We need to talk. Fabled Flask in the tenderloin. Come alone.
Cormac.
It had to be Prince Cormac, who was King Ronan’s brother. Which also made him Lestara’s uncle.
Given that Keris had once pushed Lestara into a mass grave, shoveled dirt into her face while outing her as a traitor to the survivors ofVencia, and then exiled her into the care of the Harendellian court, meeting with her uncle seemed…unwise.
ButLestara was now queen of Harendell, which would not have happened if not for his choices. Cardiffians had interesting notions about fate and destiny, which meant they might see all that she’d endured as a necessary means to a royal end.
Going to the wardrobe, Keris retrieved a black shirt and his leather coat. Putting on both, he drew up the hood and checked that his knives were all where they should be, an odd sense of nostalgia passing over him.
Turning the lamps down low, he opened the window and looked out over the hedge maze, marking both the Harendellian guards and his own.
You promised Zarrah not to take more risks.
Keris gripped the windowsill, Cormac’s note crumpled in his fist. To go at all was a risk. To go alone was foolish.
But he hadn’t come to Harendell to sit around drinking the enemy’s wine. There was a great deal that Alexandra wasn’t telling him, and Cormac might be his only chance to discover the truth.
Stepping onto the windowsill, Keris waited for the patrolling guard to move out of earshot.
And then jumped.
27
Zarrah
Zarrah strode down the ship’sgangplank onto the docks, and then made her way into the city. Nerastis, always its most beautiful at night, gleamed brilliantly in the moonlight.
But after meeting with Dax on the journey north, she had no room in her heart to appreciate the city Valcotta shared with Maridrina. Her heart was too full of dread over what was to come.
Edward dead.
Ahnna accused of murdering him.
William threatening war to avenge him.
Lestara now queen of Harendell.
And Keris on the front lines of another war.
“Did Keris give any indication of what he planned to do?” she asked Dax, who strode at her elbow.
The Maridrinian man shook his head, then rubbed his temples, his exhaustion written across his face. “Only that he planned to find Lara and Aren. He ordered me to carry on to deliver the news of the murder to Sarhina, and then you, but I got stuck at Southwatch due to the storm. Everything we know is terribly outdated unless Sarhina has fresh intelligence.”
Every instinct in Zarrah’s body screamed that the situation had only grown worse, and she cursed the slow travel of news from northto south. Cursed Ithicana’s storms for how they endlessly disrupted travel, though she knew that it was those very storms that would be preventing Harendell from retaliation.
“Lara will keep him out of trouble,” Dax said. “He’s probably drinking their wine and complaining about the quality of Aren’s library.”
Zarrah was in no mood for platitudes. “Aren and Lara are certain Ahnna is innocent?”
“Yeah.” Dax was quiet for a long moment. “But Prince James isn’t a witness who is easily discounted.”
“Agreed.” The bastard prince of Harendell was not one for schemes. Unlike the rest of his family. “Though we can’t discount that he’s Lestara’s cousin.” Another revelation that Dax had delivered. “What was Edward thinking?”
“Doesn’t much matter now that he’s dead, does it?”
Zarrah’s mind twisted over the fragmented information, trying to put together all the pieces as they pressed into Nerastis. But her thoughts kept circling back to one point, drawn there by her rising fear.
