The Inadequate Heir, page 52
“I watched my father strangle my mother.” Keris couldn’t keep the anger from his voice. “So I think he did not care for her any more than he cared for Lara. Or for me.”
Serin giggled, a strange, insane sound that made Keris recoil. “There is no denying that your father was a flawed and violent man, but your mother is the only woman he ever loved. It was not her defiance in going after Lara that drove him to kill her, but the things she said when he caught up to her. The revelation of her true feelings for His Grace, which were not at all what he’d believed. How swiftly love turns to hate in the face of betrayal. A feeling I suspect Zarrah Anaphora is deeply familiar with.”
Keris couldn’t breathe.
“Did you really think you could keep a secret like that from me, Your Grace?” Serin rested his elbows on the desk. “I won’t belabor the countless little clues, not the least of which was a willingness to play the game you’d run away from all your pathetic life. I knew there was something between the two of you, but without proof, your father wouldn’t hear it. I thought the whore in Nerastis would yield something, but all she could tell me was that you wouldn’t touch her and that you’d disappear into the night, returning hours later smelling of lilac. She believed you were visiting a lover, and an innkeeper swore a man of your description rented one of his rooms in the company of a Valcottan woman. Which was compelling, but still not good enough for your father.”
The world around Keris pulsed in and out of focus, but the cursed monster wasn’t through.
“I came to realize that nothing short of catching you in the act—which I suspect our dear Otis did—would damn you in your father’s eyes. That even him catching you in Zarrah’s bed might not be enough, for he relished your defiance, ever believing that it would one day turn you to the purpose he envisioned for you. I saw that I was destined to watch you ascend and lose my power to your idealism, and so I resolved to render you powerless in the one way that mattered most.”
Kill him! Silence him! Keris’s grip on his knife tightened, because he could not let this get out. Could not allow Serin to voice the truth—not because it would damn him.
But because it would damn Zarrah.
He lunged across the table, knife slicing toward the Magpie’s throat, but then Serin’s words caused him to freeze. “If you kill me, you kill her, too. If I die, my flock has orders to release the details of your sordid little affair.”
Shit shit shit. Keris let go of the front of Serin’s robes. “What do you want?”
The Magpie let out a strange giggle. “My flock whispered your speech into my ears, Keris. Told me that you swore to protect those who need protecting and to bring the villains who would prey upon them to justice.” Serin’s laughter turned wild, absolutely devoid of sanity. “If you wanted to protect Zarrah, you should have taken her far, far away, but instead, you sent her back into the arms of the greatest villain I’ve ever known.”
Dearest God, what have I done?
“For all his faults, your father loved you. Protected you. And I think even if I were to reveal this truth to the people, they’d forgive you, Keris, because they want what you’ve promised. But Petra? Petra does not love. Petra does not feel. And Petra and I have a rapport that goes back all those years ago to when she delivered word to my flock that her sister, the true and rightful heir to Valcotta, was staying, virtually unprotected, at a villa near the border. I, in turn, whispered that information into the ears of your father.”
His breath caught, horror turning his veins to ice. The Empress had arranged the murder of her own sister. Zarrah’s mother.
“To twist the knife deeper, Petra took her niece and raised her in defiance of everything her mother believed in. Taught her to revel in violence and vengeance and war, not the peace her mother sought.” He smirked. “Just what do you think Petra will do to Zarrah when she discovers that her niece was not only the lover of her mortal enemy, but that Zarrah ruined her one chance to destroy Maridrina? Because if I meet my end, Petra will find out that Zarrah betrayed her plans. I promise you that. My flock is loyal only to me.”
Panic roared through Keris’s veins, everything too bright, too loud. “Name your price, Serin. What do you want?”
Because there was nothing he wouldn’t give to stop this. Including keeping this monster alive and by his side.
“The only thing I want,” Serin rose to his feet, “is to see the look on your face when you realize you’ve lost the game, Keris. When you realize you’ve lost to me.”
Then he threw himself forward.
