But he says, “As you wish, Your Majesty,” and Arrin gives me a look that is partway between disbelief and delighted approval. He’s not going to defend me from her anymore—he’s going to urge it on its way.
“You’ve done an impressive job this evening, Lieutenant,” Arrin says to me on the way by. “Perhaps you’ve earned a promotion.”
And with that, everyone in uniform departs, Safire and Etanian alike, and I’m left behind, entirely alone in the throne room with Sinora Lehzar.
An empty feeling of betrayal echoes.
I wonder what I’m supposed to do.
“How quickly he abandons you,” Sinora says after a moment, the trembling gratitude gone, replaced by something raw. “That’s the one you wish to obey?”
I say nothing.
She walks nearer, moving in such a way it feels more like stalking, like narrowing in on prey, softly, and I think of the si’yah cats and their haunting cry. I think of silent, shadowy creatures that are rarely seen, yet painted in beauty to decorate halls.
I think of the frustration of doing one thing and being another.
“What will I do with you, little fox?” she asks, halting before me. Her accent is pronounced when not speaking formally, effortlessly lilting. She has to look up into my face. “That’s the trouble with foxes, you see. They’re pretty and clever. They frolic in the garden and make you forget they’re headed for the roost…”
“I never—”
“Who does your father say I am, Lieutenant? What did he tell you?”
The sudden shift throws my conviction off balance. I was on the defense, bracing for her claws, but now her questions—and gaze—are quiet daggers of honesty. She’s alert and tranquil before me. Breath from her lips, the heady scent of saffron from her hair. The lines of an aging beauty heavy around her eyes.
“You’re a false queen,” I say. “You’re from the dirt.”
“The dirt?” she repeats.
I realize I don’t know where exactly that is. In the South, somewhere, I assume. A name comes back to me, a sudden memory from Father’s council room. “Rummayan,” I say. “You bury hearts.”
She doesn’t speak for a long moment, dark eyes a veil. “I see,” is all she says.
It dawns on me this all sounds too vague when she’s standing before me, an enemy with thoughts and imperfections, with beauty and softness and an infinite world of memory behind her searching gaze. I feel, as always, a step behind.
“Do you want to know the truth, Athan Dakar?”
I’m not sure that I do. I’ve heard enough truths tonight, all of them stealing from me, darkening my past, destroying my present, condemning whatever’s to come. I’ve seen the game and it’s too large for me. She’ll only spin a false truth. I know that. And yet she’s waiting, patient as a cat, and I’m not sure I’m in the position to decline.
I nod.
The dark eyes hold mine, unafraid. “I was your age when my father was imprisoned. I was the only one left to care for my family. My elder brother was gone to make his fortune. My mother was dead. The younger ones could do nothing for themselves, so I did it all. I made something of us. I made certain we’d survive. My only dream was to ransom my father from prison—the man who should never have been there, who stole only to protect his children. When we’d managed the money to do it, I went myself, on horseback, and felt wonderfully victorious. I was seventeen. I thought the world might yet bow to my dream. But do you know what those Landorian soldiers did when I offered the exchange?”
I say nothing. I try not to think about the way this story is told, the way it’s pulled up through some ancient grief, forced in front of me like a card to play.
It’s all in her eyes. Her voice doesn’t change.
“They laughed,” she says, “and they took the money, took the horse. I adored that horse. The one thing I called mine. When I tried to protest, they threw rocks at me. They treated me like a stray dog that had pestered them long enough.” Her flint breaks on those last words. A flicker of a tremor. “Now let me tell you, Athan Dakar, I will not live my life like a dog. I will not be chased away by stones or threats or anything else. No man can frighten me.”
Silence fills the throne room. Somewhere, the forest is burning, my father is raging, and the kingdom staggers. But in here, she is only this story. This dream that was ruined long ago. I don’t want to understand where she comes from. I don’t want to know her like this.
“Will you be a dog?” she asks me. “Will you follow the whistle like your brother?”
