HarperCollins Publishers
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Meira
JESSE WAITS FORus in a study so cramped and chaotic that I can’t help but feel even more curious about this meeting. This isn’t a room made for receiving foreign dignitaries and impressing them with displays of power and extravagance—this is his actual study, cluttered with parchments and shelves crammed with well-used ledgers.
If there were any doubt over Jesse’s relation to Theron, this room would negate it. The mess peppered with bits of art—a stack of masks in the corner, a tapestry rolled up on the floor, a painting leaning against the wall—reminds me so much of Theron’s room in Bithai that I half expect him to be here too. But only Jesse waits within, and it isn’t until the door closes behind us that he jumps and swings around.
“Queen Meira!” he chirps, and drops a ledger, sending it crashing to the velvety green carpet. But it appears intentional, as he dives for a stack of papers on his desk withoutbothering to note the book he dropped.
“I didn’t expect the king of Ventralli to treat books with such disdain,” I note, and Dendera snaps a quiet hiss at me.
But Jesse doesn’t seem to hear me. “Oh, no, that’s useless.”
He drops the stack of papers in turn and moves for a scroll on his desk, mumbling unintelligibly.
“King Jesse?” I start.
He snaps up to me, blinking behind his red silk mask. His eyes cut to the door, closed after Dendera, Nessa, my guards, and me, and he surveys us in turn, his lips parting in tight, uneven breaths.
“Are they trustworthy?” Jesse asks, and thumps the scroll on his desk. “Of course they are; they’re your people. You saved them.”
“I don’t understand—”
“Queen Meira, I need your help.” Jesse moves out from behind his desk and crosses the room to me. He folds his arms behind his back to straighten into the most regal stance I’ve seen on him yet, the crown at his hip glinting silver. “I realize this is unorthodox, but I wish to form an alliance with you.”
My eyes snap open so wide the snowflake mask shifts. “Youwant an alliance withme?”
Dendera sucks in a small gasp of surprised joy as Jesse nods.
“You freed yourself. Your people,” he explains, shouldersdipping slightly. “You overthrew a great evil. I need to do that. I need—help.”
That quickly, my shock dissolves into wariness. “What exactly do you need?”
Jesse waves his amends, mistaking my concern. “No, no, I intend to reciprocate—whatever you need. Anything. I just—” His eyes drift to stare at a spot on the floor. “This has gone too far. My wife. She needs to be stopped.”
I can’t control my wheezing gasp. “You want help dethroning your wife?”
Jesse meets my eyes and nods.
My mind reels back to my brief time with Raelyn. She didn’t seem particularly terrible, but we were only in the same room for a few minutes. If anything, she seemed . . . hard. Aloof. But this is Ventralli, after all—they built their culture on concealment.
“You’re the king,” I state, only because I need to remind myself that Jesse is, in fact, the most powerful man in this country. “Why would you beseech aSeasonfor help with this? Can’t you just order your own divorce?”
Jesse shakes his head in a tight, determined rebuttal. “You think I haven’t tried ending things peacefully? She has support. Lots of support. Including my own mother, and that’s what I was doing when you came in—trying to sort through all of my correspondences and figure out which allies I still have. But it’s you I need. You overthrew Angra. You know of these things.”
“I overthrew him in a bloody, costly war, not through politics. Why don’t you go to Cordell?”
My gut twists. Here the king of a Rhythm is handing me an alliance on what may as well be bended knee, and I’m refuting him. But I don’t have the extra resources to help in what he needs—and anything he did take would come indirectly from Cordell, anyway.
“I did ask Cordell.” Jesse pulls back and turns to his desk, shuffling aimlessly through the papers on it. His eyes lift to mine, softer now, some of his desperation receding. “But I fear my wife already has her influence in them as well. She does that—cuts off everything I have, infects potential supporters until I have no ally but her.”
I step forward. “What do you mean she has her influence in Cordell?”
“That’s why I needed to see you so suddenly.” Jesse faces me again. “She’s speaking to Theron at this moment. I needed to meet with you before—”
My brain lurches to a halt, though he keeps talking.