Not at Keris, but through the windows encircling the tower, glass exploding as he struck.
Keris lunged after him onto the balcony, reaching.
But he was once again too late.
Serin flipped over the railing and fell, a wild shriek filling the air. Yet as Keris stumbled against the rail and looked down, it was to see the Magpie smiling up at him. Smiling, right until the moment he struck the paving stones below.
Thud.
“WE MADE WAR AGAINST the wrong enemy,” had been her aunt’s response when Zarrah had returned to Pyrinat. “I believed my adversary Silas, but it was his son. I will not make the same mistake next time.”
Next time. The words haunted Zarrah as she listened to her aunt give orders not for Zarrah to be punished for her choice to assist Aren at Southwatch but for a celebration in her honor. “Let it be known that my niece and heir is responsible for ripping the bridge out of Maridrina’s hands,” she declared. “Without her actions, and her warning, the Ithicanian army would never have made it to Eranahl in time to repel the Rat King and his fleet.”
A lie, through and through. Because of Keris, her chance to atone and regain her honor had been stolen away, Ithicana’s victory won by their own hands—and by the hands of their queen. Which was perhaps how it should be.
Silas was dead. Ithicana was liberated. And the Endless War between Maridrina and Valcotta was once again at a stalemate, all because of what Keris had done. She still couldn’t forgive him. Couldn’t give up her anger at his betrayal. But she also couldn’t give up him.
Her dreams were haunted by his face. His voice. His touch.
She loved him every bit as much as she hated him, and the emotions warred inside her, giving Zarrah no peace.
Which was perhaps fitting, given peace between Maridrina and Valcotta was not on the horizon. Not when her aunt’s obsession with her new adversary grew with every passing day. Keris had denied her victory and wounded her pride, and the result was a hate that made her lifelong animosity toward Silas seem a paltry thing.
It was terrifying, because what the Empress wanted wasn’t his death: she wanted Keris destroyed.
“Everyone has a weakness!” her aunt shouted as she stormed around the room, scraps of paper detailing everything the spies could learn about Keris fluttering to the ground. “We must find his!”
An Endless War between empresses and kings. A war of hubris and avarice. A war where people were nothing more than pawns on a board, used and discarded with no thought beyond whether they’d achieved the player’s purpose. And though Zarrah dedicated herself to steering her aunt to different goals and higher purpose, it amounted to nothing. Because to the Empress, Zarrah was as much a pawn as everyone else.
“WE SHOULD SEND an envoy to Ithicana,” Zarrah repeated. “Reaffirm our goodwill, yes?”
Her aunt didn’t respond, her attention entirely on a report detailing the plans for Keris’s upcoming coronation. “This tells me nothing!” She cast it aside. “Why does no one know anything about this man? I need to understand how he thinks, and you give me plans for dinner parties and décor! What does Keris Veliant want?”
“Peace.” The word slipped from Zarrah’s lips, and she instantly regretted it as her aunt rounded on her. “What makes you say that?”
“His actions.” Zarrah picked up a fallen report. “He’s made it clear that he doesn’t want the bridge and intends to withdraw what remains of his soldiers from Ithicana.”
“All that proves is he’s more intelligent than his father—that structure is a curse!”
“Bermin says there hasn’t been a single raid over the border,” Zarrah persisted. “And not for lack of manpower, for their garrison there is full. Instead, they look to defense and to rebuilding their half of the city.”
“Biding his time while Maridrina licks its wounds.” Her aunt picked up a glass, swirling the contents, eyeing the report. “It says he will not follow the Maridrinian tradition of marrying his father’s harem. Yet neither does he cast them aside. What do you make of that, girl? You lived with them for months yet offer little in the way of information.”
Zarrah’s chest tightened. “I believe his affection for them platonic.”
The Empress snorted. “An aversion to bedding them is not reason enough to risk angering his people by casting aside tradition. There’s something else going on.” She gestured to one of her spymasters. “Find out more about his motivations.”