Startled and offended, I almost shake my head. Then I think of tonight. I think of the summer, the spring. I think of my whole life up until this breath, and I stay silent.
A hint of a smile appears on her lips. “Your father has a way, doesn’t he? I was his comrade once, too. My gun was hot for his cause, and I remember his rising star, the way it pulled us all into its fire. He made it a joy to burn. He gave my anger what it needed. That’s what he does, you see. He offers a glorious rage that feels very honest, very grand.” She steps closer. “But it isn’t. It’s his star, not yours, and with him you’ll always be the dog.”
I feel sweat along my neck, an ache in my shoulder blades from looking down at her so fiercely. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I know his path, his ways, and you deserve better, little fox.” She tilts her head at the failing expression on my face. “I had a father worth fighting for. When he died in that prison, he died for me. He ruined himself to save us. That’s the man I bled for, the dream I chased. But yours never deserved to be a father. He never had one himself, never knew the meaning of the word, so how could he do any better than this?”
Something aches, and it’s no longer my shoulders. It’s deeper. Heavier. Perhaps I’m what I always imagined—a useful thing, a weapon, an ember to be nurtured and fed to flames. It’s the fear that’s always haunted. The thing that Mother always—
“Your mother saw the truth,” Sinora says, seeming to read my thoughts, “and it’s why I considered her loyalty a—”
“Never mention my mother!” I say suddenly, violently, too far into my own misery. In my confusion, I want to grab Sinora by her slender throat. “You killed her. You took her from me.”
Her certainty is unflinching. “No, only your father takes from you, clever boy. Understand this and you’ll never see your world the same again. You’ll see how perfect her death was. How it gave him the war he longed for, the respect he needed to become strong. Wasn’t it all very perfect?”
Her meaning strikes, and I struggle against the words, terrified by the suggestion in them. Everything lined up, ticking to the clock, but not this. Not this one thing. It can’t be true. It isn’t.
“I’ve said enough now,” Sinora continues, “but there is one last thing I want to share, and I hope you’ll hear my heartbeat in this. Are you listening? Think you are honouring your mother’s memory and bury me in hatred, yes. Think of me what you will. But I believe there is still a gentleness in you, a thing he hasn’t ruined. The thing she gave you. I won’t bury you in hatred yet, Athan Dakar. You may follow your father of steel if you wish, but I have a daughter of warmth, and you don’t have to live as a ghost. Not if you lived here.”
Before I can acknowledge her impossible offer, she’s taken five steps back. Her gaze doesn’t falter. “Now return to your father, little fox. Run to his side again and prove your loyalty. But you might also tell him this—you tell him I will not be chased like a dog, not even with all the armies of the earth behind him. You remind him this old comrade still holds his secrets in her clever palm.”
And then she smiles again, the silent promise of war.
AURELIA
It’s been hardly an hour since the terror began, yet I’m sure an entire century has breathed and died in it. There’s nothing in me anymore. No fear. No sorrow. No relief. I’m a murderer now, a pale shadow, and truthfully, all I want is to sleep.
I’ve had eno
ugh of being seventeen.
As I lie in bed, heavy and weightless at once, fighting tears, Heathwyn tells me about the battle at our gates, about how Lord Marcin himself was wounded at my masquerade and it doesn’t look good.
I listen, far away, as Safire planes rise once again into the night. They’re leaving for Norvenne, Heathwyn says. The General will speak for us there. He’s going to explain what’s happened, defend the Queen’s innocence before the allegations of murder, and though I’m grateful, I know what it cost me, a gamble and betrayal that will haunt me the rest of my life. A gamble no one, not even Heathwyn, can ever know.
I try to soothe myself by remembering what we’ve gained. Reni, who trusted me when I whispered the only thing I could in his ear—that if he took the crown, Mother would die. Perhaps he should have become king like this, as a hero. Perhaps this was the right path. His fate. But in that moment, when I realized what he wanted to do, it was Havis’s face in my mind. Havis’s dark desperation, in the University, clutching at my neck.
