“And what does she want?”
“She wants me to win this war.”
“Why? Why does she care?”
“Because she wants to rule Emberfall. She blames my father—my country—for the destruction of her people. She wants the throne.”
“Then why doesn’t she just kill you?”
“You see that my dispute with Grey has already put us at risk of civil war. She wholeheartedly admits that she cannot claim the throne and expect my entire kingdom to bend a knee to her. She is powerful, but not that powerful.”
Harper considers that for a while. I wait, listening to the fire snap in the hearth. I have been terrified of this moment for … for ages. I did not want Harper to know. I did not want her to be at risk. But I did not realize how desperate I was for a confidante until she demanded this truth.
The thought tightens my chest, and I have to swallow the emotion. I still remember the night I met the enchantress, how she tried to charm my father first, and he had the good sense to turn her away.
I didn’t, and I’ve been paying the price ever since.
Harper’s hand falls over mine. “Don’t hide,” she says. “Talk to me.”
She’s kinder than I deserve. “When Grey and I were trapped in the curse, he was the only person who knew how terrible she was. It is … difficult to share that with you. Even now.”
“What does she want to do to me? Leave my body parts all over Emberfall?”
“Worse. She has threatened to return you to Disi.”
Her hand goes still over mine, and her expression freezes. “Oh.”
I hold my breath, worried that Lilith will show herself and make good on her threats, but the room remains quiet. The enchantress does not appear. The fire continues to snap.
Harper continues to exist at my side.
“So she wants you to win this war. She wants you to be king.” Harper hesitates, and her eyes search mine. “And she wants to be at your side once you are.”
I nod.
She’s quiet for a moment. “Do you really want to go to war with Grey?”
“I see no other way for Emberfall—”
“Stop.” She puts up a hand. “Do you, Rhen, really want to go to war with your brother?”
I sigh and rise from the chair, moving to the side table, where I uncork a bottle of wine. “He may be my brother in blood, Harper, but he is not my brother.” I pause to pour. “He ran instead of telling me the truth. He stood in front of me and kept this secret. He declared war on me.”
“No, he gave you sixty days—”
“To prepare for war.” I drain the glass and pour another. “His letter was quite clear.”
“He said, do not make me do this.”
“I’ve made him do nothing. He can stay there and I can stay here and we can all be at peace.” I drain this glass, too, especially because I know this is not true. Syhl Shallow was struggling, desperate for resources and trade, before the curse was ever broken. My father had been paying a tithe to keep Grey’s birthright a secret, but once I was cursed and my father was dead, the tithe stopped being paid. Five years of silver stayed in my coffers—and Syhl Shallow went lacking.
It’s why Karis Luran sent soldiers into my lands, and it’s why Grey is promising to do the same thing if I do not ally with Lia Mara.
Harper appears at my side and takes the glass away. “If Lilith is around, the last thing you need to be is drunk.”
That’s debatable, but I push the cork back in. I haven’t been drunk in months. Not since the night Grey returned Harper to Washington, DC. Before we knew anything about his birthright. Before the curse was broken.
You are incorrigible. I have no idea how I put up with you for so long.
Grey’s words. The only time I’ve ever seen him drunk. Probably the truest words he ever said to me.
He stood with me on the castle parapets before I turned into a monster the final time. I sought to sacrifice myself. I was going to jump. I was terrified.
He stepped up and took my hand.
My throat tightens. I yank the cork free and drink right from the bottle.
“Wow,” says Harper.
“Indeed.” My voice is husky.
She takes the bottle this time. I drop into the chair in front of the fire and run my hands across my face.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she says quietly.
“Because I cannot lose you again,” I say. “I couldn’t put you at risk.”
She’s quiet for a while, and I don’t have the courage to look at her. Weeks of anger were bad enough. I have no desire to see disappointment or censure in her expression.
Her fingers drift along my shoulder then, and she curls into the chair with me, her skirts falling across my lap, her head tucking into the hollow beneath my chin. She is warm and solid and sure against me.
