Lachlan nudged Agatha’s shoulder softly and said, “I’ll put you in a cabin. With a cot and a door. And you’ll have a hot bath and food. All right?”
Agatha nodded at him absently, her tight fists in her lap. The launch stopped its ascent and swung to and fro above the deck, and then one by one, we disembarked. Halla first, then Lachlan, who helped Agatha up and over the edge. I stepped out next to find Aleka pushing her way through the crew with purpose.
She stopped in front of me before I could reach back to help Imogen. Aleka was dressed in a stern rust-colored robe, her folder and a piece of parchment in her hands. “We are happy to see you returned and well, Your Majesty.”
Markis was behind her in a gold-trimmed suit. Both of them bowed.
Aleka extended a parchment toward me. “As you have requested, the execution has been arranged. The plank is bolted to the port side of the ship, Your Majesty.”
Lachlan scowled beside the launch, his arm protectively draped around Agatha’s shoulders. “What’s this?”
A tremble started in my hand. “Eftan’s execution,” I said faintly.
Lachlan’s eyes bulged. He snatched the parchment from Aleka and read over the list of Eftan’s crimes. “Theo.” He said my given name quietly, his tone half warning, half disbelief. “Banish him instead. Don’t do this.”
Markis had come alongside Lachlan, his hands clasped behind his back. “I have to disagree with the commander, Your Majesty. The chancellor’s crimes are inexcusable. Banishment will only communicate to the people that committing such heinous acts is not so grave. Furthermore, he has admitted to them all.” His sandy brows rose, and his voice turned conspiratorial. “What’s more, while he’s been ill, we found written-up schemes that outline his intent to imperialize the realm of Leucosia, playing Varya as the aggressor.”
No matter how Eftan himself had trained me for it, I could not keep my shock hidden. Not this time. I supposed it was just like him, though, to have a handful and lament that his other fist was empty. “Show me the papers.”
Aleka pulled them from her folder as Lachlan gathered himself. “I am not suggesting that his threat go unchecked,Markis,” he said. “It’s not right, but execution is not the only—or best—course. He can be imprisoned.”
Imogen had climbed from the launch all on her own and came alongside Agatha. She tucked her arm around her, guiding her to a calmer part of the deck. As she did, she watched me with disbelief and something like caution, as if I were changing my shape rightbefore her eyes. It made me bristle. I’d warned her against thinking of me asgood.
My grip on the parchment tightened.
Markis guffawed. “How quaint—the soldier forms a distaste for killing. Eftan cannot be reliably imprisoned, you fool.” Markis then looked to me with a sweepingly arrogant smile. “Put the man who’s run the palace for over four decades within its dungeon? There is no telling how loyal some of the guards and servants might be to him.”
Aleka stepped forward, as if she wished to speak, but I held up a hand before she could. A thick quiet fell. The stares of those gathered on the deck were just as weighty, but it was Halla who pulled my attention now.
She glared at me with the same ire and judgment she’d offered me when we’d been in that foul pool chamber.
What would you do to keep your power? What wouldyoudo, Theodore Ariti, the good and noble God-king of Varya?
I almost answered her now, as my anger flickered through me like flames. I knew with a certainty that I would do all manner of awful things to keep my crown and the power it afforded me. Keeping it was the only way I could keep Imogen and Varya safe against men like Eftan.
It was then that Eftan appeared from the passageway beside my stateroom.
He was flanked by two armored soldiers who supported his wobbling gait with a firm grip on each arm. He looked a decade older than when I’d last seen him, his full cheeks gaunt and deeply lined. They moved slowly across the deck, and as they approached Imogen, Eftan pulled awkwardly on the soldiers’ hold. He could hardly stand unassisted, but he managed to throw an annihilating sneer at her before spitting on the deck at her feet.
Imogen didn’t flinch. My hand twitched for a sword, but the soldiers jerked him toward me before I had a chance to find one.
Eftan inclined his chin, that previous sneer wiped clean of his haggard face.
“Chancellor.” I eyed him with a hard look. “You’ve confessed to your crimes.”
“I have.” Eftan’s normally robust voice was threaded. “And as for the attempt on Queen Imogen’s life, I did it proudly. In service of the realm.”
Those flames within me surged and would not be banked. “The realm you wish to destroy?”
Eftan tipped his head to the side, just barely, as if we had a mere difference in opinion over the sanctity of the islands’ rights and Varya’s law. He gave a brief grin and spoke in the familiar tone he’d used when I’d been young. “I never thought we would find ourselves here, Theo boy.”
It was another ploy, another manipulation, and it worked. I felt the swift urge to obey, to have him praise my diligence and capability. I shoved it down. “Commander Mela, will you read the chancellor’s list of crimes aloud?”
Lachlan did, begrudgingly. “For crimes of manipulation, murder, domination, conspiracy, treachery, and regicide, Theodore Ariti, King of Varya, has commanded the execution of Eftan Zervas, Chancellor of Varya.” Lachlan cleared his throat. “The accused may speak his last words.”
Cast in the hoary light, Eftan looked serene, composed, save for the bright red flush upon his full cheeks. It seemed a hardship, but he managed to make his tired voice sound as it had always been—clear, not too loud, and entirely captivating.
“I will not deny my aforementioned crimes, nor will I seek forgiveness for them,” he said. “However, I refuse to let my service tothe kingdom of Varya be summed up in a list of only my perceived failings. I have been proud to serve two courageous kings. Men—Gods—who did not shy away from their duties, but rather, with my assistance, faced them. To that end, I have a final request, for if all the wrong I have done must be acknowledged, so too must all the good.”
