“No, she should do this,” Jali proclaims suddenly, and we all turn to her. “Let Aurelia be the one to offer our white flag. Brother, please,” she says to Rahian, an edge to her impossibly calm tone. “You must end this. At last.”
His face relents, and he looks at me. “Very well.”
Havis’s mouth drops open, nearly comical in this room of strange royals—a frightened king facing his defeat, a spoiled princess in exile, and a seventeen-year-old girl whose uncle coerced the cowering king’s allegiance and began this whole thing.
I’d laugh if I wasn’t so scared of everything about to happen.
His jaw snapping shut, Havis announces he’d like to speak with me in private. We stride for his quarters side by side, the palace now approaching hysteria. Soldiers, maids, footmen. It’s all falling apart, aeroplanes snarling in deathly duels high above.
Once alone, Havis turns on me. “This is madness, Aurelia! Do you want to announce yourself to the Safire as a friend of Rahian? The man who’s about to be convicted of aiding the Nahir and committing near treason against Landore?”
But my anger is too ruthless, matching his. Anger at everyone who lied to me about who I truly am, who let this nightmare get to this point—especially Havis.
“I’m not afraid of them,” I snap back. “Not the General or the Commander or even Seath.” I spit the name, as if it could be hurled from my veins. “Or should I fear my own uncle, Havis? What haven’t you told me?”
Boots stomp faintly in the hall beyond, and Havis doesn’t deny it.
I know I’ve won.
He has no words.
“You knew,” I hiss. “As long as I’ve known you, you knew my blood connection, and you said nothing.” I want to strike him with every ounce of my strength, but he’s also the only one with answers. “Who else knows?”
“Only Rahian,” he replies swiftly. “Possibly Jali because she gets her nose into everything.”
That explains her warning to me—which was certainly also a threat. If she knows Seath is my mother’s brother, there’s no reason to believe she wouldn’t use that information to her own advantage if the opportunity arose. She sees no one but herself.
But then I remember the words from the soldier on the street, and another question follows hot behind. “What was in that briefcase you gave to Captain Dakar? You had it on you the whole time at the parley, brought from Rahian with your peace proposal. Then you gave it to the General’s son before he left Norvenne, and clearly it didn’t bring peace, so what was in there?”
His mouth flattens. “A ruse.”
“And how much did Rahian pay you to do that?”
“No. Not Rahian.”
Which means Seath, and he hurries on in his own defense. “The Safire need a dose of reality, Aurelia. To let them march unmatched would be foolish for the entire world. To let them think they’re invincible.”
Stars, it’s all a game! The Nahir really were the ones who blew out the bridges. And somehow, Havis facilitated it.
“Why would you do this?” I ask, emotion beginning to strangle my voice.
“Powerful people pay well to have someone enact their dirtiest deeds in the shadows.”
I laugh at him harshly. “Ah, so you don’t trade in arms, but you still trade in death? You’re a damn hypocrite!”
“They’re all going to tear each other apart in war anyway,” he retaliates. “Somewhere, somehow. Why not hurry it along and gain something for myself in the process?”
My fist flies at him.
But he catches my wrist, gripping firmly. “Whether I intervene or not, there’s far more at stake here than what’s visible, and you need to recognize that, Princess. I’m going to tell you a story no one knows, from before Savient was born, and you’d better listen well. It was an attack on the General’s hidden base. Took out half of his burgeoning air force and killed his second child. A little girl.” His grip tightens. “That attack shouldn’t have been possible, Aurelia. No one knew of the base. Which means the one who made it happen was an old ally, a former comrade who betrayed him and nearly destroyed everything he’d bled for.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying this war is about vengeance, and you should be very careful about stepping into the middle of that. There’s no such thing as justice in revenge. Not the way these men play. And they will bring down anyone who gets in the way.”
