“If the prince only knew how much you do, and how much his father does not do, perhaps he would listen to your warning about his consort.”
“The prince has always seen his father in a sentimental light; he will not be persuaded by anyone that the king has done little ruling since Carice first came to court.”
“What are you talking about?” Nerilla asked, her voice frayed.
I rolled to my back, squirmed around until my fingers found the weapon, flipped it around—thankful it was a dagger and not a knife, so both sides were a blade—leaned forward and started the long, slow process of sawing at a rope with a dull edge. Gideon did like to talk, as he’d proven in the tomb with me earlier, so hopefully he and his accomplice still had lots more to discuss. It was hard to get at the rope, as I had a finite range of motion, but I worked as fast as I was able.
“Please, Nerilla, you knew this,” Gideon growled at her.
“No, I—please tell me. I beg you.”
Either she was working on buying me more time or was sincerely interested, but I was betting on her stalling, even if she didn’t agree with me helping Varic out with his control over his wolf. It had thrown her, that bombshell, and she had been visibly upset, but I had to believe that it was only for a moment and that now, fully recovered, she was trying to figure out a way to help me, her allegiance set in the stone of our friendship.
“The king wanted Carice more than the queen, more than any other before or since, but you knew this. What you do not know is that while he stepped aside for his son, the king continued to covet Carice in secret.”
“No,” she said, and I could hear her anguish. “No, that’s not true.”
“And of course, the king has no reason to covet and not act,” Gideon said, his tone matter-of-fact even though his words were sinister and evil.
“No!” she roared, and I could taste her pain. The idea that the king carried on an affair with Carice behind Cassius’ back rather than actually stepping aside as everyone, including Nerilla, presumed he had, was horrifying. And it wasn’t that Nerilla cared about the king and Carice, it was the betrayal of her own beloved that cut her to the quick. “That cannot be!”
“Oh, but it is,” Gideon told her. “Which is why, when Cassius fell, the king grieved so long. His guilt consumed him, making it even easier for me to drive the queen away as he drowned himself in drunken debauchery.”
She started to weep then, and it was heartbreaking to hear.
“Don’t you remember the orgies? The games? That was when the aula became not just for pleasure but for pain and punishment as well.”
“I remember,” the man agreed. “I had no idea that the king lost himself in excess due to guilt. I thought it only grief.”
“As did everyone.”
There was a silence.
“How did you leave things at the palace?” the man asked.
“I left Dureau there, in the chapel, covered in Anar’s blood, babbling about how he was attacked by the queen’s courtier when he saw the princess and the consort taken into the hypogeum by Emil.”
“You have the queen’s champion implicated in the coup as well?”
“Of course. The queen will be reeling with the news, and the king will wonder if his wife was in bed with his brother.”
“He would never think that,” Nerilla chimed in. “He knows better.”
“But I’ve planted the sword that killed Jarah and Zev in Emil’s quarters, so it will appear far more sinister. Emil will be dead before he can even answer the king’s accusation. The queen will not be implicated directly, but two of her closest companions complicit—I suspect she’ll be banished to her island until Varic succeeds his father.”
“Which brings us back to the consort and Nerilla here,” the man said flatly. “Why will they not be found dead in the hypogeum?”
“Because Marcellus, conspiring with Andreas, took them,” Gideon explained. “We all heard about Marcellus asking Jason for Dae-Jung for a night, and the consort denying his request. It follows that he would become enraged.”
“It does, yes. Many saw him fuming afterwards, and heard his threats.”
“And so it follows that he and his men took Nerilla and Jason from Emil and drove them to Varic’s summer house on Mellieha Bay.”
“Where the prince will find all three, as well as his men, dead,” the second voice stated. “I’ll bleed out both the consort and princess, and put a bullet in Marcellus’ brain.”
“Excellent.”
“Suicide will make sense to Varic after Marcellus, clear-headed, no longer lost to revenge and bloodlust, realizes what he’s done.”
“Yes.”
“You know the prince well?” Nerilla asked. “You think he’ll fall for such a ruse?”
“I know him well enough, and yes, I saw the same thing everyone else did, the way his eyes followed his consort’s every move, besotted and weak. He’s enthralled, and men that deeply in love lose all reason when faced with the loss of their beloved.”
“Why the mask?”
That was why she wasn’t calling him by name; she had no idea who he was.
“Because, Your Highness, I want you and the consort to go to your graves wondering who I am.”
“It seems cowardly,” she said bitterly, the anger in her voice sharp and barbed.
The slap was loud.
“Mind your manners, bitch.”
I felt the rope give at my left wrist, and I pulled and squirmed, reaching up, and realized, happily, thankfully, that whoever had tied me up had done it by coiling the rope clockwise and feeding the ends up through the bottom, where I’d just cut, and wrapping it back around counter-clockwise. It wasn’t done well. Whoever had tied me up was not trained, which meant that as I tugged, it loosened more until it unthreaded enough for me to get free.
The blood flooding back to my arms made them feel like cooked spaghetti for a moment, but soon the sharp, tingling pinpricks were everywhere; though uncomfortable, I could work through that and saw at the ropes around my ankles with the dagger.
“I need to return to the palace before I’m missed,” Gideon said quickly. “Do your job here so that––”
“How will you get back inside without anyone seeing you?”
“I have a way back in through the dungeon that no one else knows about.”
“You’ll enlighten me, of course.”
“Once this is over, I will. You’ve shown me your true qualities as we’ve navigated this adventure together.”
“Do you two need to be alone?”
Another slap and something fell, like a piece of furniture, and seconds later, after Nerilla cried out, something shattered.
“Make it quick with her,” Gideon apprised the other man. “She’s had a tragic life. Her end, at least, should be peaceful.”
“You have guards outside,” the other man said with a chuckle. “We’ll see what they want to do with her first.”
“You do enjoy watching,” he replied. “I’ll leave you to it.”
But they didn’t understand I was there to save Nerilla. I’d been doing it since we met, and now that Jarah was gone, I was next in line for the job.