They had no way of knowing it wasn’t a fever attacking his already frail body.
They had no way of knowing that Eda had poisoned him. She had made herself invaluable to him over the past year—a courtier he could trust. Rely on. She’d used the rumor that she was his illegitimate daughter as an excuse to get close to him. Close enough to put the poison she mixed herself into his food and drink, drop by drop, day by day. Tonight, she’d given him the final, lethal dose.
She sat by his bed, holding his tremulous hand as he took his last rattling breaths. The firelight cast eerie shadows on his sunken face.
She stared at him, watched him die.
And she felt nothing.
She rose from her place at his bedside and rang for the attendant. This was her moment—she would seize it before it was taken from her, like so many things in her life.
“My lady?” The attendant at the door was young—no older than Eda’s own seventeen years. She looked frightened, her eyes big and round.
“The Emperor, my father, has passed,” Eda told her. “I will be announced as his heir in the ballroom in a quarter hour.”
Somehow, the attendant’s eyes grew even rounder than before. “But my lady, Miss Dahl-Saida is announcing herself as heir.”
The name rankled her, even though she’d made preparations. Eda straightened her spine. “I know. That is why I’m bringing the Imperial Guard. Send for soldiers from the barracks to stand vigil around my father. And it’s Your Imperial Highness, at least until I am crowned tomorrow.”
The attendant drew in a sharp breath and bowed very low. “It is an honor to serve you, Your Imperial Highness.” She left to do Eda’s bidding.
Eda smiled. She felt the power of the gods, filling her up.
She swept from the room and went to claim the Empire Tuer had promised her.
Chapter Eight
THIS TIME,IT WASILEEM WHO APPEAREDat Eda’s window, his form melting out of the shadows on the rooftops.
She’d been sitting on the sill, knees pulled up to her chin, staring blankly out into the night and trying desperately to get a hold of herself. She hadn’t spoken a word to Ileem on the short ride back to the palace, had barely even glanced at him in her haste to return to her rooms. And he hadn’t pressed her.
Now he was here, crouched expectantly outside of her window with only the jasmine-soaked night air between them. “May I come in?” he asked.
“No.”
“Then will you come out?” He raised a bottle of wine into her view.
She blinked and saw the image of the Emperor’s ghost pressed behind her eyelids. She realized how much she didn’t want to be alone. “All right. But only because of the wine.”
She clambered through the window and out onto the roof, letting Ileem choose their path. They climbed up a ways, onto the main dome of the library, and stretched out on the sun-warmed tiles. The moon was at its zenith, and it seemed all the world was flooded in silvery light. It would be beautiful if Eda could shake the image of the Emperor’s ghost from her head, if she could forget her mounting terror for Niren.
Ileem took several healthy swigs of wine before passing the bottle to Eda. If it was anyone but Ileem, she would have said something scathing about Empresses not drinking from bottles, andcertainlynot directly after someone else. But itwasIleem, and she found she didn’t mind her lips touching the same thing his lips had touched. She took a long drink—the wine was strong, and burned in her throat on the way down. Excellent. She took another drink.
“I’ve always had a thirst for vengeance,” said Ileem, stretching out his long legs and leaning back onto the roof. “Even after I swore myself to Rudion.”
His dark skin gleamed in the moonlight. He looked otherworldly, gods-touched. Eda shuddered. How awful it must be to truly bear the gods’ mark.
“I wanted to right all the wrongs of the world,” Ileem was saying. “Make my father well again, protect my sister, demand my brothers serve the gods with proper reverence. I was always getting into fights, letting myself be provoked. I liked to think I was carrying out the gods’ judgment, but it was really my own. Not even bearing Rudion’s mark could cool my temper—if anything, it fed the flames. When my father died, I couldn’t control myself anymore. I broke a man’s nose for mocking my devotion to Rudion. I broke another man’s leg when he questioned my choice of song in our darkwinter Feast of Stars, a song Rudion himself had given me to sing. And then … then I killed someone by accident.”
Eda scraped her fingernails against the wine bottle. The Emperor’s death had not been by accident. It had been a calculated choice, a necessary step. She’d thought she was resigned to it: the gift from the gods that allowed her to seize what they owed her. She’d never felt guilty about it before. She never thought she’d needed to.
But now she couldn’t stop seeing the Emperor’s haunted eyes.
“It was supposed to be a boxing match,” Ileem was saying. “A harmless bit of fun. But he made me angry. He mocked me and my family and my god. He said I was a whipped cur, slinking back to the temple again and again to the god who kept me on a leash. I couldn’t stop beating him. I couldn’tstop,like it was someone else controlling my hands, someone else’s screaming that made my throat raw and my hands ache. By the time a guard pulled me off of him, it was too late. He was gone.”
Ileem’s jaw tensed; he stared out over the rooftop, every line in him evincing his regret. “That’s when I decided I had to leave Denlahn for a time, make a pilgrimage to the monastery in Halda and atone for my sin. I also hoped to meet Rudion there, in the mountains, where they say his presence lingers strongest of all. I hoped to see more than just a shadow. I hoped to gain new purpose in my life. Liah came with me to keep me from getting into any more trouble. I don’t think she minded. I think she was bored at home. As the youngest of us all, she hadn’t a lot of opportunity for adventure. And she’s always been fond of me, for reasons I can’t fathom.”
Eda took yet another drink. The wine tasted sweeter now than it had at first. She closed her eyes, losing herself in Ileem’s story.