My heart is so overwhelmed—by the past, by the future—and I can only tremble with one furious certainty. “I don’t care about you men and your games. Burn yourselves up. Destroy yourselves for gain! But I do care that my mother let her own brother create this deadly storm … and then she turned her back on it.”
“What if she did it for you?” Havis asks. “For love? Will you spit on her for that?”
“Well, if that’s true, then love is an unfortunate distraction, because she damn well should have done more! And if she won’t, then I will.”
“This isn’t on you, Aurelia. It’s not your responsibility.”
I yank away from him.
“No, it is. It is my responsibility! It’s my family. My mother. My uncle. Last summer, I betrayed the innocent to save myself, and I’ll never do it again. The Lieutenant put my cause before his own when he helped me. He knew it was the right thing to do, even if it ruined him. That’s what it takes to make a difference. It takes sacrifice. And I refuse to stand here and do nothing. Not while the rest of you think only of yourselves!”
I suck in a breath, my lungs spent on this one raging speech, the anger a brilliant heat inside my chest, and Havis stares, the hard edges of his angled face finally surrendering. Guilt. Regret. And then—defeat.
“I won’t stop you, Princess,” he says. “But promise me two things.”
Flatter me all you want, I think, and I’ll still hate you for the rest of my life.
“Never forget that your mother’s a deadly shot, even from a distance.” His eyes burn with certainty. “And don’t you dare compare yourself to the Lieutenant. You’re far better.”
VI
SURRENDER
32
AURELIA
Rahian’s Palace
The windows begin to rattle just before midnight.
It’s very faint, a beelike tremor, quickly swallowed by perfect silence. Then the tremor again. A hum beneath my fingertips, emanating from some distant place. For a while, I don’t move from the table where Tirza and I sit, both of us silent and tense. I can see her haunting fear of what’s to come, the reality of Safire boots surrounding her again, ready to arrest and interrogate and wound. But she refuses to leave me. No matter how I order her, she’s decided to stay. She knows I’m scared, and since she’s been scared, too, we are now scared together.
So we wait, wordless, as if speaking aloud will only shatter some possibility of another reality. The tremors will pass. They’ll move on. They won’t touch us.
Then the chandelier wobbles overhead. Its tiny gems shift, a wind-catcher for war, and I rise from the table, tiptoeing for the dark parlour with its wide windows. A faint glow tickles the marble mantel.
I peer between the drapes.
The edge of Madelan is in flames. Red plumes rise, a sinister memory from last summer, from the masquerade, but this isn’t even close to the same. This is an entire city under fire. An inferno.
“They’ll say they aimed for the factories and military posts and airfields,” Tirza explains behind me. “That’s how they’ll justify it.”
“But those factories are among homes. And the camp…”
Tirza says nothing. Her silence says everything.
High above the smoke, aeroplanes float in their distant formation. They’re too small to see distinctly, shadows moving gently, releasing death. From that height, it must seem only a patchwork of black and orange and little else. How do they know what they’ve hit? Even if they were aiming for their chosen targets, how could they ever be sure?
An explosion lig
hts up the world very close, and the whole room shakes. I step back from the window, terror kicking in. Death from high above my head. An unseen creature that doesn’t know my name, doesn’t even have me on its list—yet it falls, whistling, prepared to consume my flesh in a furnace of flame.
Tirza touches my arm. “They won’t hit the palace.”
“Why?”
“They only target people with no names.”
The unfairness of it scalds my heart.
“This is wrong,” I whisper.
She looks at me, her face luminous in the orange glow. “It is. But there will be justice.”
* * *
I scarcely sleep. Tirza shares my bed, her warmth beside me—she says she and Kaziah used to do this, to keep the panic at bay, sheltered by the breath of another living person nearby—but I still tremble, tangled up in moments of darkness and strange dreams. I’m not sure what’s real and what’s my fear twisting fragments into some in-between place. I see smouldering palms, featherless burned birds, and a glass of lemonade in my hand bursting in flame. My hand throbs, and Lark kneels down, trying to hold the wound, trying to poke at it with something sharp, and then Athan’s before me. Skin charred, his face half-destroyed.
