Chapter 88 Keris
Keris
“Send a note to Virginia now,” Zarrah said, striding to the writing desk and pulling out a card. “We need to take advantage of the distraction that Ahnna is giving us.”
“Do you know what she’s planning?” Visions of Ahnna going on a killing spree through the Sky Palace filled Keris’s mind.
As if seeing inside his skull, his wife shook her head. “She’s going to confess to Edward’s murder in exchange for Ithicana’s liberation.”
Keris felt the blood drain from his face. “They’ll execute her.” He started to the door, but Zarrah caught his arm. “Zar, this plan is mad! They’ll take her up on her offer, and when her body isn’t even cold, they’ll purge Ithicana. There’s no way to hold them to their word.”
“There is. The one she gave us. We need to get Virginia on our side.”
It felt like a shot in the dark, the stakes high and the chances of success next to none. “She has nothing to gain from aiding us and everything to lose.”
“Do you have another suggestion?” His wife slammed her fists down on the table.
“We are trapped, Keris. Trapped in this palace in the sky, and the moment the storms ease, the Harendellians will slaughter our friends and family. Everyone in this place is too loyal or too afraid to help us. So write Virginia a note poetic enough that she steps out of isolation to meet with you.”
She shoved a pen into his hand, and Keris stared down at the card, his mind as blank as the paper.
“Just write whatever you’d have written to me to entice me to invite you into my room.”
“No,” he muttered. “Some words are for you alone. Besides, Virginia can’t see to read. This…this is not how to get to her.”
Tossing the pen on the table, he caught hold of his wife’s beautiful face, his fingers tangling in her loose curls. He kissed her, tasting her, then said, “If this all goes to shit, you need to get out.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
Her eyes narrowed with stubborn defiance, and he kissed her again before adding, “Obviously not. You’ll escape, and then plan my rescue. I look forward to being the damsel in the tower this time.”
Zarrah scoffed, then cast her eyes to the ceiling. “I’m glad you reserved these words for me. Don’t say anything so foolish to Virginia.”
The humor was an act, but Keris smirked anyway. “Our future does not end beneath Harendell’s stars, love. If for no reason other than it’s impossible to see them in this cursed foggy country. We will make it home, and then we will make everything right.”
He reached for the door just as it opened, a guard staring at him in surprise. “I need to take my dog for a walk.”
The man blinked. “At this hour?”
“She ate one of my shoes. I think her stomach is distressed, and being stuck in this shithole is bad enough without it being covered in actual shit.”
“Fine.” The guard jerked his chin at his fellow. “Watch her.”
Clipping the leash to Fiona’s collar, Keris went into the hallway and then made his way outside into the courtyard where the dog did her business.
The guard dutifully followed him as he went back in through another set of doors, strolling through the lower corridor until he found the painting he was looking for.
Loosening the slack on the leash, he pretended not to notice as Fiona circled the guard’s legs, tangling him up.
“I thought these dogs were supposed to be well trained,” the guard muttered as he tried to unravel himself. Keris took the opportunity presented by the distraction to slip his hand behind the portrait where Zarrah had told him she’d hidden the documents referencing cattle and wasting disease.
There was nothing there.
Was it the wrong portrait? Or had they been found?
He kept walking, then slipped his fingers beneath another portrait, finding the worn page of Edward’s letter, which he shoved in his pocket.
The guard managed to untangle himself from Fiona, turning a glower on Keris. “Control your animal, Your Highness.” He shoved the end of the leash into Keris’s hands.
The banking documents were no longer his asset, which meant his strategy needed to pivot. “Fiona is quite uncontrollable, I’m afraid.”
They carried on, walking past the rooms he knew belonged to Virginia, a single guard standing outside. Light filtered out from beneath the door, but he kept walking to the next set of doors.
“Hold on to her.” Keris dropped Fiona’s leash, and she kept trotting down the hall. “I’m going to find something to read, and she’s prone to chewing books.” Fiona reached a potted plant and made to do some business behind it.
Cursing, the guard raced after her, leaving Keris to his own devices. The library doors were richly carved to resemble bookshelves, the metal handles molded to resemble book spines. He went inside and shut the doors behind him. A single lamp burned on one of the tables, and he turned it up bright.
He’d already pursued the contents of the Ashford library many times, so Keris swiftly found the book he was looking for.
Sitting on a chair beneath a portrait of a queen of old, he flipped through the pages and began to read aloud.
It was an old epic, filled with romance and heartbreak, and through the hole behind the portrait, he suspected that Virginia Ashford could hear him clearly.
It was just a matter of whether she was willing to talk.
She delivered something better than a conversation through a hole in the wall, for it was not many pages later that a set of bookshelves swung inward and a young woman stepped through the opening.
Virginia wore a velvet dressing gown of black with matching slippers, her light brown hair pulled back from her face in a loose braid.
She used a cane, but it struck Keris that she barely needed it in this room, for she moved with total confidence to sit on a chair across from him.
“Don’t stop on my account, Your Highness,” she said. “You read very well.”
Though time felt short, Keris carried on until he reached the end of the poem, then shut the book. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Your Highness.”
Her mouth curved. “In the middle of the night, luring me in with romantic poetry and your reputation.”
“Is that what I did?” Keris hated this. Hated using tricks to manipulate this princess who had barely stepped into adulthood. A young woman who wore grief as thick as the black velvet of her garments.
“Yes, and I confess that I’m disappointed.
” She smoothed her dressing gown. “I’d heard your love for the empress was a story for the ages.
That you lived and breathed for her. That you had eyes for no one but her.
It gave me faith that such love was possible, and to find you seducing me when she’s in another room in this very palace is… heartbreaking.”
Keris considered her words, never forgetting that Virginia was an Ashford.
