Ehri only smiled. She rose and bowed deeply. “Forgive me if I offended, sister. The audience chamber was flooded, and it seemed best we talk in private.”
“The time for that has passed,” snapped Makhi. “You should have come to me with your concerns. Instead you conspired with the barbarian king. You went to my ministers with absurd tales of assassinations and poetry and secret laboratories. We will meet in the council chamber and you will recant your testimony and throw yourself on my mercy.”
“I cannot,” said Ehri. “Not even you, most celestial sister, can bid me lie.”
“You have no proof.”
“I am the proof,” said Mayu, ashamed of the way her voice trembled. “I who was asked to kill a king to save my brother.”
“You have no proof of that either. All I see is a girl looking healthy when all of her Tavgharad sisters are mysteriously dead.”
“We have your note,” said Ehri softly. “It was meant to burn with me, was it not? I didn’t quite believe it until this moment. But I can’t mistake that look on your face, Makhi. I remember it from when we were children, when Mother would catch you doing something you knew you shouldn’t.”
Makhi’s chin lifted. “What do you want?”
“Keep to the treaty you signed with Ravka and grant them monies from our treasury. Give up your dreams of war. And end the khergud program.”
“Without admitting that any of what you’ve said is true, I can agree to hold to the treaty, for now. Its terms are acceptable to us.”
“Then you will dismantle the laboratories.”
Makhi flicked a graceful hand through the air as if swatting a bug. “Nonsense. This khergud program you speak of is nothing but conspiracy theory and fanciful thinking.”
“I’ve seen the khergud myself,” said Tamar. “I didn’t imagine them.”
Makhi’s chin rose even higher. “I met your twin in Os Alta. He is as insolent and ill-mannered as you.”
“You will take us to the labs,” said Mayu. She was tired of all this back-and-forth. She wanted to see her brother.
“Do you really think to dictate terms to me in my own palace? You have gravely overestimated the influence of Ministers Zihun and Nagh.”
Ehri shook her head. “I did not think to rely on their influence.”
She had been standing in front of a golden table. Now she moved behind it and bent to smell the vase of vibrant coral roses she had placed upon it. Their petals looked like they’d been dipped in gold.
The queen’s face paled.
“They’re lovely, no? Bright as fire, but they have very little scent. Their beauty is all on the surface. I think I prefer wild roses myself. But these are very rare.”
“You took them from our grandmother’s garden.” Queen Makhi’s voice was barely a whisper.
“They were a gift. She likes a story well told.”
Now Mayu understood where the airship had landed that night, the scent of roses on the air. Tamar and Ehri had gone to Ehri’s grandmother for protection. Leyti Kir-Taban, Daughter of Heaven, was still considered a Taban queen. She had given her crown to her daughter when she was ready to leave off ruling and enjoy her old age. When her daughter had died, Leyti had given Makhi, her daughter’s chosen successor, her blessing. But Leyti could withdraw that blessing at any time. The roses—the flowers Mayu had so naively dismissed as mere sentiment—were bred in Leyti’s garden and nowhere else.
“Our grandmother should be careful in the garden,” said Makhi. “Accidents happen.”
“I know,” said Ehri. “That’s why we left an entire cadre of Grisha guards with her along with her own Tavgharad.”
“How solicitous.”
“I didn’t tell her everything,” said Ehri. “But I certainly could. You will take us to the labs, Makhi, or our grandmother will know why.”
“I’ll think on it,” said the queen, and without another word, she turned on her heel and departed.
“Do you think she took the bait?” Tamar asked when the queen and her guards were gone.
Ehri pulled one of the roses from its arrangement and replaced it in another spot, just so. “Yes. She can’t help herself.”
Mayu looked at the roses, then out the window to the sunny winter sky and the gardens beyond. She could only pray Ehri was right.
I’ll find you, Reyem, she vowed silently. I will.
20
ZOYA
THEY STOOD ON THE SHORE of the lake at the Little Palace, watching David’s body burn.