“Come, I’ll help you up,” Melia said softly to Ferisa. “We must get out.” All the anger and betrayal faded away when old instincts kicked in, the familiar shape of her shoulders in her arms, the scent of her hair, the fire in her dark eyes. It didn’t matter if the world was burning around them, Melia still owed her this much. “I’ll convince Amron my father forced you to do this, as he’s forced all of us. Just trust me, please.”
Ferisa got up, nimbler than Melia expected her to be. She pulled Melia close and whispered, “I’m sorry, little raven.” Then she reached for her boot and pulled a stiletto out of a hidden sheath.
Amron was looking towards the exit, head turned away from them. Ferisa tore out of Melia’s arms, running.
“Amron!” Melia screamed.
He turned just as Ferisa reached him. The flash of metal aimed at his torso, the blade in its upward arc. Surely, there was no chance she could miss.
“No!” Melia screamed.
Amron’s hand shot out, grabbing Ferisa’s wrist, breaking the perfect trajectory of the blade, turning it inwards. His body pivoted in a fluid, almost dancing movement, using Ferisa’s momentum to spin her, twist her around, and bury the blade in her chest.
Chapter 27
Liana
The guards pickedup Darin, lying still on the stretcher, and carried him away from the chaos. Whatever they thought about Amril’s accusation and Liana’s role in the attack, they kept their mouths shut. They knew she wasn’t one of them—the uniform couldn’t fool them—but they also knew both Darin and Amron trusted her, and that seemed to have been enough. They barely looked at her—between the mob and their captain’s life hanging on a thread, there was little time for gossip and accusations.
Yet, Amril’s words bore into her mind like a drill. What if he was right? What if Liana’s escape with Amron did change history, but instead of pushing it away from the war, it had pushed it towards the war? If they hadn’t escaped Celandina’s house, perhaps the attackers wouldn’t have found anyone to ambush. There would have been no reason to accuse the Seragians of anything. That attack had set a whole chain of events in motion.
Perhaps every step she’d made since landing in Abia led towards the inevitable conclusion. In trying to run away from the war, she had led everyone to it. Liana, the divine tool of destruction.
She willed herself to stop the unsettling thoughts, knowing the tricks the gods loved to play on people’s minds, but it was futile. The third day was leaking through her fingers, the afternoon slipping away, her bargain weighing heavily on her. Yet, what else was she supposed to do? She couldn’t make Amron shirkhis duty, and at this moment, his duty was to do everything in his power to prevent conflict. There was no room for intimacy of any kind. No matter what moment in history she stepped in, no matter where in their shared life she was, the war separated them just as it always had, their bodies divided by cold steel and burning embers.
She failed at so many things because, as usual, she’d forgotten to calculate in people behaving as people—irrational, scared, angry. She knew the importance of the moment, the complexity of the multitude of the threads meeting at this point, this wedding in Abia, and yet she’d believed she could simply extricate Amron without the whole structure collapsing into a burning tangle.
She had failed to prevent the king’s stabbing, she had failed to prevent her father’s injury, she had failed to help Amron in any meaningful way.
The guards carried their captain quickly, pushing through the city caught up in the throes of unrest. The crowds on the streets had thinned. The more cunning among the citizens had gone home, closed their shutters, and barred their doors. The downside, however, was that those who’d remained on the streets were probably looking for trouble, carrying their ill intentions like burning torches.
History rushed towards the bloody finale.
Keeping her head low, holding the edge of her father’s cloak, Liana let out a quiet groan that melted into bitter laughter. Who did she think she was? Some deity with the power to turn the course of history at the tips of their fingers? Some legendary heroine that shaped reality according to her wishes?
She was nothing but an accidental bastard, a divine offshoot that got lucky against all odds. Her improbable connection with Amron, those fifteen years of his unrelenting love for her—thatwas an anomaly, a thread of history gone rogue—not the war.
The war was inevitable, Amron’s love for her was not.
But looking at the bloodstains on her father’s cloak, black in the lengthening shadows, she cursed herself for being such a weakling. Her father would never give up the fight, no matter how bad the odds were, and neither would Amron. They would do whatever was in their power to stop the terrible tide; they would go down fighting.
She wouldn’t give up—for them.
The guards rushed through the darkening streets, reaching one of the back entrances to the palace. A low wooden door, a long corridor, and the guards’ quarters, the same as they’d ever been. They’d all but forgotten about Liana as they laid their captain on a pallet in the guards’ infirmary. In the flickering candlelight, Liana caught the deep worry on the men’s faces, but they didn’t linger; the city was burning, their duty awaited them.
She tucked her hand under Darin’s cloak and wrapped her fingers around his, warm and calloused.
A hand on Liana’s shoulder. “Stand aside, we’ll take care of him.” A firm female voice, a stern, serious face. “Scissors! Water! Needle!” the woman called, and a flurry of people materialized around Darin.
“He’s my father,” Liana whispered, but no one heard her. They cut him out of his uniform, pushed the arrow shaft through his flesh, cleaned the wound, and sewed it shut. They moved quickly and with competence, the stern woman directing them. And yet, frustration bloomed in Liana’s chest, aimed at her own uselessness, her own ineptitude. She was wasting time, not helping her father, not helping Amron.
“I heard he was injured,” a soft voice said behind Liana’s back.
She turned: Queen Orsiana stood in the shadows, like a solitary ghost. Liana tried to step aside, to bow, but the queen caught her hand. “Don’t. Just tell me what happened.”
So Liana told her about the embassy, the fire, the arrows. Thequeen listened in silence, watching the women as they bandaged Darin’s chest, paying her as little attention as they did Liana. Only when they finished did the stern woman turn to the queen, greeting her with a nod. “He’s lost a lot of blood, but the arrow missed his heart. If he pulls through the night, he might live.”
“Thank you, Nila.”
