Slap.
“You dishonored my sister’s memory.”
Slap.
“You lied to your rani.”
Slap.
“You betrayed Ullal.”
Slap.
Nikith appeared calm, but sweat tracked down the side of his face. “What do you intend to do?” he asked again.
He didn’t sound so haughty anymore.
“That will depend on your answer to my question.” It was tempting?—oh so tempting?—to give in to the anger that boiled just beneath the surface, but I knew I needed to stay composed. “You and Ektha, as far as I could see, loved each other. How could you dishonor her memory like this?”
“I did itforher!” Nikith gestured at the portrait of my sister. “She would have seen the value of a partnership with the Porcugi. With Ullal and Banghervari on their side, the Porcugi would be unstoppable, and we would have reaped the benefits! The Porcugi promised me their favor.”
“But they killed her!” It took every fiber of my self-control not to point the dagger at his throat. “You should have known then that we needed to stop those monsters, but you continued to do their bidding. You even tried to attack your niece! Why?”
“Because you’ve refused to listen to reason. The Porcugi will come to collect our debt no matter what, but I would rather pay in money than in lives. I took no joy in it, but I also knew that taking one life now would have saved scores of lives later. If you lost Devi, you’d have to go back to Banghervari, and we’d be able to make an agreement for the tithes.” He looked at Ektha’s portrait. “I did it to save Ullal. I did it because I couldn’t bear to see the nation my wife loved torn apart by a needless war.”
His words were a gut punch.
Ektha’s shawl was still draped over my shoulder, and I gripped it tight as I turned to the image of my sister. Her deep pink sari perfectly contrasted the marigold blouse she wore, and jasmine blossoms flowed down from her tidy bun. Even in the painting, her warm eyes and quiet smile radiated calm as her hands rested gently in her lap. The bangle I now wore was around her wrist.
Where it truly belonged.
In a world where Ektha still wore her bangle, she would be ruling Ullal. She would have been an incredible rani?—the one we needed. If anyone could have found a path to peace that still protected the people of Ullal, it was Ektha.
But even Ektha had known when it was time to fight. When the horns had sounded while we were in the stepwell, she was ready to join the battle. What was it she had said?
“Only a fool thinks peace is the answer to every problem.”
It seemed Nikith didn’t know Ektha as well as he thought. Either that or he was trying to use her memory to his advantage because the Porcugi had promised him their favor. Regardless, I had no use for his opinions anymore. He’d betrayed Ullal, tried to murder his niece, and desecrated my sister’s memory with his sickening manipulations. There was no place for him anymore, in this fort or in my heart.
I turned back to him. He was smirking, certain he’d struck the right nerve.
“You care only about yourself,” I said flatly.
His smile vanished, and he opened his mouth to argue, but I cut him off.
“Out of respect for my sister, I will give you a choice,” I said. “You can stay confined to your rooms until I announce your betrayal to all of Ullal and sentence you to death. No burial rites will be performed, and you will spend your eternal afterlife searching for the Spirits and begging for their mercies.”
“You can’t do that!” Nikith took a step toward me, and two guards filled the space between us. “My brothers?—”
I ignored the rest of what he said, and his words faded out. After kissing Ektha’s shawl one last time, I placed it on a chair beneath a long beam that extended from one end of the room to the other and turned to meet Nikith’s eye. “Or, you can have more honor in the last moments of your life than you’ve had these last months. Do this, and I’ll tell the world that you died of illness, and I will make sure you have a pyre.”
“But?—”
He spoke the rest of his words to my back.
Chapter 45
For the second time in my life, I hid a death in my family as the fort was flooded with visitors and celebrations. At sunrise, Nikith’s guards rapped on my door and reported that they had found Nikith dead in his room. A pang of guilt echoed in my chest, but I ignored it and kept my face impassive as I swore the guards to secrecy.
