The Endless War

1

Zarrah

The deck rose and fell, the roar of the ship slamming against waves deafening. Rough water, which Zarrah knew from experience meant violent storms in the Tempest Seas, the elements standing guard over Ithicana while the kingdom recovered its strength. Not that it had much to fear, given that the eyes of Maridrina and Valcotta were firmly fixed on each other.

And Zarrah was the fuel that had turned the embers of the Endless War into an inferno.

In the hours and days since her aunt, Empress Petra Anaphora of Valcotta, had condemned her to imprisonment on Devil’s Island, Zarrah had swiftly come to understand why she hadn’t been granted a traitor’s death.

The empress wanted war with Maridrina.

More than that, she wanted to destroy the man she believed had ruined her plans to burn Vencia. The king who’d become her obsession.

Keris.

Zarrah bit down on her gag, her chest hollowing as his face filled her mind’s eye. Always the same moment: them standing on the highest reaches of Southwatch Island. The moment she’d realized that Keris had taken the information she’d given him about the plan to save Ithicana and used it to save her.

People were always going to die, Zarrah, the phantom of Keris’s voice said to her in the darkness of her cell. There was always going to be a battle. I just changed the grounds it was fought on.

Eranahl.

Keris had changed the battleground from the bridge to the city Ithicana had been so desperate to defend, knowing it would lure out every soldier in its arsenal. Had ensured it would be a swift and decisive battle so that there’d be no chance Zarrah could reach the city in time to join the fight.

Load your ships and sail home, Zarrah, because no one can accuse you of wrongdoing. The empress’s spies will have seen that Vencia remained too strongly defended for you to attack. As for you coming to Southwatch, given my father is about to gain uncontested control of the bridge, the empress is going to look the fool for not doing more to stop him. At least you tried.

She had tried. But she’d also been the fool who’d given their strategy to the enemy.

Regain her favor and secure your position as heir. Become empress. Do all the good you dreamed of doing. I’ll do the same . . . We could change our world, Zarrah. Create a peace between two nations who’ve been at war for generations. Save thousands of our people’s lives. But that doesn’t come without sacrifice, and that sacrifice is Ithicana.

In the end, Ithicana had been victorious. But in that moment, she’d believed Keris had sent Aren and his kingdom to their doom, and her accusations repeated in her mind. You say you did it for our kingdoms, but that isn’t it, is it? God help her, but she’d remember the pain until she was dust in the grave. You did it for me. To save me. Admit it!

Zarrah—­

Admit it!

I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t let you die.

Keris hadn’t liked her plan, her strategy, her choice, so he’d taken it away. That Ithicana had prevailed and defeated Maridrina didn’t matter because that had been luck. That had been the arrival of a storm—­and Ithicana’s queen—­not Keris’s design. I never want to see your face again. Never want to hear your voice. And if we cross paths, I will kill you.

Zarrah shivered as the last words she’d spoken to him faded. There was no chance of Keris falling to her weapon, because thanks to the Magpie delivering the truth of her relationship with Keris to the empress, she’d never be free again. The ship she was aboard sailed to Devil’s Island, and no one in the history of the infamous prison’s existence had ever escaped.

Devil’s Island.

Every time Zarrah thought of the ship’s destination, nausea roiled in her guts. It was the prison for the worst criminals in the Empire. The vilest and most dangerous. Men and women for whom death was too kind a sentence.

Not for people like her.

True to her aunt’s word, Zarrah had received no trial. Yet neither had there been public condemnation, no parade of shame through the streets.

Nothing.

It was as though her aunt wished to keep what Zarrah had done a secret from everyone in Valcotta.

Or perhaps to erase her existence entirely.

Footsteps sounded on the deck, pulling Zarrah from her thoughts. A hooded figure appeared before her cell, carrying a lantern, though it wasn’t bright enough to reveal the individual’s face beneath the shadows of the hood.

Not that it mattered. Zarrah would recognize her aunt’s stride anywhere.

She reached through the bars and pulled out Zarrah’s gag. “Hello, dear one.”

It was a struggle not to flinch at the endearment, especially given that Zarrah’s ribs still bore the bruises from her aunt’s rage. “Empress.”

Her aunt sighed and drew back her hood, revealing her halo of curls, the silver strands gleaming in the light. If recent events had taken a toll, it didn’t show, for her brown skin held its usual luster, the only sign of her age a crinkling around her coal-­rimmed eyes. Gold jewels glittered on her ears and her throat, and the faint scent of her floral perfume drifted into Zarrah’s cell. Placing the lantern down on the deck, the empress then sat with her back against the wall opposite Zarrah’s cell with her knees up, the laces of her military boots swaying.

Silence stretched, and Zarrah’s heart beat faster with every passing second. Why was her aunt on the ship? What did she intend that demanded her presence during Zarrah’s incarceration? What did she plan to say? Why was she here? What did she want?

What her aunt said next was not at all what Zarrah anticipated.

“I hate this,” the empress said softly. “Hate him for having come between us. For having damaged our love so badly that I fear it is beyond repair.”

Zarrah stared, struggling to comprehend what madness motivated her aunt’s words even as some cowardly part of her wanted to latch onto them. Wanted to beg her aunt for mercy.

But she was no coward.

“It is beyond repair, Imperial Majesty. But not because of Keris’s actions.”

Her aunt sucked in a breath as though Zarrah had slapped her. “Hearing his name from your lips is a knife to the heart, dear one, because I can hear the affection you still hold for him.”

Zarrah knew her feelings for Keris were still there. Hated that they were still there. Yet she said, “You are mistaken.”

Her aunt regarded her for a long moment, then looked away, face crumbling with grief. “God spare us, but the rat’s claws have sunk deep into your heart, and it is my fault.” A tear trickled down her aunt’s cheek, and she wiped it away angrily. “I prepared you for life in so many ways, but I neglected to teach you of the devilry of men.”

Zarrah snorted in disgust. “I’m a woman grown, not some fifteen-­year-­old maid who has never been kissed. He was hardly my first lover.”

“The fumbling of soldiers. Whereas a man like him uses seduction with the adeptness of a courtesan. You never had a chance, and that is my fault, dear one.” Her voice dripped with pity. “I should have made arrangements so that you’d have had the experience to resist his charms.”

Zarrah’s cheeks burned, and she cursed herself for allowing her aunt to get to her. “He had no idea who I was when we met and didn’t learn my identity until . . . after.”

“After you had sex with him?” The empress sighed. “You claim a woman’s experience with men but speak of intimacy like a girl.”

Zarrah clenched her fists, aware that she was rising to the bait but unable to stop herself. “I can—­”

Her aunt held up a hand, silencing her. “The rat knew you were Valcottan. That you were a soldier. Your speech would have told him you were from a certain class, and therefore a certain rank. All of which made you a challenge worthy of his attention. A prize to be claimed, and a prize to be used once he learned just how valuable you truly were.”

“You pretend knowledge of something you know nothing about.” Why was her aunt pursuing this angle? What was her goal? What was the point of delving into Keris’s intentions when Zarrah had already forsaken him?

“If you were just a lover and not a prize worth keeping, why did he take you to Vencia? Why not arrange for you to escape?”

“He tried,” Zarrah retorted even as she debated whether it was better to fight or remain silent, or if it mattered at all. “You ordered that I be abandoned; Yrina told him so when she was captured.”

Silence.