The man bowed and exited, but on his heels, a servant came in carrying a tray. On it was an enamel tube bearing the Maridrinian royal seal. Zarrah’s heart skipped at the sight, wondering what possible message Keris would have sent her aunt.
The Empress clearly wondered the same thing, for she snatched up the tube and pulled out a thick sheave of paper, her brow furrowing as she sat to read.
Pulse racing, Zarrah waited in silence.
Seconds passed. Then minutes. After what felt like an eternity, her aunt set the pages down, staring blankly off into the distance. Her voice was hoarse as she said, “You’re just like your mother.”
Zarrah went still, her skin prickling. “Pardon, Auntie?”
The Empress’s lip curled, her nose wrinkling as though she smelled something rotten. “Despite everything I gave you, everything I’ve done for you, you took her side.” Her head swiveled, the eyes that latched on Zarrah’s filled with icy fury. “Both of you whores.”
A chill ran down Zarrah’s spine. “Excuse me?”
“You brought a rat into your bed.” Her aunt took a step toward her, and Zarrah instinctively stepped back. “Which would be unforgivable in itself, but you told him my secrets. You betrayed your Empress and your nation for your lover.”
“This is madness, Auntie.” She couldn’t keep the shake from her voice. “Who is telling you these lies?”
“It is you who lies!”
The blow came hard and fast, her aunt’s fist striking her in the cheek and knocking her back. Zarrah staggered, catching herself against a table.
“You were Keris Veliant’s lover.” The Empress stalked toward her. “Not just while you were his prisoner but before. After.”
“I ask again”—Zarrah lifted her chin—“who has told you these lies?”
“The Magpie.”
Her aunt threw the pages at her face. Zarrah caught several of them, eyes skipping over the spidery script laying out all the tiny damning details. A hundred coincidences that together whispered a truth that only a fool would deny. But for Keris’s sake—and her own—she had to try. “Serin is a liar.”
“Not to me.” Her aunt’s head cocked, her expression making Zarrah want to run. To hide. Because not only was what looked back at her unfamiliar and strange, it was barely human. “We have long been adversaries, and there is a trust that comes in that. What horror that I can put more faith in the words of a Maridrinian spymaster than that of my own flesh and blood. My chosen heir.”
“Auntie—”
“Shh, dear one.” The Empress pressed two fingers to Zarrah’s lips, nails digging in so hard that blood dribbled into her mouth. “I told no one but you my plans for Vencia. Told you to tell no one until you were on the high seas. Yet the princeling delivered my plans to his father in such a manner they could only have come from your lips. You betrayed me. Betrayed Valcotta.”
“I did not betray Valcotta.”
In a flash, a knife was in her aunt’s hand, pressed against Zarrah’s throat. “Lie to me again, dear one, and you will bleed out on this floor. And I’ll feed your corpse to the dogs.”
A traitor’s death.
Denial was pointless. But perhaps the truth might do some good. “I may have betrayed your confidence, but I did not betray Valcotta, Auntie. You sought to escalate a war and pursue an attack that would have seen countless innocents killed. And for what? What had we to gain from attacking Vencia besides the perverse pleasure of slaughter?”
“Revenge.” Her aunt stared at her, unblinking. “They killed your mother, Zarrah. Is the princeling so pleasing between the sheets that you’ve forgotten that? Forgotten how they cut off her head and hung her body up to rot and drip down upon you for days?”
Hearing it still hurt, but not in the way it once had. “I haven’t forgotten. But unlike you, I remember that it was Silas who killed my mother, not Maridrina. And Silas is dead.”
“Not all of him. You dishonor your mother’s memory by not extinguishing his bloodline.”
“Keris is—” She was about to say he was nothing like his father, but that wasn’t entirely true. Silas had left his mark on his son. “He’s not his father. He wants peace, Auntie. The Endless War could end. We could stop the fighting. Could have peace if only you would give up this … this fanatical pursuit of pride and vengeance. Valcotta will be better for it.”
Silence.
