“This is absurd!” Father shoots to his feet. “Unconscionable!”
Mother clutches Father’s robe and rises too, her eyes clearer than I’ve seen in days. “What exactly are you saying, Soren?”
“I’m saying,” Soren speaks slowly, taunting us with each measured syllable, “our treaty once again demands fulfillment. If you wish to continue receiving our protection, you must pay the negotiated price.” He turns to me, not even trying to suppress his smirk. “Which means Miss Indira will be returning with us to Vanzador.”
Five
Soren’s words tumble through my head like pebbles in a raging river,refusing to make sense.
They’re takingmeto Vanzador?
The notion is so ridiculous, I let out a shrill laugh. The Vanzadorian king has never glanced in my direction before today. Rowenna was the oldest, the heir, the obvious choice. I’m a terrible replacement. I pose no political threat. I will never be half the queen she would have been.
“We’d have chosen Indira from the outset, had we been privy to hergift,” Soren continues, plunging me back beneath the surface before I’ve had a chance to catch my breath. “It’s quite disappointing you didn’t tell us sooner…” He tuts at Father, then appraises me again from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.
The hunger in his eyes makes me shudder, but it’s that word—gift—that bites into me with the force of an ax. We have never,neverrevealed who among us are master gardeners. The Vanzadorians must protect us all in exchange for their shipments of bagrava.
But Soren knows.
I stumble backward, gaping at my parents. They’re the only ones inTashir who correspond with the Vanzadorian king, and they’ve been so consumed with the absence of their beloved oldest daughter, they must have slipped and said something.
Or maybe it wasn’t an accident at all.
Mother blinks at me with wide, guilty eyes, and Father can’t meet my gaze at all. I suppose their shock might be genuine, but I’m willing to bet all the grain in the storehouse their distress stems from being caught.
You know that isn’t true, Rowenna is quick to counter. But the only thing Iknowis I’m not fierce, bold, and brave like Ro. I’m not strong enough to be the queen Tashir needs. My parents may not have consciously come to this conclusion, but their actions reveal their true feelings.
I am expendable.
“How could you?” I shout at them.
To my surprise, Father is already yelling, even louder—twice as loud as I thought possible. “Get out!” He points a trembling finger at King Soren and his entourage. “Out of my palace! Out of my country!”
When no one moves, Father roars like a landslide and overturns his banquet table.
Screams fill the atrium as the heavy table slams onto the ground. Jam spatters the columns like blood. Peach scones fly like severed body parts, and under any other circumstance, I would have burst into applause. For once, Father isn’t dithering, bumbling, or apologizing. He’s shouting and overturning tables.
For you, Rowenna whispers.
But it’s too little too late.
King Soren kicks his spiked boots up on his table and looks from me to my parents, smiling as if he hasn’t had this much fun in ages. “You can’t dismiss us yet, Bastian. We haven’t even had dessert.”
Mother’s entire frame trembles as she elbows past Father and slams her palms on the table in front of Soren. “You’ve had more thanenough!”
Despite how livid I am with them both, I immediately feel calmer. Safer. My odds of remaining in Tashir are much higher if Mother has awoken from her grief-stricken stupor.
Something in her eyes must frighten Soren, at least a little, because the Vanzadorian king takes his feet down and perches on the edge of his seat. “We’ll leave, if that’s truly your wish, Ianthe. I’m just surprised you’ve already forgotten the dark days of the Marauders’ raids. Memories of you on your knees, begging for my protection, remain crystal clear.”
Mother’s laughter could freeze every plant in the greenhouse. “You ‘protect’ us as a cat protects a mouse—only to toy with us and devour us.”
Instead of responding, Soren defers to Alaric, who’s been waiting at the ready, practically stamping his foot like a restless horse. “We wouldn’t need totoywith you,as you put it, if you simply honored our requests.”
“Your requests keep going up!” Mother snaps back. “We can’t survive on only sixty percent of our yield.”
“You could if you worked harder,” Soren says as if he knows anything about farming. Rowenna’s letters detailed how useless and slothful he is, always sitting on his granite throne, drinking mead like a slimy toad.
“Our people are working themselves to death.” Father pants and pulls at his hair. Even Mother is unraveling like the frayed hem of her finest gown.
