He hadn’t looked at her, hadn’t given any indication that he was talking about her. But her eyes narrowed. She’d heard her name.
“I…” My stomach lurched, though I wasn’t sure whether that was from the guilt or the shock of Farhod and Father. I couldn’t look at her. “I guess.”
“No guessing. You can’t have her ruining what comes next. Because once you win the trial Below, you will make Sigis an offer of marriage, and he will accept you.”
“No.” It was a quiet plea, devoid of fire.
“Yes. Because if he refuses you, he demonstrates to the court that all he wants is power, and they’ll never choose him for that. But if he marries you, he has to make only small sacrifices.”
Like put up with me for the rest of my life. Like be the power behind the throne, instead of the power on the throne.
And what would I sacrifice? My everything.
“What are you talking about?” Inkar asked, looking from me to Eirhan.
He didn’t bother to answer her. In his mind, she was nothing. I was nothing. Part of the grand game.
Eirhan raised his eyebrows. “Are we clear, Your Grace?”
“We’re clear,” I said. And it wasn’t exactly a lie.
“Good. Meet with Sigis. We’ll get out of this.”
We? Did Eirhan truly expect me to think he was still on my side? As he scurried away like the weasel he was, I fought the urge to scream obscenities at his back.
Aino crouched next to my chair, putting a hand on my arm. Her blue eyes were full of pain for me, and puffy from crying. “I know things look bad now, with Farhod and your father,” she said. “But you can’t give in.”
“Why not?” My mind was so cold that I barely felt the first tear slide down my cheek and drip into my coffee. “What’s the point? I only stayed because I thought—” My voice cracked. “I thought I could fix things.” I’d been so sure that I could solve the puzzle. I’d assumed my father would sweep back into his role, that I could disappear south and my problems would melt in the warm sun. Now Eirhan planned to make a prison of my life.
To him I was a useful creature. Inkar’s doe, perhaps, ready to be caged. But does fled at the scent of danger, and so would I.
Aino rubbed my back as I cried. When I finally looked up, she wiped at my cheeks with a handkerchief. I took it and blew my nose.
“Can we still run?” I said.
Aino’s mouth fell open. It would have been funny under other circumstances. But she shook herself and said, “Our bags are packed. Come.” She took my hand. Inkar followed us, a bemused look on her face.
We didn’t speak again until we were in my chambers. “We’ll head to the mountains, but we can spend only one night in the safe house, if that. We’ll wind around to the east tomorrow. And from there”—Aino looked at me—“south?”
“Maybe I shouldn’t go south.” I went to my desk and began removing my papers. Hollowness grew in my stomach. South didn’t seem right anymore. I was leaving behind an unfinished puzzle and a half-drowned mentor. I was giving up.
Aino took me by the shoulder. Her blue eyes brooked no argument. “Ekata, you don’t need the cure for university entry. You don’t need to prove to the world how smart you are.”
Maybe I needed to prove to myself how smart I was. “We have to take Inkar with us,” I said to change the subject.
“Why? She’s the daughter of a prominent jarl. She’ll be fine.”
“She’ll have to pay for whatever mess I leave behind, and that’s not right.” She’d probably leave me the moment she realized I wasn’t grand duke anymore, but I didn’t care. “Get the jewelry.”
Inkar frowned at me as Aino bustled off. “What is happening? Are you all right?”
“We’re leaving,” I said in Drysian, tapping the edges of papers on my desk until they all aligned.
Her eyebrows drew closer together. “Why?”
“Because my father is dead. Because no one wants me to be grand duke.” Not even me.
She took my hand in hers. It was cold, cracked at the knuckles from windburn, and a warmth spread through me at the touch. How could it seem so different from when Sigis had seized my hand? “I want you to be grand duke.”
Aino snorted softly from the bedroom. I said, “That’s—” Irrelevant. Self-serving. Obvious. “—kind of you. But when it comes to me and my ministers, you don’t have much influence. Sigis does. And Eirhan does. And if they want to wield that power so badly, they can stop trying to wield it through me. It’s time to give the people what they want.” I smiled humorlessly.
Inkar’s hand tightened around mine. “This is not what people want. This is what you want. You cannot run, Ekata.”
“Why not? If I cure my family, Lyosha will kill me, and things will go back to the way they were. If I leave, Sigis will take over, and things will go back to the way they were.” Or he’d wake up a sister and marry her. Either way, it made no difference to me.
Inkar’s dark eyes searched my face, and I couldn’t decipher her expression. “That sounds… terrible.” Her dark hair fell over her shoulder as she tilted her head. “Everything that happened, happened because of the way things were. You took responsibility for what happens now.”
“And look how well I did,” I said bitterly.
“Ekata.” Inkar looked down at where our hands linked. “You have fled your problems for five days. Fleeing again will not fix them. It will take them longer to find you, but it will be worse when they do. A good leader does not run. A good leader talks to her ministers and—”
“I don’t want to be a good leader,” I said with a force that made Inkar stiffen. I tugged my hand away from hers and made a fist until it stopped shaking. “I’m sorry if it means you don’t get to be consort, but I won’t let this be my life.”
A fire burned behind her eyes, the same fire she used on Sigis. A chill started in my spine, moving outward as I noticed how her jaw had tightened and her hands had clenched. “Do you think this is about my being grand consort?”
“I just meant—” But I wasn’t sure what I meant.
“This is about your responsibility. You took it, even if you did not want to. Now you have to face it. And if you do, I will stand with you. But if you run, I will not go. I do not follow cowards.”
“It’s too much,” I shouted. The responsibility had driven my family mad. It had made us greedy and complacent. It had turned even the children murderous. My father had hoarded secrets and goods, and no one could stop him. He’d thought to increase the power of an already powerful duchy, and instead, he’d brought us to the brink of destruction. “My family doesn’t deserve this power. We shouldn’t have it.” Power in the wrong hands had ruined us. And where my family was concerned, there were no right hands.
Inkar wouldn’t look at me. She turned to my desk and picked up the inkwell, turning it over and letting the frozen brick of ink fall out into her hand. “Maybe that is true,” she said. “What are you going to do about it?”
Run. But that wasn’t the answer she wanted. And it would solve my problems, but not the problems of the duchy.