I couldn’t explain anything else to Reni, hoping the horror of this night made anything seem possible. I could only pray to Father that Reni would trust the bond of blood between us, the place where we meet, where we speak only truth to each other. I’m his sister. And he heard the fear in my voice.
Now he remains a prince, his address issued on behalf of our Queen.
This is a victory, I tell myself numbly.
Heathwyn leaves me to my thoughts, since I have no words, and I lie watching the smoky haze lessen beyond the window. It’s gradual. A slow clearing of sky and stars, the fire doused in water and smoldering, skeleton trees left in its wake.
I feel Lark’s gun resting against my temple.
I wonder if he would have shot me. Did I never imagine that he, a Nahir fighter, might be capable of it? Did I underestimate him, as Havis predicted? But no matter how I try to rationalize it, I keep seeing his panicked eyes. His lungs filling with blood, struggling for breath, and all because of me. The girl he considered his friend. The girl he taught to shoot the gun. I hear Athan’s voice saying, “You did what you had to,” but something deathlike heaves inside me.
What if Lark hadn’t meant to fire at all?
What if it was only a threat?
The truth is—I shot first.
In my fear and panic, I left him tortured on the floor, terrified of the thought of losing Athan, of losing the evidence that could save Mother. It was me, choosing between the worth of lives, and I pray Father didn’t watch from his world of lights and stars. He’d be ashamed, his own daughter abandoning children and firing her gun in a selfish fury.
Oh, Lark …
I rise from the bed in a daze, remembering suddenly, from another lifetime, from a time when I was not a murderer, that Lark said he’d left a gift for me. It doesn’t take long to find it. A simple, tiny package on my desk, an envelope beside. With trembling hands, I pull apart the brown paper. I find a pair of turquoise earrings, elegant and lovely as anything I own.
I open the letter.
There’s an address listed first, from Resya.
Dearest Cousin,
Whatever happens tonight, you cannot forget our mission. If I have to leave, please meet me at the place I’ve written here. Find your way there. The only hope we have is for your mother and Seath to talk, or else we’ll all be in hell.
I’m sorry to say this on your birthday. I’ve included a gift from my sister. She wanted me to give these to you. Meet us both in Resya and we’ll find a way through this.
There’s always a way, Cousin.
—L.G.
I stare.
I read the words again. Then again.
One after another after another.
And that’s when I cry. At long last. I curl up on the bed, shivering even though it’s warm outside, and cry and cry until there’s nothing I have possibly left to give.
39
ATHAN
3,000 feet.
I know I’m in trouble by 3,000 feet.
I’ve spent the better part of tonight jumping without thinking, right from the first shots. When a guard approached us on the dance floor, reaching for his gun, targeting Ali, I did the only thing I could. I took evasive action, a maneuver of quick thinking. A way to let these men, bought by Father, know she’s precious to the Safire and can’t be harmed.
I kissed her.
Admittedly, it was far more enjoyable than an inverted dive out of crosshairs. Everything after that was a dogfight in itself, waiting to see what opportunity would appear, looking for weaknesses, openings, and now it’s led me here.
3,000 feet.
That’s how long it takes for Father to forbid me to fly my own plane, passing it off to some other bootlicker pilot like it isn’t even mine, then speak in muttered tones with Arrin, with his men. How long it takes him to work his way towards me, hiding alone in the back of the wobbling plane. The wings break above the lingering smoke, through the turbulent evening clouds, and a midnight sky stretches endless outside the windows.
I want my fighter. I want to leap into that dark sea of stars.
Instead, I’m cornered by Father behind a metal partition, in the cargo area. He seizes the neck of my uniform, his cold voice snarling, “You goddamn traitor. You idiot boy.”
And then in his fury, his fist goes up with my name on it, and I say, “I saved you, Father!”
I’m shaking, but it might just be the plane.
The fist halts, and he stares at me, black as the night outside.
