The trap was sprung, the steel claws descending, but the Usurper was not caught yet.
“If there is to be trust between us, Auntie, there must be honesty. Which means that I need to hear the truth from your lips.”
The Usurper’s eyes narrowed. “Just what truth do you think I’m withholding?”
“The truth about my mother’s fate.”
Prove to
Silence.
The Usurper’s face was unmoved, but Zarrah could feel the wheels turning in her head. The
calculation. Monster she might be, but a brilliant monster who’d hidden her true nature for a very long time. She would do everything in her power to keep it that way. Which meant that Zarrah had to be wary.
“You were there, Zarrah. With your own eyes, you watched Silas Veliant slaughter Aryana.
place, but Zarrah’s voice was clear asWatched him put her up on a cross for the carrion crows to feast upon while her blood rained down upon you at its base. Watched me gallop into the villa. Watched me untie you. Heard me promise you vengeance.”
choice.” Turning her head, she gestured to Sephra. “Send riders on the north road to meet Welran. Tell
“True,” Zarrah answered, forcing herself to keep her eyes on the Usurper’s and not look beyond.
“But how did Silas know we were there?”
“The Magpie’s spies. For all he was a disgusting little creature, Serin was a worthy spymaster.”
“Indeed. Although from his own lips, Serin told Keris that it was you who revealed that my mother and I were at the villa without a bodyguard. You used Silas as your assassin, which he was more than glad to be.”
A hot tear slipped down Zarrah’s cheek as she watched Sephra leave the stadium. She’d killed him.
“Lies!” The Usurper slammed her palms down on the stone slab, and despite herself, Zarrah
flinched. “Lies! Time and again, you take everything the rat said as truth rather than open your eyes to his manipulation.”
“Keris wasn’t lying.”
The Usurper snorted. “Believe that if you must, but if that’s the case, then he was deceived by Serin.”
“I don’t think so.” Zarrah pressed her sweat-slicked palms to the tabletop. “That was why you believed him when he sent word that Keris and I were lovers. You and he had an understanding, a trust cemented by complicity.”
The Usurper’s voice shook with rage as she said, “You have been misled. I loved my younger sister. Love you, with all my heart, despite all the villainy you’ve enacted against me. What cause would I have to see you both killed? What did I stand to gain?”
Lifting her hand from the table, Zarrah reached into her cloak pocket and removed the duplicate proclamation her grandfather had written naming her mother as heir, keeping her voice low as she placed it on the table. “Because my mother was the rightful heir to the Valcottan Empire.”
The Usurper’s eyes raked over the aged document. The signature. The seal imprinted with the Emperor’s ring. “You’ve been given a forgery.”
She belied her words by reaching to take the page, and Zarrah drew it away. “I don’t think so, Auntie.”
Fury flared on the Usurper’s face, only to vanish in a heartbeat. “Did you come here to surrender or not, Zarrah? For this feels very little like surrender.”
“I came for the truth.”
“And yet you seem content to believe lies.”
Zarrah stared at this woman she’d once loved like a mother. Her savior and salvation. For the first time, it occurred to her that the Usurper believed her own lies, lived in her own delusion of the truth.
“Near the end of his reign, my grandfather, Emperor Ephraim Anaphora, voiced his desire to see an end to the Endless War. To work toward peace with Maridrina, for he was tired of the slaughter.
Tired of thousands of children growing up as orphans. Tired of the violence. So rather than naming you, the daughter who lived and breathed the war to the point it had become her identity, as heir, he named his younger daughter. My mother, Aryana, was like-minded to him and desired peace above all else. Yet rather than acceding to your father’s wishes, when you learned of his intent, you rallied the calculation. Monster she might be, but a brilliant monster who’d hidden her true nature for a very longofficers in the military loyal to you and usurped the crown. When he died, you arranged for the assassination of all witnesses to the signing of the declaration, then destroyed the document itself, not realizing that my mother was in possession of the second.”
The Usurper did not react, only stared her down, eyes cold and calculating. “Are you finished with your little story?”
“No,” Zarrah answered. “I am not. My mother knew you were willing to kill to keep the crown, so she pretended to accept your rise to power, supporting you publicly. But in private, she and her husband, my father, took the first steps in gaining supporters. Together they falsified his death so that he could go to the south and rally those who desired an end to the war, sowing the first seeds that you were not the rightful ruler of Valcotta. Somehow, you learned of her plans, and you made
arrangements for her assassination. And mine, because I was her named heir. You supplied the and I were at the villa without a bodyguard. You used Silas as your assassin, which he was more than Maridrinian spymaster with details of when and where my mother and I would be near Nerastis, knowing full well that Silas Veliant would not miss the opportunity for blood.”
The Usurper shook her head. “These are lies told by Keris Veliant to turn you against me.”
“It is the truth that turned me against you.” Zarrah lifted her chin. “You rode into that villa believing we would both be dead, but what a shock to discover that I still lived. You couldn’t very well kill me with your soldiers watching, but in truth, I don’t think that’s what stayed your hand. I think it was the way I looked at you when you rode through the gates, like there was no one in the world but you. And you realized that you could make me yours. Could raise me in your image, fighting your battles and defending your honor, worshiping you like a goddess and therefore blind to your every flaw. That you could make me the perfect heir, for not only was it my birthright, but when the day came for me to ascend, it would be as though a second coming of you sat upon the throne. I was your fucking immortality!”
The Usurper flinched, and Zarrah bared her teeth. “But then I met Keris. You knew something was drawing me away from your way of thinking, and you tried to fight it. Forbade me to have anything to do with it. But it was too late. My mind had been unleashed from your control. You knew it, which was why you didn’t attempt to rescue me, likely thinking Silas would kill me the moment I walked through the gates of his palace. But Silas Veliant was a game master as well, Auntie, and I see why he kept me alive. Not because he was afraid of provoking your ire, but because he knew that you were pissing yourself that he’d tell me the truth.”
The army was shifting restlessly, but Zarrah didn’t take her eyes from the Usurper’s face, for she couldn’t risk her aunt turning around to see the claws of the trap descending.
Not yet.
Fury flared on the Usurper’s face, only to vanish in a heartbeat. “Did you come here to surrender or