Panting hard, I start to shake. Desperate to come.
Even more desperate to listen to my king.
I’m a good girl,I try to tell myself.
But my chest tightens with shame.
That phrase mocks me.
Because despite what he says, I can still hear Stephanie’s screams.
Thirty-Two
Raza has been at war for thousands of years. First with the vampires, then with the Jokeni. The Alzans. The Okahi. And finally with the Vylians.
If I cannot bring peace between us and the Vylians, how will we ever know peace with the others?
- King Richard
“How are Lief’s lessons in the Royal Guard going?” I ask Echo as we land in Ventre. The main square we’re to debate in is already filled with angry citizens and twitchy guards. My queen isn’t by my side. My brother is most likely by his ex’s, and so I want some good news before I step into the hel before me.
“Adequately,” she says.
Thank gods I trusted her to give me all the sordid details of Fabia’s revenge plan against her rapist.
Biting back my demand for better gossip, I step up to the podium. Two more weeks and I will never have to do this again. As I launch into all the reasons we should abolish the monarchy, the crowd gets more and more restless. They do not want tohear about progress. They only want me to feed their hunger for hatred.
“Why aren’t we attacking Vyla for what they did to our queen?”
“What are you going to do about the terrorist attack in Kholar?”
“Close the borders!”
“The Vylians should pay for their crimes!”
“The bombs were planted by Razians under Vylian stalls to attackthem,” I finally say after the latest interruption. “Most of the terrorists were killed that day. The rest were captured by the Royal Guard and FI-9. Evangeline Sinclair has personally interrogated them all and found them to be Razians acting on their own behalf. They will be executed in Kholar in three days.”
“I’m a merchant, and I place my wares under my stall!” a red-faced woman shouts. “Yet, the bombs were under their stalls, and you expect us to believe they weren’t theirs!?”
“If they were theirs, why would they blow themselves up?” I point out, trying not to call them all moronic bigots.
“Because they’re suicide bombers!”
Dear fucking gods, how much could they twist things to make them fit their own beliefs?
“Most of the casualties were Vylians,” I tell them calmly.
“Because they’re stupid!”The fucking irony.
“Nu uh!” another woman shouts before I can reply. “We carved seven names into Kholar’s tree, but only one Vylian was carried back in a casket! I can do maths!”
Clearly fucking not.
“Deirdre resurrected eighteen of them,” I say, just barely biting back the words, “Eighteen is eleven more than seven, you fucking moron.”
“Paid with our tax money!” a black-haired woman yells in outrage. “How is that fair?”
“Yeah! Why do they get benefits, and we don’t?”