“Aurelia would have given those photographs to her brother. I swear it, he was ready to take the crown tonight. He hates us. He wouldn’t hesitate to bring that crime and whatever else he could find before the League. Karkev. Beraya. He wouldn’t stop until the entire North despised us the way he does. He wouldn’t stop until he discovered the truth about your alliance with Seath. We’d have to fight Landore. All their allies.” My voice breaks. “We can’t win against them, Father. You know that. We can’t.”
He’s still staring at me, at my desperate mouth, but I know I’m right. He’s spent too long trying to earn the respect of the North. Every step has been a strategic move in the direction of true power. Not the kind that threatens those kings. The kind that’s welcomed. Power that Landore and the other royals envy.
But if they turn against us right now, it’s over.
If we go back to being the rustic commoners with too much blood on our hands, they’ll grow suspicious, renege on everything gained.
And those small photographs would launch the case against us.
But Father doesn’t acknowledge any of it, only yanks the sidearm from his hip. It’s glaring and angry in the low lights. A dark flare of terror. Everything disappears from my chest. I’m only fear and bones.
“You can’t fire that in here,” I say, my voice sounding panicked, unfamiliar.
The plane wobbles sharply.
“No?” he asks, steadying the weapon. “You think I can’t fire my pistol in this airplane? You think it’s a risk?” He cocks it at my chest. “It’s only a risk, boy, if the bullet doesn’t find a body first. It needs the right target. The flesh to absorb the blow and silence the shot.”
I hover like a ghost before the barrel.
He pushes it an inch closer. “I have my target, Lieutenant. I have Resya. It will take the fall and light my triumph. And if you ever disobey me again, you can forget being a captain. You can forget the squadron. You’ll be at my side every minute of every day and Hajari will be at the front of our first wave into Resya. Without you.”
He lets the gun loom on me a moment longer, the awareness of it burning my chest. A phantom pressure of heat. He won’t forgive me a second time. I’ve wasted my promise, the promise that once made him believe I’d be the best. Then he abandons me in the tiny, vibrating metal space at the back of his plane, and I slide down to my knees, lungs wrestling for breath. I’m alone. Burned up in his star. I’m too afraid to move, d
esperate for him to have shown me otherwise. I don’t want Sinora Lehzar to be right. I want him to be who he was on the floor of the study months ago, tamed by drink. Seeing me.
Knowing me.
I shut my exhausted eyes. In the darkness, twin weapons flicker coldly—Father’s pistol and the one that was wielded by Ali’s cousin. Two guns hot for war. Two barrels that don’t flinch. I think of Sinora’s warning for Father, about the secrets she holds. Her infinite shadow. Have we only woken the cat, this woman with endless ties to the South? How do I tell him that? How could I convince him? Would he even care anymore?
I can’t think of anything.
I’m too damn tired to jump again.
* * *
The airbase outside Norvenne greets us with startled questions. The news from Etania consumes everyone, and Father has to explain a dozen times what happened there, the unexpected coup, the accusation of murder, and I’ve seen at least three Landorian officials quickly look at whatever map is nearest them, searching for Hathene, confused. It’s not a place anyone thinks about much. Buried in those mountains.
Two days later, the League denies Father his war.
“A sovereign kingdom must not be dealt with in bloodshed,” they declare in writing, “and furthermore, there must be firmer evidence to convict His Majesty King Rahian of dealing with Seath of the Nahir.”
I expect to find Father and Arrin furious. Their carefully measured plot isn’t enough to convict a king. It’s the truth that’s always lingered over this, ever since Mother’s death and revenge was brewed against Sinora.
In the North, nothing trumps a crown. That royal blood of Prince Efan.
But when I find Arrin with Kalt in one of the airbase lounges, Arrin’s half-dressed, a bottle happily in one hand. Father’s disappeared to meet with Windom, and here’s my brother reveling like the world’s suddenly been handed to him on a silver platter.
Kalt just watches him, a cigarette in one weary hand.
I ask Arrin what the hell he’s doing.
Dark of the West (Glass Alliance) Page 41