Blood-Bound [ Lore of Penrua: Book I ]

72

"You were safe there."

"Yes—but that isn't the reason, is it? Not all of the reason. You were safe, too. That's it, isn't it? You were afraid I would See the truth!"

"I wanted to keep you out of their reach—and I was right, wasn't I? The moment you came back, you were torn from us!"

"You wanted me to be there, all alone, where no one who mattered would know what I Saw. You wanted to hide the truth about Koreti! All of my visions came to you ..." And he could have kept her there, isolated, with no one to hear her if she uncovered the truth.

Did he know? Did he know that Koreti was alive? Had he deliberately put some other child's body in the Tomb of the Sovereigns to keep his secret safe?

The emperor was coiled like a snake, quivering with anger. He said, "Both of them deserved the fate they received. They could have hoped for nothing better—she for the crime she committed, he for the crime that he was. They deserved to die."

Kaori's face was pale and sick. Mhera thought he was thinking of his brother, but when he spoke again, the prince's words were darker still. "You killed her."

Korvan looked at Kaori, and Mhera thought she could see the light of the fire burning again in his eyes. She saw the fire even before the horror of what the emperor said next dawned on her. Over his shoulder, Mhera saw Naelis creeping toward the door, a stricken look on her face. But the emperor seemed not to notice.

"For her treachery," he said. "For her deceit! You are not a boy any longer, my son. Think of what she did to me—to us—to the realm! She raised another man's son. I raised another man's son! He might have worn the crown—a bastard child!"

"You sent him to his death, and you—you killed the empress." Mhera felt Kaori's hand closing over hers, tightening. She looked down at him. There was something in his eyes she could not read, something he seemed to want to say to her. She could not try to make sense of it; her mind was working too hard to understand what had been revealed.

"Neither of them deserved to live," snarled Korvan. "For Koreti, the rebels did the work I would have done, had I had the chance. It is the one thing I can thank them for. And tomorrow, this war will end."

So he did not know. He truly thought Koreti dead. Mhera was not sure what to feel. Relief—surely it should be relief. But perhaps some part of her had hoped that he might have mercy if he knew Matei was his lost son.

She looked up at Korvan, pulling her hand out of Kaori's grasp. "No," she said. "You will broker your peace, and for the moment, you may triumph. But I know something you do not know, Uncle, and it will one day be your undoing."

Korvan had never looked like this before. His hair was disheveled, his face a furious mask. Whatever love he had felt for her was nowhere in evidence now. He saw her now as what he had feared she would be: his enemy, the girl who had unraveled all of his secrets. That she had not did not matter; he had confessed what he had done. The last scrap of loyalty Mhera had left for him was devoured by the fire burning in the emperor's glittering eyes.

Again, she felt eerily calm. "Perhaps it will not be tomorrow, Your Grace. Perhaps not for a generation. But one day, a son of your sons will contend with it. We are not the blessed ones—we are all three of us descended from traitors. We are not the children of the Blessed Sovereigns at all. The legacy you defend has been ruined from the start."

Mhera saw in his face that he almost believed her. She, nothing more than a castaway lady, was to him a prophetess. But he considered her words only for an instant before he made a sharp gesture to push them away. "Am I surrounded by enemies, then?" Korvan said in a whisper. He glanced from Mhera to Kaori, his eyes as wild and dangerous as a cornered animal's. "My son—Kaori—tell me you have not turned from me."