She doesn’t hate me, and I nearly shudder from the relief of it.
“That’s why you were putting on such a show for the Grand Marshals,” she says. “Because you need to put on a good show for Lilith.”
“It needs to be more than a show if we’re going to stand a chance against Syhl Shallow.” I pause. “But yes.”
“I wish I’d worn the dress now.”
“I have never seen you as a pawn,” I say, and mean it. “Wear what you like.”
She falls quiet for a while, breathing along my neck for so long that my thoughts begin to scatter and drift, either from exhaustion or the wine. Or both.
“You used to take Lilith’s torments so she wouldn’t hurt Grey,” Harper whispers.
I remember the endless misery the enchantress would visit upon us both. Some days it was boredom, while others it seemed to be vindictive, or a punishment for crimes only she could fathom. Nothing she did would kill us, not when the curse was in effect, but the pain was very real.
I would draw her attention off Grey when I could. He did not earn the curse, I did. He should have fled during the first season, when I first changed.
Sometimes I wish he had.
“It was all I could do,” I say to Harper. “Only his loyalty kept him by my side. No one deserves an eternity of torture for that.”
“Grey once told me it was his duty to bleed so you would not.”
I know. I heard him say the words.
I thought of them when I watched a whip split open the skin of his back.
I long for that wine bottle again.
“You didn’t have to take it all on yourself,” Harper says. “And you don’t have to now.”
“I do not know how to defeat her—”
“Together,” she says. “The way we did before.”
She sounds so sure.
“Yes, my lady,” I whisper, and I drop a kiss along her temple.
I wish I felt the same.
“Your Highness.”
My eyelids flicker. The room is cold and dark, and my left arm has gone numb. Harper’s weight is heavy with sleep, her breath slow and light against my skin. The fire has burned down to embers.
“Shh,” the voice says. “Do not wake your princess.”
I blink slowly, my eyes seeking a face in the shadows. It’s unusual for a servant to enter my chambers after I’ve retired for the night.
Then Lilith’s fine features snap into clarity, and I jerk in alarm.
“Shh,” Lilith says again. “I’d hate for her to wake and force me to take her back to Disi.”
My heart has leapt into a panicked race, pounding so hard that I’m sure it’ll wake Harper. “Leave me,” I whisper. “Please, Lilith.”
“You told her the truth,” she says.
She makes it sound like a weakness, and I clench my jaw. “I will not hide your crimes any longer.”
“I commit no crimes.” She leans closer, until her lips are a breath away from mine. Her eyes glitter in the darkness.
I hold very still. I would give every scrap of silver in Emberfall to my new spy if she could appear with a weapon that would stop Lilith right this
moment. My fingers long to grip tight to the girl in my arms, as if I could keep her safe by sheer strength of will. “I have made preparations to go to war. I will stand against Grey. I have done as you asked.”
“Good boy,” she breathes. Her lips brush against mine, and I snap back. Harper shifts in my arms.
Lilith smiles. “No matter what you tell her, she cannot cross the veil without my assistance. If I take her away, you will have no way to reach her.”
“I will do as you ask,” I say. “You have my word.”
“Good.” She traces a finger along the scar on Harper’s cheek before I can jerk her away.
Harper startles awake, slapping a palm to her cheek. Her breathing is quick and rapid. “Rhen. What—who—you.” She goes very still in my arms.
“Yes. Me.” Lilith’s eyes flash with danger in the darkness, and she hisses the words like a snake. “You weak, broken, worthless little—”
Harper launches herself out of my arms, and I realize a moment too late that she’s seized the dagger from my belt.
“No!” I cry. I remember the last time she threw a weapon at the enchantress.
But Harper doesn’t throw it. She drives the blade right into Lilith’s midsection, throwing her weight into the movement and bringing the enchantress to the floor. Harper kneels on her arm, then wraps the fist of her free hand in Lilith’s hair.
