I was led to the center of the room and forced to my knees. Nura rose from her chair at the head table. I had to fight to keep my expression neutral. I
hated her more than I had ever hated anyone.
“A gift for you,” Lady Zorokov said. “A gesture of goodwill, celebrating the birth of a beautiful alliance.”
The corner of Nura’s mouth curled. She looked at me the way a cat looked at a songbird.
“If I recall correctly,” she said, “you made some very unpleasant threats not very long ago because we would not send you her head.”
Nura’s Thereni was heavily accented, but still elegant and icy. Lady Zorokov laughed, while Lord Zorokov merely smirked.
“Forgive us for the harsh words we had for your predecessor,” he said. “I understand that we both have similar attitudes towards our enemies. I’m sure that her head will end up on a stick either way, but our gift to you is the pleasure of being the one to do it.”
“How kind.” Nura circled the table and leaned down until we were nearly eye level.
“It’s good to see you,” she said in Aran. “It’s been a while.”
“You’re far from home,” I replied in Thereni. “We speak my language here.”
Her smirk faded, but she switched to Thereni. “Where is Max?”
I offered her a serene smile, which brought a flicker of confusion to her face.
“I know you know where he is,” she said, her voice lower now. She struggled to maintain her facade of cold indifference. The tension and desperation were much closer to the surface. Even with my senses dulled, my magic fluttered in response.
Something had changed in her over the past months. It was as if, hour by hour, she had been edging closer to a precipice, eroding her own carefully maintained restraint.
I glanced around. This room wasn’t much different from the ballrooms where I used to dance night after night, presenting myself to those who saw me as nothing more than an intriguing novelty. Look at me, I’d commanded back then, surviving by showing them exactly what they wanted to see.
Now I said, Look at me.
And when I rose from my knees, they did, drawing in gasps of shock.
Casually, I walked to the head table. “Guards!” Lady Zorokov cried. The guards did not move.
“Guards!” she shrieked again.
I leaned over the table. The Zorokovs had taken inspiration, it seemed, from Lord Farimov’s dinner menu. Every nation that Threll had conquered was represented here. I touched a bowl of Nyzrenese blood apricots, and they turned to rot.
“You are just so easy to trick,” I said to her. “It’s like you want nothing more than to underestimate us.”
I pushed deeper into my magic and relished the way it felt flowing through me. The bountiful feast slowly withered, the sour-sweet stench of death replacing the mouth-watering aromas.
It felt good to finally release the magic I had been hiding all this time. Merick had made sure that my dose of Chryxalis was, today, as mild as he could get away with under the watchful overseer’s eye.
But even drugged, I felt like a phoenix.
At first, they all stared at me, too shocked to move. Nura struck first. I heard her steps behind me, whirled out of her grip and caught her slender wrist.
She didn’t break eye contact, barely wincing as decay ate at her skin.
Over her shoulder, I glanced at the entrance to the great room. Bright gold streaks of sunset splashed over white tile. Laron stood beside the door,
hands clasped before her. She lifted her chin to me in confirmation of what I already knew.
“You’re looking for Max?” I said. “No need. He’ll be here soon.” Nura’s brow knitted. “What?”
I could not have planned it better than the way it unfolded. At that moment, a foreman rushed into the room, half-stumbling over the guests in a way that earned a glare from the Zorokovs.
“I couldn’t stop them,” he panted. “I couldn’t—no one would fight, and
—”
The guests whispered uneasily. Lord Zorokov rose. “Full sentences,” he
snapped.
The foreman swallowed, trying and failing to catch his breath. “The west,” he said. “An army.”
The whispers became murmurs.
“—and the east,” the foreman spit out. “And they’re here, they’re in the house.”
East?
That part I didn’t know about. Lady Zorokov asked, “Who?”
As if on cue, the double doors opened, and we all looked to the entrance of the great hall.
I expected Max to be standing there.
But it wasn’t Max. It was the King of the Fey.
