“The crown prince is ill and the carevna fled to the embassy. I guess that’s exactly what you wanted to achieve.” Melia narrowed her eyes, focusing on Ferisa’s chin. “You have a speck of blood here. Whose is it?”
Ferisa rubbed her jaw and smiled instead of answering. “Come, your father will want to see you.”
Roderi of Elmar sat in his office, giving orders to half a dozen men, but he sent them all out with a flick of his wrist when Melia stepped in.
“Father, I need to talk to you in private,” she said, nails biting into the soft flesh of her palms.
Ferisa turned to leave, but Roderi of Elmar said, “Stay.” And then to Melia: “Ferisa knows all my plans. Whatever it is, I want her to hear it.”
His glare peeled away layers of Melia’s skin until she was nothing but a soft, vulnerable worm twisting before him. Still, from some unknown well in her heart, she pulled the courage required to say, “Father, you must run immediately.”
He lifted his eyebrows, feigning confusion. “And why would I do that?”
“Because Amron knows you’re a traitor, but I begged him to give you the chance to retreat to Syr before the king finds out.”
Unlike Ferisa, her father wore no sleek silk. He was in chainmail, and instead of making him panic, Melia’s words provoked a bout of grim, mirthless laughter.
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about the king,” he said.
Melia had no sixth sense, no special feeling for the uncanny, yet her blood turned cold and a feeling of finality akin to the moment when the soldiers brought her brother home came over her.
“Father, what have you done?” Her voice betrayed her, fading into a ragged whisper.
“You didn’t think this was some game to drive the Seragians away and spend the rest of our lives under the boot of the king and his ilk, did you?” her father said. “This is a rebellion, Melia, and it won’t end until all of the royal cowards are gone.”
“And the Empire?”
“Back to where we should have been, were it not for this cowardly treaty: at war.”
The great, courageous, warlike Roderi of Elmar couldn’t see it, he really couldn’t. Perhaps because Melia was a blind spot, a disposable thing to him, a blunt tool to distract his enemies. The war with Seragia would be nothing like the border skirmish in Elmar. The emperor wasn’t distracted this time, he wasn’t uninterested. The whole blasting focus of the imperial gaze was on Abia, because this waspersonal. Because, unlike the Black Lord, the Emperor of Seragia cared about his daughter.
“Don’t do it,” she whispered.
Her father was already saying something to Ferisa when she uttered the words. He paused, turned to her. “What did you say?”
She should have saidnothingand scurried out, like always. But she couldn’t stand the stench of death that had been following her everywhere, she was tired of the endless bloodshed, endless grief. And therefore she threw herself on her knees before her father, under Ferisa’s incredulous gaze, and begged.
“Please, no more death, no more blood.”
“Is that what your spineless husband has taught you?” He grabbed her chin and forcefully lifted her head. “To be a coward? To run away from your enemies?”
“I want no part of it,” Melia said. “I’m done.”
“You’ll be done when I’m finished with you.” He shoved her so hard she crashed into a cabinet. “When they pulled you out ofthat heap of corpses, I praised the gods for saving my child. Had I known they’d take Rovin instead, I’d have left you to rot.”
Ferisa, who used to be her friend, who used to comfort her in the bleak loneliness of Syr, now made no move to help her. Instead, she put her hand on Roderi’s shoulder in a sickeningly intimate, plainly possessive gesture, and said, “It’s time to let Abia know the Seragians have killed the king.”
The king?
What have they done to the king?
Melia fled the room. As she climbed the stairs, she heard her father giving instructions to his men. “Spread the word that the king is dead and the Seragians are to blame. Lead the mob to the embassy.”
From the stairs leading to the first floor, she watched the grim-eyed guards leave the hall, armed to the teeth, the noise of grinding metal and harsh voices making her tremble. She scurried up, running blindly until she found a dark, empty room, where she huddled in the corner.
It didn’t help; the tide of death still found her, as it always had. A black wave of grief and loss washed over her and filled her with darkness, followed by sights and sounds she couldn’t ignore, no matter how tightly she covered her ears or shut her eyes. They played out in her head, relentless, unending.
Rovin in his last moments, delirious with pain, begging for mercy.