I wake with a scream.
Grey light touches the window, smoke in the hazy sky. Shells reverberate on faraway streets. Rumbling ever closer, towards the palace.
Jali appears at my door. “Come, Aurelia,” she says quietly, and for the first time, she looks free of her manicured act—a bit unsettled, hollowed out. Perhaps the approaching thunder reminds her of another palace, from her youth, in Masrah.
In her room, Jali dresses me in the royal gown her sister Callia once wore. “Today you’ll be like our brave hero, Sedoraha,” she says, fastening the buttons. “You offer yourself for our sake, as she did centuries ago.”
“I’m not trying to be a sacrifice,” I reply, in no mood for her ancient tales. “I’m simply the only option right now.”
Which is the truth, undecorated by any romanticism.
But Jali doesn’t listen. “She was our greatest knight, not much older than you when she died.”
“Is this meant to be reassuring?”
She kisses my right cheek, softer. “She fought her traitorous brother in battle and after being captured, she refused to kill him when she had the chance. Rather than betray Masrah, or him, she fell upon her sword and took her secrets with her, because the enemy was also beloved.”
Again, I feel frightened of Jali. A story that could be about my own mother and her brother, a veiled threat in the form of myth. But I realize she’s not telling the tale for my sake. She’s telling it to herself. “That’s the courage my family was made of,” she says quietly. “We ruled a thousand-year-old dynasty. We never faltered. We never begged or made false promises or fell at the feet of Northern kings. We’ve always endured. Now, isn’t that the only way to survive? With iron pride?”
I finally see, in that question, why she can’t bring herself to truly love Rahian. His kingdom surrendered to the North, and hers didn’t. Masrah refused to bow.
A mountain you cannot pass.
And in the end, it was eaten from the inside out.
With that, we walk for the King’s council, and I feel an utter sham as I go, a dim imitation of the queen who once wore this dress. All of my years, I’ve felt like a princess. I’ve known it. Understood it. But not in this moment, when it matters.
I feel false.
At his desk, Rahian’s downing wine already. The dull roars are closer now, nearing the palace gates. I can’t see outside, since the heavy drapes are closed, but the chandelier jingles mockingly above our heads.
“Are you ready?” Havis asks me. He asks it as more of an expectation.
I nod, glancing at the door and wondering how we’re to know when it’s time. I think Havis is about to say something to this effect, when there’s a violent shudder below us. The entire palace trembles. Goblets roll along the table, spilling drink. Then it’s silent again. An overwhelming and pristine silence. Rahian’s soldiers have been ordered not to resist.
Havis hands me the Resyan flag.
“Bring us peace,” he says.
I despise the very word on his rotten lips, but I take the limp cloth. Everyone watches me, perhaps regretting this decision to send me into hot Safire guns, but I don’t linger. Their concern will only make this worse. Make me hesitate.
Bring us peace.
I can do that.
Both today and to come.
With chin up, head higher than I feel, I stride for the alabaster stairway. I half expect to find Safire uniforms already there, hiding in corners, waiting to grab me. But there’s nothing. That same empty silence. I take the steps slowly, heels clicking, a lonely sound while aeroplanes rumble overhead. At the bottom of the stairs, the abandoned foyer is littered with debris. It’s a dry bed of activity, remnants of palace life scattered in its wake—dropped trays, frayed maps, the broad oak doors blasted open.
The Commander stands there.
He’s a lone figure in the ruin of the doorway, a gun in his hand, his leg bent and head tilted, like he’s looking up and up and can’t find whatever it is he’s looking for, somewhere high in the vaulted ceiling.