Born and bred for manipulation, and by the rumors, she was the cleverest of the three siblings.
She had the capacity to manipulate him, but there was a hollowness to her that could not be easily feigned.
“Put the pieces of your heart back together, Your Highness. I did lure you here but not for the purposes of seduction. My wife is the only star in my sky.”
Virginia gave a dreamy smile. “She is fortunate.”
“On the contrary, the night she tried to light my palace on fire was the most fortunate night of my life.”
The princess’s smile turned into a grin and she kicked her feet, settling back farther onto her chair. “My faith is restored. Now shall we turn to the reason for this secret sojourn, this conspiracy of the darkest hour.”
“You know of all that has occurred today?”
“Yes. Including your role with the forgery.” Her unseeing eyes tracked to him, and though Keris knew she used the sound of his voice to place his position, it still felt like she could see him.
Keris cleared his throat. “The letter was a forgery, but the information within it was true. Edward wed Siobhan Crehan and was wed to her still when he went before the altar with your own mother. James is Edward’s only legitimate child, and Edward aimed to name him heir to the Twisted Throne.”
Virginia was silent for a long time. “Is my brother alive?”
“I don’t know.” Keris hesitated, then added, “He married Ahnna.”
She made a soft humming sound, a small smile forming on her face. “I knew James fancied her, but I thought she had villainous intent, so I was not always kind to her.”
Withdrawing the real letter Edward had sent him, he set it on Virginia’s lap.
“Your father sent me this before his death. The code says: I will have wed William to Lestara by the time you receive this. Forgive the seeming betrayal of our friendship. As one who has risked all for love, you will one day understand everything, but know I regret the hurt my actions will cause you and your family. I’m sure you have the resources to confirm its authenticity, should you so desire. ”
To explain the relevance would have been an insult to her intelligence, so Keris only sat silently while Virginia considered the tangled web of truth and lies.
Finally, she said, “My father loved Siobhan with all his heart; this I know for certain. It makes sense that he married her, but if I believe that, then I must believe everything else. Like a row of dominoes, one truth knocking into the next and the next. I must accept that my mother murdered my father.”
“I’m sorry.” Keris knew her pain, because his father had murdered his mother right in front of him.
“I’ve always wondered if my mother was born cruel.
Whether there is something in the blood that disposed her toward schemes and manipulation.
” Virginia toyed with the tie on her dressing gown.
“My heart tells me no. My heart tells me that once upon a time, Alexandra was just a girl who dreamed of love, family, and being a good queen, but then my father tore those dreams apart by loving another. What pain to know that her life was a lie, and that everything that mattered to her was at risk unless she did horrible things to protect it. All with no escape, because her tormentor was her king. My father made my mother the way she is, and he died for it. I loved him, but perhaps he deserved his death.”
Keris grimaced, Alexandra’s absolution not his goal in all of this. “It is the least of her crimes.”
“Another domino.”
Silence stretched, and time grew short, because once Ahnna was arrested, they’d come for him and Zarrah.
“To have suffered does not excuse causing suffering in others,” Virginia finally continued. “My mother will say that she acted out of love, but what she has done to William is not love. What she has done to me is not love. Love should not leave horror and death in its wake.”
It shouldn’t, but it often does.
“I don’t have the ability to condemn her, if that’s the reason you are here,” Virginia said. “William will only send me away. He already did once, because whenever she sees me, Lestara is reminded of how I leashed her like the bitch she is. Yet another thing I won’t forgive my father for.”
“That’s not why I’m here. I need your help.”
“I can’t get you out, either, but I suspect you know that.”
“Ahnna is in the Sky Palace.” Keris moved straight to his point, because he might only have minutes left.
“To save her family and what remains of her people, she is meeting with William. She intends to take the blame for Edward’s murder on the condition William withdraws from Ithicana.
She’s going to die because William refuses to hold your mother accountable for murder and treason. ”
“Die for nothing,” Virginia murmured. “My mother’s word means nothing, and William always does as she says. As soon as the storms end, Ithicana will fall for good. It never ends.”
“You know that Valcotta has been recently plagued with wasting disease?”
“Yes.”
“Alexandra arranged to have infected cattle sent south, then for them to escape into the herds to spread the disease. The proof was in her banking records, which she seems to have recovered after their unfortunate theft. But if you were to send that information south, the powers in Maridrina and Valcotta would believe it coming from your lips.”
“You wish me to send information that will cause Valcotta to declare war on Harendell?” She huffed out a breath. “You are bold.”
“Desperate. The lives of those I love most are at risk. I don’t think I can save Ahnna, but I can try to save those in Ithicana.”
“There has to be another way besides war.”
“If there is, I no longer see it.”
Virginia was quiet for a long moment, then she said, “They said that James was somewhere near Verwyrd watching events unfold.” Her brow furrowed. “He loves Ahnna, so he won’t let her do this. If he does not intervene before she’s executed, it means he is dead.”
If he is dead, it was Alexandra’s doing, Keris thought.
Silence stretched, then Virginia abruptly sat up straight, putting her feet back inside her slippers and tucking the letter into a pocket. “I thank you for the poem, Your Highness. You truly have the loveliest reading voice I have ever heard.”
Shouts of alarm filled the corridors, then alarm bells began to ring.
May God, fate, and the stars have mercy on you, Ahnna, Keris thought.
He stood, needing to leave before anyone discovered that he was with Virginia.
She had the power to turn the tide, and only time would tell what she did with it.
Taking her hand, Keris kissed her knuckles. “God rewards the pure. Fortune favors the brave. But the stars smile upon those who are true to their hearts. I hope that yours finds the love you seek.” He lowered her hand to her lap. “Good night, my lady.”