She leans down close. “Go ahead,” she whispers. “Take me home. Let’s see how long you live on my side.”
Wind swirls through the room, making the candles go out and the flames in the hearth flicker. Lilith is gasping, either from shock or pain. “I will make you pay—”
“He’s doing what you want him to do. Did Grey give you that scar? I bet I can make a bigger one.”
“Harper.” I can’t breathe. “Harper, please.”
Lilith is practically drooling with rage. “I will end you—”
“Then do it. Lose the only leverage you have.” Harper leans down closer. “You’re the weak one,” she whispers. Lilith screams in rage, then slashes her free hand against Harper’s arm.
Harper cries out and snaps back. Blood has appeared in three long stripes across her bicep.
My door swings open. Guardsmen charge in, drawn by their screams.
Lilith disappears, leaving nothing but the dagger and a stain of blood on the floor.
Harper slaps a hand over her arm. She’s all but wheezing. “Is it bad?” she says. “I can’t look at it.”
I’m staring at her, and it takes a moment for my eyes to leave her face. I pull at her fingers gingerly. The sleeve of her dress is shredded, the slashes bleeding freely.
Dustan appears at my side, and he drops to a knee.
“Brandyn,” he says to one of the guards. “Fetch a physician. The princess will need stitches.”
Harper sighs. “More scars. Great.”
I can’t stop staring at her in wonder.
“What?” she says.
I have no words. “How—how did you—” I break off. “How?”
“I hate her,” she says simply. “It wasn’t hard. Or do you mean, how did I know how to pin her like that?”
“Who?” says Dustan.
“Yes,” I say.
“Easy.” Harper picks up the blade, wipes it on the skirts of her ruined dress, and holds it out to me, hilt first. Her eyes are fierce and determined. “Zo taught me.”
CHAPTER NINE
LIA MARA
When I used to imagine being queen, my dreams involved my people finding peace at last. I would rule with gentle firmness instead of my mother’s vicious brutality, and my subjects would thrive. No one would fear me. I never wanted to be feared. I thought my people would rejoice.
I never thought someone would be begging me to sever limbs right in the middle of my throne room.
“Your Majesty,” whispers Clanna Sun, the woman who used to be Mother’s chief advisor—who is now my chief advisor. “You will need to take some action.”
“You should cut his hands off,” growls the woman in front of me. Her name is Kallara, and she owns a small farm far to the north, right along the Frozen River. Her hands are gnarled and her skin is weathered from a lifetime of hard labor. “Even if an apple falls from the tree, it doesn’t make it free.”
“I didn’t steal an apple!” snaps the man, another landowner named Bayard. “I planted on my land.”
“It’s my land,” shouts Kallara.
“Mine!” he roars. His cheeks are red, his eyes bulging out with fury.
“Not surprising that a man lacks the intelligence to measure distance,” says Kallara. “Perhaps our wise queen will grant your lands to me, and I can put you to work in the fields where you belong.”
“I was in the fields where I belong!”
“Cut all their hands off,” Nolla Verin, my sister, mutters from her throne on my opposite side. Ellia Maya, another advisor who’s always been close to my sister, laughs under her breath. Nolla Verin flashes her a smile.
I sigh and glance at the window. Prince Grey is outside on the fields, Jake and Tycho by his side, overseeing the training of our soldiers. In the beginning, Grey would sit with me while I heard complaints from my subjects, but not everyone speaks the language of Emberfall, and he’s still learning Syssalah. It’s not a failing, but I’ve heard whispers about arrogance and ignorance, and I’m not sure which is worse. My people already question whether I am ruthless enough to rule following my mother’s death.
All of this is so much more complicated than I ever imagined.
At my side, Nolla Verin clears her throat emphatically.
I jerk my eyes away from the window and glance at Clanna Sun. “Whose land is it truly?”
“They both bear deeds showing ownership of the acreage, Your Majesty.”
Of course they do. I hold back another sigh.
