“Lower your weapon and I will.”
Teryn held still for a long beat, then lowered the poker to his side. He kept it firmly in his grip, however, his posture defensive, still half blocking Cora.
“Right,” Darius said. “Now, I’m sure you have questions—”
“It was you all along,” Cora said, her mind still reeling. With every breath, more of the pieces were clicking into place. “You were never a spy. You got caught on purpose.”
And the prisoner hadn’t been freed by a traitor. Sure, he could have had an accomplice, but it wouldn’t have been necessary. Because if this was Darius Solaria, King of Syrus, all he’d needed to do was worldwalk out of the cell.
Then worldwalk back with a decoy corpse.
Gods, what a fool she’d been. All this time, she’d thought her best defense against him was to keep him from ever stepping foot in Khero, preventing him from familiarizing himself with key locations and securing places to worldwalk to.
Yet he’d been here all along. He’d waltzed straight into her kingdom and into her castle as if he’d been invited.
He arched a brow. “Was that a question?”
“Why did you do it?”
“I wanted to meet you, and getting captured as a Norunian spy was my best bet.”
Teryn scoffed. “You could have sent a formal request for an audience. Or negotiated a meeting on neutral ground.”
“Yes, but would you have faced me with an open mind? That’s what I came to discover. I wanted to gauge my chances at peaceful relations between us, or see if your preconceived notions were too strong.”
“You make it sound like you came for tea,” Cora said, “but what you really did was invade my castle under a false pretense and a false name and lie to us. If you wanted peaceful relations, you should have tried something else. Pretending to be a prisoner, feeding us false information, and faking your death was a sure way to turn us against you.”
“No, you were already turned against me.” His voice took on a cold edge. “Thanks to my idiot son. Foolish Desmond, parading around as Duke Morkai. What a ridiculous moniker. As if calling himselfKing of Magicin the fae language would help him become Morkaius.”
Cora stiffened at the mention of Morkai. Or Desmond, as was his birth name. Did Darius know his son was dead? Did he blame Cora for his death? Was he here for revenge? Questions burned Cora’s mind, but she didn’t want to give anything away by asking the wrong one. She couldn’t be sure what Darius did or didn’t know already, or what Morkai may have told him.
She shifted her feet, rooting herself to the stone floor, and sought logic over fear. His presence was terrifying and didn’t bode well for the safety of her castle. Yet she could learn what she could, starting with the facts they’d already exchanged. “When you pretended to be a Norunian spy, you claimed Norun was targeting us over the death of Prince Helios. Was any of that true?”
“Oh, it was true. Before Desmond met his end at Centerpointe Rock, he detailed the prince’s death to King Isvius, attempting to paint Selay as the enemy and potentially gain an ally. But when Desmond couldn’t follow up to fan the flames of hatred and control their direction, the King of Norun turned his ire upon Khero instead. Norun made for an easy ally when I began correspondence with Isvius and mentioned my plans to invade Khero.”
So Darius did know about Morkai’s death. And his alliance with Norun was real.
“Why are you targeting Khero?”
He gave her a pointed look. “You know why. I know all about the Veil and Lela and the prophecy. Even before I got my memories back, I knew. Desmond was useful in one thing at least, and that was dying. His death triggered an enchantment he’d forged as a safeguard, ensuring his hard work wouldn’t be lost if he failed. The enchantment materialized in a veritable tome of information that landed on my study desk in Syrus. Despite our many decades of estrangement, he’d continued to detail his discoveries and actions. The report told me everything he’d hidden from me after our falling out. It was quite illuminating.”
Mother Goddess, was there anything he didn’t know?
“I hope you see what’s at stake now,” he said. “The missive you received from me this morning spoke only truth. In three weeks, we will meet at the Khero-Vinias border, and I will demand Khero’s surrender. If you refuse, my Norunian reinforcements will follow and lay waste to your kingdom. Moreover, if I wanted to act sooner, I could. Ever since I left your dungeon, I’ve spent time orienting myself with certain locations in the castle. It would be easy to claim Ridine. I could have control of it by morning.”
Tremors racked Cora’s body at his words. At the very real picture they painted. She couldn’t keep the quaver from her voice, but at least she had enough rage to hide her fear. “Then why are you here chatting with us?”
“Unlike my son, who used war negotiations as bait for battle, I truly want to avoid war. I’ll resort to it if I must, plan for it, but I don’t want you to be my enemy.” He stepped away from the wall, hands clasped behind his back. “Besides, there is an alternative to surrender.”
Cora remembered what he’d said when he’d first arrived.
“You want us to ally with you,” Teryn said.
“Yes, but instead of talking in circles about it, I want to extend a personal invitation for Queen Aveline to speak with me in private. And no, the invitation is for one, not two. Aveline will come with me alone.”
“Come with you…to where?” Cora asked.
“To Syrus.”
