“I am now that Elezaar’s gone,” she replied. They were both getting soaked by the rain neither of them seemed to notice.
“What are you going to do?” he asked after a while, when the silence began to get uncomfortable.
“Bring Alija down. I have no choice now.”
“That’s not going to be easy.”
“I’ll need your help.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Knowledge is power, Rodja.”
Her stepson smiled thinly, which made him look disturbingly like Ruxton. “Elezaar’s Tenth Rule, if I remember his lessons correctly.”
Marla nodded. “And I intend to apply Elezaar’s rules like never before. I want information. I want to know everything Alija does, Rodja, and who she does it with. I want to know who she speaks to and who she doesn’t speak to. I want to know who she’s sleeping with. I want to know what she eats for breakfast. I want to know what undergarments she wears. I want to know everything that happens in her household right down to the colour of her bowel movements.”
Rodja nodded and then frowned a little. “That’s going to cost a lot of money.”
“I can afford it.”
“Then I’ll arrange it for you.”
“Thank you, Rodja.”
He hesitated, and then looked at her with concern. “Are you sure you’ll be all right, Marla?”
She paused before she replied and then nodded. “Oddly enough, yes, I think I’m going to be fine,” she said.
Rodja left her in the garden after a time, the gently falling rain like a heavy mist around her.
Marla sat by the fresh grave, her own guilt slowly giving way to anger as she pondered the motives behind Elezaar’s willing betrayal. She thought she understood, now, some of his reasons at least. And she intended to make it up to him. She would give Elezaar in death the one thing he had craved in life and she had been too preoccupied to notice. She owed him that much at least.
For years, Elezaar had urged Marla to be more overt in her dealings with the High Arrion. Marla had resisted, determined not to do anything to force the issue until Damin would safely come of age.
Her reticence frustrated the dwarf, Marla knew that, but the decision was hers to make and she had chosen to preserve the status quo.
Marla no longer had that luxury. In death, Elezaar had managed to manipulate her into doing what he hadn’t been able to make her do in life.
Well, you’ll get your wish, Elezaar, she promised him silently. I will bring Alija down. You’ve left me with no other choice.
Fortunately, even with everything Alija now knew about Marla’s plans for the future, with all she would have learned about Marla’s actions in the past, one thing she couldn’t know—because Elezaar hadn’t known it, either—was just how far Marla was willing to go to get what she wanted.
Alija is probably still patting herself on the back for being so clever, Marla realised. I wonder if she has any idea how far I’m willing to go to make this country a safe place for my son to rule?
Or just how far, Marla admitted silently to herself, I’m willing to go to unburden myself of this intolerable guilt.
It might be lonely, knowing you were feared, but Marla consoled herself with the idea that vengeance was an all-consuming pastime. It should keep the loneliness at bay. Because it was vengeance that began to fill Marla’s thoughts, pushing away the guilt and the grief.
Alija had forced Elezaar to betray his mistress, something he would never have done willingly.
For that, as much as anything else, Marla decided, Alija Eaglespike must die. The murder of Ronan Dell and his household, her attempts on Damin’s life, stealing Nash from her, the plots Alija stirred up against the High Prince every chance she got, her plans to raise first her husband and now her son to the throne—there were plenty of reasons to bring Alija down, but Marla had always been able to convince herself that waiting until the right time was better than taking action at the wrong time.
But Alija had crossed the line when she made Elezaar betray Marla, and for that she would die—
Marla was determined about that. The dwarf was the sad casualty of a battle between two powerful women who were about to step out from behind their civilised façades to face each other down.
Alija had drawn first blood. This wasn’t a battle of wits any longer. It was war.
Table of Contents
Book Two of the Wolfblade Trilogy
part I
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
part II
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Epilogue
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