He hears me to his left and turns. His guarded face changes to shock. But it isn’t his expression that catches me—it’s the gaunt shadow of his entire being. He’s not the same person who stood beside me at the air show last summer. The glamorous confidence is gone, leaving behind a bruised sort-of rock that reflects nothing.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
His question echoes, flat and startled.
I feel suddenly too gleaming, too exposed. I’m certain he can see the truth written on my face, on my blood and in my bones. My shame and guilt.
Seath, Seath, Seath.
Swallowing fear, I extend the flag. Outside, voices shout in Savien. “His Majesty King Rahian offers his formal surrender. The army is in the garden waiting for you. All weapons have been laid down.”
He stares at me a long moment, his leg still crooked. “He sent you?”
I nod.
The Commander’s eyes narrow, striding forward at last. “No. No, he can do it himself, not send a little girl on his behalf. Get his goddamned royal ass down here!”
“Commander, please, he’s nervous to see you and—”
“He sure as hell should be nervous!”
He tries to step round me, but I block him. It’s a miracle it works. He’s still so very tall. “Please, Commander! Promise me he won’t be harmed. He has a son. A young child. Let them be spared and he’ll give you whatever you ask for. This isn’t—”
“Are you trying to negotiate?” he asks, bewildered now. “This is a surrender. There’s no negotiation. You get whatever I give you.”
“This isn’t His Majesty’s fault,” I lie. “The Nahir stirred up this kingdom, not him.”
The Commander laughs. A harsh, unpleasant sound, and I notice, now, the wound on his forehead, poorly patched and red as fire. I notice also the dirt on his face, the ruin of his dusty uniform. The gem of his beauty is gone. The anger is ugly.
“Tell me then, Princess,” he says, “why I just spent weeks slogging through these mountains and wasting lives? Why did I even come?”
His bitter rage lights mine.
The hellish night I’ve just witnessed.
“That’s a very good question,” I snap back. “You brought this war and he had to fight. He had no choice!”
“No choice?”
“This is a sovereign kingdom which you invaded.”
“Liberated,” he corrects. “From a drunk king who encourages violent unrest.”
“You did no such thing! You’ve destroyed it!”
Again, the Commander looks like he might laugh. A savage amusement. His eyes swing up the stairway, sharpening. His hand on his gun. “Then is he going to deal with me himself, or am I to have the
se political debates with you, as ever?”
I realize how very alone I am. Last time we battled, it was before a throne room of witnesses. Now it’s only us and an entire Safire army outside these doors. He could tell them my body was found in the rubble of a shattered doorway. An unfortunate casualty.
I take a step back.
“I already told you,” I say, trying to hide my panic, “the army is in the garden, waiting for you. And Rahian will come to the table. I’ll make certain of it. Please don’t hold all of Resya to account for one man’s weakness.”
The Commander still stares.
I hold out the flag again, a bit desperately, and an aeroplane passes close enough overhead that the windows rattle. I wish suddenly for Athan, for his face. The only Safire uniform I trust. But I don’t even know where he is, or if that could be his aeroplane above, or if he’s miles from the capital still in some newly conquered airbase.
Or if he’s in a grave.
“Please,” I say, “let Rahian speak for himself. Give him a chance.”
The Commander doesn’t move. He’s as giant as he was in the throne room, an indomitable force I must look up to, made of sweat and filth and dried blood, of raw violence, and I resist the urge to run. But he does nothing. The anger between us fades, quite suddenly. A flash of emotion that can’t be sustained, not with what’s outside these doors.
He takes the flag, then straightens and steps back, shouldering his rifle. I realize how very mad it is that he’s come in here all alone. Only him. A solitary, exhausted figure in the echoing silence.
“Which way to the garden?” he asks tonelessly.
I gesture towards the east doors.
He bows, mostly insincere, and heads that way, disappearing round the corner. I let out a terrified breath. It’s been captured in my chest too long. Walking forward cautiously, I step through the golden rubble of the grand façade, through the silt and debris and broken glass.
At the top of the front palace steps, I falter.
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