Chapter Sixty-Two
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Severin
I shut my eyes as the cool wind buffeted my face. I had Seen this moment play out so many times that I could visualise it effortlessly: the glowing lights of the city below, the austere beauty of the battlements, and her .
She always came to me in the end, her face flushed with triumph. Victory.
Because all of this . . . it was her victory. Not her daughter’s.
‘I didn’t think it would be so easy to get you alone,’ Zandri said, the sharp sound of her heeled boots stalking closer.
‘You make it sound like I was trying to avoid you,’ I replied, ‘when nothing could be further from the truth.’
‘Or perhaps,’ Zandri continued, her voice lethally soft, ‘you were waiting for someone else.’
And there it was. The secret that was never really a secret, the game that was about to come to its inevitable conclusion.
There was only one way this ended. I had always known it, and had fallen in love with Scarlett anyway. But now that Scarlett was Zandri’s ticket to power, I had become an inconvenience. More than that – I had become a threat to her plans. She wouldn’t allow anyone else to influence the future empress.
‘Always the puppet master, aren’t you?’ I said, finally twisting to face her.
I would much rather have been looking at the city – drinking in its night-time splendour as opposed to Zandri’s harsh features. But, as usual, she was impossible to ignore.
‘You should be careful how you speak to me.’ She tilted her head to one side, an avian gesture that had once unnerved me.
But that was a long time ago. Back when I was plucked from my war-torn home and told that I was lucky. Lucky to be liberated from my own country, to serve the empire that had destroyed everything I held dear.
‘We both know I’m not going to survive this meeting,’ I said evenly. ‘Nothing I say can change that.’
There was only one way that Zandri dealt with loose ends. She killed them.
My only regret was that I wouldn’t see Scarlett one last time, but she was occupied with her new kingdom – she finally had a real-life chessboard of her own, where she had claimed the only piece that mattered: the queen.
Except there were two queens. And only Mira held the throne in her own right.
Zandri fixed me with a calculating stare. In many ways, she had been as much a mother figure to me as she had been to Scarlett, teaching me the ways of the court, showing me how to develop my magic. Many orphans inducted into the Orders served her with genuine devotion.
I might have been one of them, if my abilities didn’t allow me to See everything much more clearly. Zandri had never cared about anyone beyond their usefulness to her.
‘If you know how this ends, why didn’t you run?’ She stepped closer, raising her voice as the wind picked up. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be a seer?’
I didn’t answer immediately. The moment I did, this conversation would be over. Her curiosity was keeping me alive, and even that was tenuous.
‘First, I have a question.’
I could have asked her about the future. Even Artisans had their limits, and I couldn’t See past my own death. The moment I had decided to come here, all the futures that had once been so clear and bright to me had disappeared, like stars blinking out of existence.
Zandri would probably share her plans – what reason would she have to lie to a dead man? But there was only one thing I wanted to know, and it had to do with the past.
‘I saw you plan it all out. Every last detail – from Scarlett sending Mira to the docks so she could take her place, to ensuring Cassius went after his fiancée, allowing you to impersonate him. Lillian was an unfortunate complication, of course, but Scarlett never intended for her to be hurt.’ I paused. ‘But how did you convince her to betray Mira?’
It had bothered me, ever since I’d touched Lillian’s hand in the Elusive Isles and Seen the events leading up to her death. This was one outcome, but there had been another, with Mira and Scarlett working together to reshape their respective worlds. Not enemies, not at odds . . . but at peace.
Glimpsing the future wasn’t an exact science. Often it was muddled and confused, particularly when there were diverging paths. I couldn’t be sure if that second vision had ceased to exist the moment Scarlett killed the emperor, or whether there was still a slim chance for it to come to pass.
Amusement crinkled the fine lines beneath Zandri’s hateful eyes. ‘It was Scarlett’s idea to frame Mira, not mine. Perhaps your feelings for my daughter have blinded you to her true nature.’ A thin smile. ‘Now it’s your turn. If you knew you weren’t going to survive this meeting, why are you here?’
‘Because,’ I replied, echoing the words I’d said to Scarlett, ‘some fates shouldn’t be changed.’
Shouldn’t. Not couldn’t .
I allowed myself a second to take in Zandri’s incredulous expression, her lack of understanding.
She thought she had won and I was a fool, but there was one way – one slim, desperate way – that she could still lose. Because I knew Scarlett better than anyone – and I knew that she loved me.
No matter what lies Zandri decided to tell about my absence, Scarlett would one day discover the truth for herself, and that knowledge would cut through their relationship like a fault line. A crack that could shape the course of nations.
I looked into Zandri’s face one last time, but I wasn’t seeing her cold features.
I was seeing her daughter’s.
I allowed myself to imagine Scarlett’s red hair, proud face and beautiful smile. And her eyes. Those aquamarine eyes I knew as well as my own.
In that moment, there was no fear. There was only hope. Gratitude. Love.
Filled with peace, I lunged sideways—
And hurled myself from the battlements.