivia had returned to Lovats, and that was when she’d lost all her time, stuck amid the ships carrying Nubrevnans into the city. The sun was setting by the time Vivia sailed into the Northern Wharf, and it was almost gone entirely behind the Sirmayans before she reached the palace grounds atop Queen’s Hill, and finally, Vivia marched into a courtyard, surrounded on all sides by the royal living quarters.
The broken latch on the main door required three forceful shakes from a footman before he could get it open, and the hinges screamed like crows across the battlefield.
Into the entry hall, Vivia strode, where she ran—quite literally—into her father’s youngest page. Servant eight thousand and one.
“Your Highness,” the boy squeaked. “The King Regent is ready to see you.” His nose wiggled, leaving his whisker-like mustache to tremble—and finally clarifying why all the other pages called him Rat. Vivia had always assumed it was because his name, Rayet, had a similar ring.
“I’m ready,” she offered stiffly, brushing at her uniform.
Rat led the way. Their footsteps echoed off the hallway’s oak walls. No more rugs to absorb her footfalls, no tapestries to muffle the click-clack. Twelve years ago, Serafin had removed all decorations that reminded him of Jana, throwing it into the storerooms beneath the palace, where it had rotted and where real rats had feasted upon the painted faces of long-forgotten kings.
So two years ago, Vivia had sold off each item. Piece by piece and on channels that weren’t precisely legal. Dalmotti Guildmasters, it would seem, were quite willing to trade their food in secret if real Nubrevnan art was on the table.
When Vivia finally reached her father’s wing, it was to find the inevitable darkness. Serafin’s illness made his eyes sensitive to light; he now lived in a world of shadows. Rat scuttled ahead to open the door and announce her arrival.
Vivia swept past him the instant he’d finished. Twice as large as Vivia’s own bedroom, the king’s quarters were no less spare. A bed against the left wall with a stool beside the headboard. A hearth on the right wall, untouched and whooshing with winds. Closed shutters, closed curtains.
Vivia squared her body to her father. No bow. No salute. No word of greeting. Save your energy for the council, he would always say. With me, you can be yourself.