Blood dripped down her lips into her mouth, but Zarrah barely felt the sting as she stared into the eyes of the woman who’d saved her life. Who’d brought her back from the edge. Who’d made her strong. For the first time, she saw that there was something wrong with her aunt. Something missing. And its lack ensured the Empress would never understand the future Zarrah dreamed for Valcotta.
“You were supposed to be mine, dear one. Supposed to be the one who’d carry on my legacy. The one who’d ensure I lived on. But you’re still hers. Or worse,” she hissed, “you’re his.”
Zarrah lifted her chin. “I belong to no one but myself.”
And she’d honor herself to the bitter end.
The Empress laughed, and the wildness in it turned Zarrah’s blood to ice.
Then her aunt attacked.
The hilt of her aunt’s knife struck her in the temple, and Zarrah dropped to her knees, stunned. Only for a foot to catch her in the stomach, sending her toppling sideways. The world swam, and Zarrah tried to stand, but another blow caught her in the stomach, flipping her. Then another and another, each one driving deeper into her belly, agony racing through her body.
If you let her kill you, this will never end, a voice whispered from deep in her thoughts. If you let her kill you, she’ll make war on Keris.
She needed to fight.
Zarrah rolled, catching hold of the Empress’s ankle and pulling her down. She landed with a crash, and Zarrah was on top of her in a flash. Though her aunt had experience and skill, youth and strength still counted for something as Zarrah pinned her. “This can’t go on.” She spit blood onto the tile. “It has to stop.”
The Empress laughed. “The war will never stop.”
It was the truth. Under her aunt’s rule, nothing would ever change. And the chance for Zarrah to sway her had been eradicated, if it ever existed at all.
There was only one option left.
While she’d be executed for it, Zarrah had the hope that Bermin would be better, for at least her cousin still possessed his humanity.
Whereas this creature was devoid of the quality entirely.
Zarrah closed her hands over her aunt’s throat and squeezed, silencing the laughter.
And leaving panic in its wake.
Her aunt’s eyes bulged, and she squirmed and struggled beneath Zarrah. But the empress had taught Zarrah every trick she knew. And Zarrah capitalized on that knowledge even as she squeezed harder.
Her aunt’s face purpled, her eyes wide and frantic, and Zarrah watched as she lost consciousness. Tears flooded down her cheeks, but she didn’t let go.
Then a battering ram struck her in the side.
All the air drove out of Zarrah’s lungs, her head slamming against the tiles, and she vaguely made out Welran’s face above her. Boots pounded against floor as guards poured in, several moving to help her aunt’s bodyguard restrain Zarrah.
The Empress’s voice, soft and strangled, said, “She tried to kill me. She’s a traitor. A cursed traitor in bed with Maridrina. Arrest her! She’s charged with treason.”
The world swam in and out of focus, but Zarrah forced herself to center on the Empress. “Yes, Auntie. Arrest me. Try me for treason and give me a trial.” Because the law demanded it, and Zarrah was prepared to ensure that everyone in Pyrinat, and in Valcotta, heard what she had to say about their ruler.
The Empress was quivering, Welran having moved to support her, but it was false weakness. For the eyes that stared back at Zarrah held nothing but fury. “No, dear one. There will be no trial for you. No execution. For what you’ve done, it must be Devil’s Island.”
Horror filled Zarrah’s chest, and on its heels came terror unlike anything she’d ever known, bile burning up her throat because to be sent to that island was to be sent to hell on earth. “No, Auntie. Please, please don’t send me there!”
“If you couldn’t face the consequences, you shouldn’t have betrayed me.”
But treason meant execution, not that place. “Just kill me now. Please.”
The Empress only gave her a cold smile. “Put her in shackles. And gag her. Leave her traitorous words for those who will greet her on Devil’s Island’s shores.”
THE RUMOR THAT he’d killed Serin in cold blood swept across Vencia like a tidal wave, repeated over and over until all swore it was truth. And although no one wept for the loss of Maridrina’s spymaster, the knowledge that their new king had murdered him in cold blood changed things.
