KINGSLAYER

♕ 8 | 3 ♕

Anger would not get Jaylah anywhere. So she spoke correctly, just as the Queen would instruct her. "My mother says that ambition is not a thing young girls like me should seek out. She says it is dangerous."

"Ambition is dangerous for anyone," Klymene said. Then she knelt to her level. "Are you hungry for more, Jaylah?"

Jaylah did not exactly understand the question. But it sounded like a question Father would ask, not a scholarly woman of the court with kind eyes. "Yes," she answered at last, and it felt right.

"Then you should use that hunger as a sword. Sometimes, the danger is worth it."

Jaylah remembered another time when Klymene told her the story of Lamia and her flesh-consuming ways during a history lesson. "Reach for the stars," she told Jaylah when it was over. "But do not let them burn you."

"You are engaged to the Czarevich," she said now. "Either he grew more handsome since you knew him or there is something larger at play."

Jaylah told her everything: about the assassination attempt, those long days hiking in the Hochovs, struggling through Razorwood with the huntresses, meeting with Igor Razkoff in The City of Luck, returning alone. Everything. She was sure not to leave a detail out that Klymene could find helpful to her counsel.

Her shrewd eyes widened when Jaylah described her current predicament. "Khan is here? Within the palace?"

"To kill me. Yes."

Letting out a breath through her nose, she looked away in thought. "And you have not alerted anyone else to his presence?"

"No. Antinoch recognized him by name but she knows nothing of his identity. And I fear Ermalai knows about our connection. Why else would he bring him here?" When she said nothing more, Jaylah felt as though she had to explain myself. "If I expose his identity, I expose the fact that I was nearly assassinated. Questions would lead back to Daggen. They would lead back to the locket. And how many people will believe me when I say that such a thing of legend is going to be used against us in a war waged by my dead father?"

"I understand," she said, her mind clearly elsewhere. "But no sign of its activity have been documented yet. And he sent the assassin he sent before." Her attention switched back to Jaylah. "His first plan is to end you on the inside of the court. While he is surely confident in it, there is never a guarantee. He holds the locket as a card up his sleeve, then. I wonder if he struggles with it."

"If I am dead and my father, posing the only way he could, as a Navrikan revolutionary, faces rioters all over the nation, he will have the power to beat them down. He would undeniably be in authority. This is why I must live until I have further proof to show my people. Only then can I expose him and still have their support."

"Unfortunately, I agree. Until then, Ermalai and Khan will be at the forefront of our worries."

"Ermalai seems dormant for the time being," Jaylah said. "I am agreeing to marry his son, so he is pleased."

"For now," Klymene said gravely. "There is a snake within your home. Sooner or later, it will bite you no matter how well-fed you keep it."

"If I am able to find anything to put him under my thumb, I will do it. After all, I will be forced to spend a great amount of time with him before the wedding."

"Ermalai, however, is a long-term problem. Khan is a pressing one. I am surprised you survived the night."

"I barricaded myself in my quarters. I know his tricks."

She tilted her head to the side as if seeing something for the first time. "Yes, you do." Making a small cluck of conclusion, she folded her hands on top of her knee. "You will beat him at his own game, then. No matter his intent, he is very valuable. It will include speaking with him again, yes, but it will be on your own terms. Manipulate him the way you've done for years. And after you have gotten what you need from him, you let him choke."

"I could use him against my father," Jaylah realized. "I could use him to blackmail Ermalai."

"Whatever you wish. If your skills have held, that boy will be a puppet on a string."

"A puppet..." This would not be an idea endorsed by Queen Euadne. Jaylah did not want to. Or did she? "I like the sound of that."

♕ ♕ ♕ ♕ ♕

Saria struggled with a knot at the base of Jaylah's scalp, but she was as gentle as always. Her gaze caught Jaylah's in the vanity's looking glass. She gave her a small smile. "Did you have a pleasant day today, Your Majesty?"

"I did."

Eyes on Jaylah's hair as she pulled the pins from the top, Saria nodded as if she could tell. "I'm glad. You've been looking a bit intense recently."

Intense was not a word meant to describe a girl whose supposed love of her life was visiting. So Jaylah said, "Not quite intense, just a bit worried about how my court would receive a foreign man as my betrothed."

"Ah. Well, once the court sees that you truly care for him, their concern will dissipate. After all, if the Queen herself has no fear of him, why should they?"

So she had seen the backlash herself. "Very true. He is a good man. I only wish for my court to see the boy I have been writing to all these years."

Jaylah smoothed a wrinkle in her gown despite the fact that it would be off her body in ten minutes. Saria waited a beat. "It makes me happy to see you like this, Your Majesty."

"What am I like?"

"Contented. Bright." So Jaylah's facade was believable. "It makes me wish to thank the Czarevich, if only for bringing this positive change about in our Queen."

Then what had she thought of Jaylah before? "Were you ever married?" she asked, deciding to allow her to open up. Just this once.

"No. I was in love with a man I thought I might marry. But he was a foreigner from Tilana and I could not uproot my life here. We eventually had to part ways. I have not heard from him since."

Jaylah twisted to look up at her. "How tragic. You did not desire to seek him out in the years since?"

She shook her head. "We had our time to enjoy together, but in the end, we both wished to be free. If we were meant to be forever, we would have been."

"Ah." Was that last statement true?

"My only lament is that I was not able to rear any children of my own. Though I suppose the Gods give as they see fit."

Saria was past middle age, perhaps in her late sixties; having her own children was a ship that had sailed. Something about the melancholy set to her mouth struck a chord in Jaylah.

"Though I suppose you do not want to hear such news." She dropped Jaylah's hair but did not step back. "A word of advice, if I may?" Jaylah nodded.

She met Jaylah's gaze in the mirror and held it. "Remember, Majesty, that if you wish for something so badly that your soul aches for it, reach for it with both hands. A single moment of boldness prevents a thousand moments of regret."