He refused to look at her. Jumping down from his saddle, he yanked the reins out of Melia’s hand and handed them over to one of his men.
“Father,” she tried again. “Please, stop this, there’s no point anymore. They know what you did.”
“Go home!” the king ordered the mob.
Everybody in the crowd was looking up, everybody but Melia and her father. And she suddenly knew where she’d seen this scene before.
An unfamiliar courtyard. The flagstones were slick with blood, the people around her pushing, fighting, crying for help in the flickering light of the burning buildings. Amron stood before her, smeared with blood and ash, with abemused expression on his face. Her eyes slipped down to his hand pressing his belly, black blood pouring through his fingers, soaking into the blue silk he wore, dripping on the flags. He opened his mouth to tell her something, but no sound came out as his legs folded and he fell.
Her father pushed forward through the crowd, and Melia ran after him.
Amron stood beside his brother and the carevna, his sword back in its scabbard. The guards were all looking up as the king addressed the crowd. The Black Lord reached beneath the folds of his cloak. He was aiming for Aratea, but Amron must have seen the movement and turned, pushing her behind him.
Too late, Amril and the guards lowered their eyes, only to see the flash of steel in the torchlight. In that moment, Melia finally caught up with her father, overtook him, threw herself before him. Before the blade.
Chapter 29
Liana
“Mother, mother, quickly!”somebody called.
Liana opened her eyes in the queen’s opulent, candlelit study. Her face and hair were soaked, but no water had touched her clothes. A vague memory of making a deal with the Goddess of Death flickered at the back of her mind, causing a bolt of panic, yet nothing about her seemed different. She was still the same Liana, wasn’t she?
You’re still on Perun’s time, you fool. It hasn’t run out.
There was still a chance.
“Mother?” Amron’s sister peered in, her face haggard but smiling. “Where is the queen?” she asked just as her mother rushed in through the other door.
“Amielle, what’s happening? Why aren’t you with your father?”
“Because he’s arisen and asking for you. Come!”
The queen shot a brief look of gratitude to Liana before her daughter dragged her out.
Liana, still dazed and slow, got up and followed the trail of noise to the antechamber where the king stood perfectly whole and wholesome, goddamned radiant in the sea of gray, panicked faces.
“There’s fighting in the courtyard,” a guard said. “Roderi of Elmar and his men are wreaking havoc, accusing Prince Amril and Princess Aratea of assassinating you. The city is in turmoil, the citizens are demanding to see you.”
“What? I’ll personally flay that lying bastard.”
Fighting?
Liana didn’t give a damn about the king and his plans, but if there was fighting down in the courtyard and in the square, then Amron was somewhere near, and perhaps there was still time before dawn to quench this rebellion, to stop the Black Lord. To get a moment alone with Amron.
She rushed downstairs. The main door leading into the great hall was shut and barred, but that meant she simply had to go around, through the empty guards’ quarters, across the practice yard, through the stables, and out on the other side. Just in time to see the crowd cheering the king who stood on the balcony, resplendent and obviously, undeniably alive—at least for the next three days. It would have to be enough to wrap up the wedding, to remove the Elmarrans, to ensure that Amril succeeded smoothly.
Amril and Aratea stood in the courtyard in a pool of torchlight, disheveled, bruised, and covered in soot, holding on to each other like two shipwrecked sailors. A shadow of anger marred his face, a twist of disgust hid in the corners of her mouth, but they’d both been raised for this and they endured, facing the crowd. It crossed Liana’s mind that she’d rather be dead than trapped in their marriage, but then, they probably deserved each other.
And then finally,finally, the Seragian guards showed up—the useless, calculating, perfectly trained troops who’d waited to see which side would win before helping the king’s men deal with the last Elmarrans, pushing them into a corner of the yard. Now that the mob had lost its bloodthirst, they posed no real threat, surrounded and outnumbered. Their lord, the monster she’d cursed so many times during the long years of the war, lay face-down on the flags, hands tied behind his back, two guards standing over him. His teeth were bared, a rabid dog ready to bite, frothing. The rest of him, though, looked as small and insignificant as a desperate drunk who’d broken toomany bottles and had to be restrained. Knowing what the king’s justice looked like, Liana expected his head to grace the walls by tomorrow morning.
The wave of rebellion broke against the walls of the palace; the ancient stones held out against the fury of the mob. Now there was nothing left but some confused people who cheered because they felt they had to, and some defeated soldiers.
“Go out in the city and spread the word that everything is all right,” the king commanded. “And then go home. My men will take care of Abia.”
It was a promise and a threat, and the mob understood it perfectly well, dispersing with their tails between their legs.
Yet Amron was nowhere in sight. Was he still at the embassy, fighting the fire? Surely, it had been conquered by now; there were no flames rising in the sky above the city. Was he somewhere in the streets, driving the last rebels into the sea, clearing Abia of traitors and warmongers? Liana was ready to run out blindly, to search for him until her time ran out, when the strange, mournful sigh of a wounded creature reached her ears and she spotted a flash of gold in the dark under the arcade.