“Forged, I’m sure,” sniffs Kallara.
“Enough.” They would never bicker like this in front of my mother. I glance across the room where the scribes take down every word we say. “Scribes,” I say. “Review the deeds for accuracy. Verify my mother’s seal.” I look at Kallara and Bayard. “We will meet again in a week’s time—”
“A week!” says Kallara. “Preposterous.”
“Her hands,” whispers Nolla Verin. “Take them off, sister.”
Ellia Maya steps forward. She has long dark hair that she keeps bound up in braids, and she carries herself like a soldier. She was an officer in the army before proving herself during the last battle in Emberfall, after which my mother granted her a position as an advisor. “A minor punishment would make others hesitate to contradict you.”
“Yes!” Nolla Verin smiles sweetly. “Perhaps just one hand, then?”
She sounds like she’s teasing, but I can hear an undercurrent of frustration. She would have cut their hands off already.
In all truth, Nolla Verin wouldn’t be allowing subjects to air their grievances at all.
A steward steps forward to take the deeds from the farmers. Bayard passes his over without hesitation, and he offers me a bow. “I appreciate your wisdom, Your Majesty.”
Kallara tightens her grip on the paper instead. “Your mother would never have questioned me.”
My mother would never have tolerated her. I actually doubt either of these people would have had the courage to bring this complaint to the Crystal Palace at all. Both Nolla Verin and Clanna Sun have mentioned that the number of people requesting mediation has increased tenfold.
In a way, it’s what I wanted. Less violence, less blood. Less death. Less fear.
In a way, it’s not.
“Release the deed,” I say to her tightly.
Kallara takes a step back. “This is ludicrous.” She rolls the paper into a tube. “Fine. Side with a man, then. I shouldn’t be surprised.” She spits at Bayard. “Fell siralla.”
“I did not side with a man,” I say. “I asked you to release your deed so I could fairly—”
> She spits at me, then turns her back, striding for the door.
Beside me, Nolla Verin, Ellia Maya, and Clanna Sun all suck in a breath. The other subjects waiting their turn uncomfortably exchange glances.
My mother would have had Kallara executed right here. Or maybe not an execution at first. She would have had the guards disable her in some painful manner, then would have left the body bleeding on the stone floor, a warning to any others who would dare such insolence.
I can’t do that. I can’t.
Nolla Verin glances at me, and when I say nothing, she stands. “Guards!” she snaps. “Stop her.”
I whip my head around to glare at my sister. She shouldn’t be issuing orders for me. Two guards have peeled away from the wall anyway, and they’ve taken hold of Kallara by the arms. She’s spitting profanity at me now. Bayard is staring wide-eyed.
“Don’t look at me like that,” whispers Nolla Verin. “You must take action. You know you must.”
I look back at the guards. “Take the deed. We will determine the truth of whose land it is.”
“And cut out her tongue,” says Nolla Verin. “For spitting at the queen.”
“Wait. What? No!” I say, but the guard has already pulled a blade, and my words are lost in the sound of Kallara’s sudden screams of protest. Blood is spilling from the woman’s mouth down the front of her dress. Her screams devolve into keening, a garbled, wet sound. Her knees give way, but the guards keep her upright.
I’m frozen in place, my own breathing very shallow. At the base of the dais, Bayard has gone pale. I see several of the others shift and glance at the door, as if their complaints should possibly wait for another day.
I’m no stranger to this kind of violence, but it’s still upsetting. I don’t want it in my throne room. I don’t want it done on my sister’s order.
You must take action. You know you must.
I wish I’d had another minute. Another second.
But Kallara was leaving. She’d spit at me. She’d sworn at me. She’d refused an order.
And I didn’t do anything. My hands are trembling for so many reasons.
“Take her out of here,” I say, my voice low and tight, and the guards begin to drag her. I glance down at Bayard. “The lands are yours unless the deeds prove otherwise. Return in a week’s time for my judgment.”
A Vow So Bold and Deadly Page 6