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Keris smiles. “To offer them a new purpose in life.”
Rage makes my hands shake. My mother, Mirra of Serra, could scale walls with hardly a thought. Would that I had that same mysterious skill. I would use it now to leap upon Keris when she least expected it.
My dagger is in my hand—not the one I was to lay on Nikla’s throne, but an older weapon. Elias gave it to me long ago. It is wicked sharp and coated with poison from cross-guard to tip. I run my gloved finger along the blade and inch closer to the throne.
“What of the thousands of Scholars you killed?” Nikla wags her head, unknowingly shaking off the ghuls, who chitter in vexation. “Did they have no purpose? You perpetrated a genocide, Empress. How do I know you will not do so again?”
“The number of Scholar dead was greatly exaggerated,” Keris says. “Those I did execute were criminals. Rebels and political dissidents. You’ve disavowed your own husband for speaking against the monarchy. My methods were simply more permanent.”
A steward steps out from behind the throne, face solemn as she bends to whisper in Nikla’s ear.
“Forgive me, Empress,” the crown princess says after listening. “I am late for my next engagement. We will speak in the morning. My guards can show you to your quarters.”
“If you wouldn’t mind,” the Commandant says, “I’d like a moment to appreciate your throne room. Its beauty is renowned—even in the Empire.”
Nikla goes very still, her fists tightening on the throne’s intricately carved armrests.
“Certainly,” she finally says. “The guards will wait in the hall.”
The princess sweeps out, her soldiers trailing. I know I should follow her. Find some other way to carry out a threat so that she is taken to her quarters.
But I find myself staring at the Commandant. She is a killer. But no—nothing so simple as that. She is a monster in killer’s clothing. A scrap of the hells masquerading as human.
She stares at the stained-glass dome above, where bright-sailed ships ply Marinn’s turquoise seas. I take a slow step toward her. How much suffering would have been avoided if I’d had the courage to kill her months ago, outside Serra, when she lay unconscious at my feet?
Now I could end her with one strike. She cannot see me. I fix my gaze on her neck, on the vivid blue tattoo crawling up her nape.
Her chest rises and falls gently, a reminder that no matter what she has done, she is human. And she can die just like the rest of us.
“It’s the throat or nothing, Laia of Serra.” The Commandant’s voice is soft. “Unless you cut through my fatigues to the artery in my leg. But I’m faster than you, so you’ll likely fail.”
I lunge, but she’s turned toward the faintwhooshof my cloak as I flyat her. The impact of our bodies jolts my invisibility loose. Before I draw another breath, the Commandant has me flat on the floor, knees clamped around my thighs, one hand pinning my arms while the other holds Elias’s blade to my throat. I did not even feel her take it from me.
I cringe but the high neck of my shirt protects me from the poison on the blade. The silver skin of her chest flashes. She tilts her head, reptilian gaze boring into me.
“How will you die?” she asks. “In battle, like your mother? Or in terror, like mine?” Her hand is grasped tight around the hilt of the dagger.Talk. Keep her talking.
“Don’t you—” I gasp as she presses the weapon against my windpipe. “Don’t you dare talk about my mother like that—you—hag—”
“I don’t know why you bothered, girl,” she says. “I always kn-know—”
The knife slackens against my throat. Keris’s eyes dilate and she coughs. I squirm out from under her, rolling away. She leaps for me, and when she misses, stumbling instead, I allow myself a smile. She’s losing the feeling in her hands. In her legs. I know, because I tested the poison on myself.
Too late, Keris notices my gloves. Too late, she drops Elias’s blade, staring at the hilt, realizing how I got the poison onto her. If she’d ingested it, it would have killed her. But against her skin, it is more of an inconvenience. One just bad enough to give me the edge. The Commandant scrambles back as I yank a dirk from my boot.
But Keris Veturia has been at war nearly her whole life. Her instinct takes control and as I slash at her throat, she doubles me over with a quick hit below my sternum. My weapon falls, and I reach for my last knife. With a blow to my wrist, Keris sends it clattering across the floor.
Voices sound outside. The guards.
I lurch into her while she’s distracted and she throws me off with such force that I smack into the throne, head muzzy as I ooze to the floor. She opens her mouth to shout for the guards—likely the only time she’s called for help in her life. But the poison has stolen her voice and after struggling to stand, she finally collapses, limbs gracelessly akimbo.
Now or never, Laia. Where the skies are my blades? I’d choke the life out of her, but she might wake up in the middle of it. She’ll be out for a minute, at most. I need a weapon.
The hilt of Elias’s dagger pokes out from beneath the throne. Just as I get my hands on it, still gasping for breath, I am flung back like a rag doll.
My body slams into a quartz pillar. The throne room blurs, and then sharpens as a figure who is not the Commandant, but who certainly was not here a moment ago, makes its way toward me.
Pale skin. A dark cloak. Warm brown eyes. Freckles dancing across a wrenchingly handsome face. And a shock of red hair that’s nothing compared to the fire within him.
