I nod at Lekan. “Of course.”
Jesse presses a moan back, torn between wanting me to help Ceridwen and wanting me to helphim. But he relents, almost instantly, his eyes latching on to mine. “Please, Queen Meira,” he gasps. “Consider my proposal. We candiscuss this after we—”
Lekan turns on Jesse as the king reaches for a sword hanging on the wall. The pattern on the sheath and the jewels on the hilt scream “decoration only,” and the lack of weapons on Jesse’s person at all says he isn’t a fighter.
“This doesn’t concern you,” Lekan growls. “Stay here. Do nothing. You’re good at that.”
Jesse’s chest sags and he drops against the door frame.
The old Meira appreciates Lekan’s brazenness, but Queen Meira chokes. “He’s theking of Ventralli,” I half gag, half laugh.
But Lekan just grabs my arm. “He’ll get over it.”
And we’re running, leaving Jesse with his hands over his face, his conduit dangling uselessly from his hip.
The halls of the Donati Palace are maddeningly long.
I’m already half out of my dress by the time I burst into my room. Conall and Garrigan close the door, and Dendera dives at the trunk in the corner, ripping out clothes more appropriate to search for someone. Nessa scoops it all out of Dendera’s hands and shoves me behind a dressing screen.
“She loves him,” Lekan starts. My heart fractures. “She has for four years. Well, more than that, actually—before he married Raelyn. But that’s not important—she went to him just after you all met them in the throne room. She said she was done, that she wanted to end things. She’s tried in the past, but something about this time felt different.”
“What?” Dendera asks. “Why would this time be different?”
“Because Ventralli has started to sell people to her brother.”
I bend forward, one hand bracing on the dressing screen.
The Ventrallan man who was murdered in the wine cellar.
Not only was his death upsetting for humane reasons, but it was also upsetting politically. His presence in Summer should have struck me oddly—Iknewonly Yakim and Spring sold to Summer, but I was too wrapped up in my own issues to see anything outside of myself.
Ceridwen should have told me how Summer’s situation had evolved. What stopped her? Pride? My constant babbling about my own problems?
Dendera sighs. “He betrayed her.”
Her words slant sharply, and I close my eyes as if that will stop them from hitting their mark. I don’t need Dendera’s observation to connect how similar Ceridwen and I are—both in our doomed relationships with Rhythm royals.
But Lekan grunts. “I don’t think so. I think it was his wife. She’s manipulative, to say the least, and she’s always after ways to boost Ventralli’s economy. And Jesse isn’t heartless. He may be weak, but never heartless.” He pauses, exhaling slowly. “But Ceridwen wouldn’t listen to me. She went to talk to him, and that was the last I saw her. But theservants said that she hurried back soon after, and changed out of her gown and into . . . weapons.”
That was why Jesse was so riled. Ceridwen ended things with him, probably told him of his wife’s arrangement to sell Ventrallans to Summer, and left.
Nessa folds my dress once it’s off and I’m in my normal clothes, the black pants and white shirt I wore in Summer. The key, still wrapped in cloth, goes into my pocket while my chakram sits on my back, and as I step out from behind the dressing screen, I tighten the straps of the holster.
“I know where she went,” I say.
Lekan flinches forward. “What? How?”
“Because I know where I’d go if my heart had broken,” I tell him, “and I’m beginning to think Ceridwen and I are similar in more ways than one.”
I know where I’d go if I had ended things with a man I loved, if my kingdom was constantly threatened by an evil far stronger than me. Weapon blazing, I’d march into war. It’s what my body has screamed to do since I finally relented to who I am, a warrior and a queen. To face everything without hesitation, to seek out the fight instead of cowering from it.
I know we need to press on for the Order, for answers. But if I let someone I care about slip through the chaos, I’ve lost no matter what I do. I’d do the same for Nessa, or Mather, or Sir—drop everything to race to their aid. The reckless part of me, the Meira the orphaned soldier-girlpart—that’s all she is. Someone who acts impetuously, but always with good intent.
I will be that girl and the queen, all the parts of me. I will help Ceridwen and my kingdom—I can save everyone.
I can save everyone.
That’s it.
