Chapter Forty-Three
It’s like returning from a dream. It’s as if I’d been watching myself from far away, my thoughts there but muddled, fragmented the way the mirror had been.
As I blink away the fog, the rest of Anton’s features clarify—the strong angles of his jaw and cheekbones, the soft curve of his plush, upturned mouth, one that now brims with a soft smile.
“Minnow.”
Hearing that alone is enough to make me weep, but I swallow the burgeoning tears and throw myself into his arms. In the background, I hear orders, shouts, Queen Sadira orchestrating the surrender, but it all swims past my ears in a smudge of sound.
I don’t know how much time passes as I cling to him, but he holds me with the same ardor, as if I might slip from his grip and fall away. But I break our embrace as the memories crowd in—
“Anton,” I breathe, hands bunching into his shirt. My eyes are wild, my breath rapid.
“You have the mirror,” he says. “How?”
I shake my head, tongue dry. “I—I bargained with her. For the return of the shards, including your pendant—”
“You had the pendant? All this time?”
“I stole it off you,” I admit.
“You little thief,” he says, lip quirking. “You pilfered it off me in Razam, didn’t you?”
“I planned to use it to save you somehow. To bargain with her. Only I couldn’t find her when I finally made it into her lair.”
He shakes his head. “Until you followed me and found her tower,” he says, understanding.
After which we had hidden out in Ansa. Then we had slept together, and I had found him missing—“You left me behind.”
“I thought you would be safe,” he says, rubbing his forehead. “Instead you made that bargain after all.”
My fingers curl into his tunic. “I had to stop my father. Had to save you, and after knowing you had already agreed to help her when you came back…” My voice tangles in my throat.
I push down a swallow, only for bile to rise back up.
“Anton, what I just did…I killed so many.” I knew many of them were corrupt, following my father without half a thought.
But some were so young, groomed until they could hardly think for themselves.
“How many did you save, Vasalie?” He cups my cheeks—forces me to look at him “My leaving you was a mistake. And had you not intervened, thousands more would have died.” He tilts my chin toward the battlefield. “Look.”
Veer and Arjuna are embracing, and more of Sundar’s brothers join in, some weeping tears of joy and sorrow both.
Soldiers are doing the same, many weeping, others gathering their wounded.
Mantrin is the only exception, but Queen Sadira is tending to him herself, cleaning the gash across his shoulder while doling out more orders.
A moment later, she curls her arms around his neck, sobbing into his chest.
He had almost died. He would have had I not used the mirror.
Yet I know her tears aren’t just for Mantrin, but also for the one we couldn’t save. The prince who deserves to be here with us.
And still hundreds more have died, maybe thousands, on both sides.
“There is such a thing as necessary death,” Anton says. “Necessary justice. And whether or not our choices in the matter are correct, we do the best we can. You thought only to save lives—with Rurik’s death, with Illian’s. The same can be said for today.”
But I’ll carry it with me all the same. Perhaps it won’t be so much guilt as it is sorrow on their behalf, for what could have been. The people they might have become.
“We…we have to repair it, Anton. The mirror. I vowed that we would. But it isn’t just that. Things can’t stay as they are—”
“You’re right,” he says. “I know that now.”
“The mirror must be returned by sunrise,” I say, eyeing the afternoon sun. “It can’t be gone for more than a day. It will allow us to open a portal into Ansa, at least.”
“We will make it,” Anton assures me. “In fact, I can repair it before then, so long as we leave within the hour.”
But before we can discuss it further, Basile approaches. “Your Majesty, how shall we deal with the traitor general?”
My father, he means. Not deserving of his crown.
“The choice is yours, Vasalie,” Anton tells me. Meanwhile, Basile keeps my father restrained, his arms manacled behind his back and his feet bound together. “You can force him into a trial before the Syndicate. Or you can deal with him yourself. You have earned this right.”
“Indeed,” says a new voice, and I pull away enough to see Sofya emerging, battle-clad in traditional Brisendali armor—steel plates, chain mail.
Her eyes, as blue as Rurik’s, spear through the layers of sea fog and smoke now wafting in from soldiers battling the fires from the ships.
Beside her, another soldier approaches, and it’s only once he lifts his helm that I realize it’s… Copelan.
The relief of seeing him alive and well brings a tear to my eye, but I inhale a steadying breath and turn my focus back to the matter at hand.
“I wouldn’t blame you,” I say, “if you want to put him on trial.”
“That would be the right thing to do, according to our laws,” Sofya says.
“But he orchestrated my brother’s death.
He stole his throne, his army, and massacred hundreds.
He would have slaughtered thousands more had he not been stopped.
The Brisendali council is not here. I will claim he died in the war. ”
“As will I,” says Queen Sadira.
“And I,” Anton affirms, squeezing my arm.
Finally, I summon the courage to look upon my father, though doing so only tightens my throat into a painful cinch.
He looks…pathetic. Pale, sand-crusted skin burned by weeks at sea, his entire complexion ruddy and worn.
Up close is a reminder of how small he is, too.
He isn’t much taller than I am, despite his overcompensation over the years with his uniforms, his caps, and now his heavy, steel-wrapped helm.
That, I yank from his head, tossing it into the sand.
All the while, he avoids my gaze, no doubt shamed over his loss.
Then I force him to meet my eyes, difficult as it is to stomach it.
He doesn’t even flinch, his gaze harder than a rod of steel.
It only serves to rouse my ire. This is the man who murdered Emilia, who thought to sell me like cattle, who plotted the demise of my friends and their homes.
He wanted the world to kneel before him, but I will be the one to force him on his knees.
I unsheathe the sword from Anton’s scabbard, my palms sweaty and my arms shaking, and come to stand before my father.
Yet even as my arms strain to lift the sword’s weight, the tip aiming at my father’s neck, my mind urging me to take my revenge, to end his life…
“No more death,” I breathe, letting it fall. “Not at my hands.”
Justice or not, deserved or not, I choose not to be haunted by this memory.
Instead I walk the sword to Queen Sadira, pressing the hilt into her palms. “You deserve this justice,” I say.
“He murdered your son. He went after your people and your lands, manipulated a willing Illian into doing the same.”
Her fingers curl around the hilt, surprise lifting her brows before they harden, her sharp glare cutting toward my father.
“Your Grace,” Anton says softly. “You should know that I sent Sundar’s body alongside an escort back to Ansa.
We will try to preserve him, but I cannot guarantee his return, as much as I would like.
It may be too late. For what it’s worth, I agree with Vasalie. Maksim Stova’s fate is in your hands.”
She nods, swallows thickly, then approaches my father, holding the sword with deadly, practiced poise far better than I ever could.
“For disrespecting my lands and the lands of others, for scheming to kill and destroy, for manipulating and grooming the young, for murdering my son—and your own wife, Emilia Stova—for abusing your daughter, and for your countless sins thereafter, I hereby sentence you to Morta’s Lair.
May her judgment cause your soul the anguish you deserve. ”
The strike is clean, swift, but I see it only from the corner of my eye, my gaze clinging to Anton’s.
He steps in front of me, brings my head against his chest as a thud hits the ground, protecting my eyes as he always has, just like in Estienne’s lair, not wanting me to see something that might haunt my thoughts.
The queen’s justice is enough for me, and I feel like I can finally take a full, satisfied breath.