“Yes, but which would you prefer?”
Aratea’s glaze was smooth, without any cracks, but Melia knew everybody desired something, even if it was only a quick death. She was an expert on fathers who controlled their children, on people used as tools, on destinies that outgrew the person who carried them, and she knew that deep down, in the darkest corners of one’s heart, it was all nonsense. People wanted what they wanted, no matter how much they lied about it.
What do you want, Melia?
Not now.
“What do you want?” Melia insisted.
Given the confused expression on the carevna’s previously calm face, she might have been the first person to ask her that question.
“I don’t…” Aratea’s voice trailed off. Her small, pearly teeth bit into the soft flesh of her lip. “I want a place in this world that is my own. I want to remain here and travel this kingdom and see the places I’ve only read about. I want power that does not come from my father.”
Melia nodded, keeping her mouth shut, waiting.
Aratea wrapped an unruly lock of hair around her finger and tucked it back beneath the scarf. “Is this some kind of a trick question? Because you know well there’s nothing I can do. There’s nothing you can do, either. We can only wait.”
“No.” Melia shook her head. “I’m done with waiting. You believe the world revolves around your father—I used to think the same about mine. They’re so powerful, the masters of life and death, so huge they fill your whole horizon. But that’s a deception. The world is full of people, and every one of them hasthe power to change the course of events.”
“Is that what you like to think of yourself?” Aratea retorted.
Melia let the insult slide. ”I’m not asking you to help me, nor asking you to do anything that you’re not already doing. Keep waiting a little longer.”
“Waiting?”
“The king’s guard is out there, defending the embassy, and they won’t let any harm come to you. All I’m asking is for you to wait it out, wait till the riots run their course, don’t use them as the reason to run back to your father. Abia will come to its senses, I’m sure, and I’ll… I’ll stop my father somehow, I promise.” She had no idea how she would do it, but she kept the uncertainty out of her voice. “You’ve made your choice to come here and wed Amril. Stand by that choice now, please.”
Aratea looked at the shuttered window in silence while the mob roared outside.
“Perhaps we don’t have much in common, except the ambition of our fathers and this family we both married into,” Melia said. “But that’s enough, because when I think about where I’d rather be when all this ends, that place is not Syr. I was wrong to call it home, it was never a home to me, just a place where my father abused me and would abuse me again if I returned.
“There is some freedom here. Not much, but enough to allow you to breathe. You are a clever woman, you will know how to use it.”
Aratea’s face didn’t show emotions, or at least any emotions Melia could read, but the long pause told her the carevna was thinking about it. She was tempted to offer friendship—they were married to brothers, after all—but it sounded false in Melia’s mind. She’d never known how to make friends.
“Fine,” Aratea agreed at last. “I’ll wait in Abia as long as I can, and I’ll give Amril a fair chance. Is that what you want?”
Melia nodded, letting out a tiny sigh of relief. She waswondering what the appropriate goodbye would be—should they shake hands like men who’d just made a deal?—when shouts exploded in the corridor. The ambassadress barged into the room without knocking.
“Fire!” she said. “They set the roof on fire!”
Melia caught Aratea’s eyes and mouthed a silentplease.
Aratea nodded. “Get everyone down to the courtyard. Don’t fight the king’s guard or the mob if you can.”
“And you, my lady?”
“I should get back to the palace.”
Chapter 25
Liana
Darin fell tohis knees, clawing at the arrow in his chest. Liana knelt beside him, grabbing his hand. There was no pulling the arrow out, it had to be pushed through the flesh. Blood sprayed out in a bright arc, unstoppable.
The guards swirled around them in a wild vortex of panic. Shouts, the thunder of running feet, hooves, the crowd roaring, Amron’s face a pale dot among the blue uniforms.
She opened her mouth and the word she never wanted to utter again broke out. “Mother!” she cried. Her fingers raked the air until there was a hint of resistance, a gossamer fabric tearing beneath her nails.
