Page 94 of The Moon Blessed King
‘No one needs to know.’
‘And ifanyonefinds out?’
‘They will listen to me.’
‘All of them?’ She sounds sceptical.
‘Enough of them!They don’t want Adalei on the throne any more than we do. They will accept this. I’ll make sure of it.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘I’mcertain,’ he says.
‘All of them…’ She shakes her head. ‘And what happens when my brother arrives? What will you tell him when he returns, when you have removed hischosenheir and instead set up a regency for this child? Are you certain ofhisloyalty? Ofhisforgiveness?’
Hamad blinks at her, then looks down at Aniya. And finally, she thinks he sees them both for the first time. ‘You killed them,’ he murmurs.
‘I did,’ Fen lies. She takes him in: his shock, his horror. She memorizes all of it, committing it to memory as the only boon this mission has given her so far. Then, slowly, she lowers her hand back down to Aniya’s. There is no need for this. For all that she told Hamad one thing, she did something very different.
For all Lio told her that some deaths were necessary, she could not live with the thought of truly ending their lives.
Wake, she wills the child beneath her touch. And every signal that has lain dormant, every hormone and nerve that has been in a state of anticipatory rest, every single part of Aniya’s body that has been detached, unable to react or respond because Fen toldthoseareas to die and stay dead until she brought them back – comes alive. Aniya’s soul hasn’t left her body. Her pulse has never truly stopped. She has lived, pale and still and senseless, and Hamad never would have known.
No one will ever know.
She will be blamed for resurrecting a child when it is forbidden. She will be cursed for tempting the gods in the middle of a plague. She will be hated for bringing back this child and not any of the countless others. And she will accept it. She will let them call her evil, let them blame her for the loss of all those who have truly died.
She saved this girl’s life by allowing her tolivea life Hamad cannot twist for his own means. So long as the world believes Aniya has died, she will never be eligible to take the throne, and she can live her life with her mothers – safe from the politics of court. To preserve that future, now and for ever more, Fen will lie. And keep lying. She will boldly admit she raised Aniya from the dead to any who will listen. All so one girl she barely knows will truly get her chance tolive.
Aniya gasps, her childish voice lightly gracing the air that flows in through her mouth. Her limbs twitch, her lips part as her eyes scrunch and lashes flutter. Fen says, ‘Aniya is ineligible for the throne, Hamad.’
‘Nobody knows,’ he says slowly. ‘This could still—’
The door to Fen’s room opens. Hamad turns. Lio is there, sword in hand. ‘I know,’ Lio says. ‘I’vealwaysknown.’
‘I wrote Lio a letter,’ Fen says, turning back to Aniya and smiling at the little girl as she wearily looks around her. Fen gently soothes her.Be calm, be at peace. Aniya relaxes immediately, slipping into a pleasant slumber with good dreams. ‘Kassandra told me that when Elician helped her, Lio was there. I asked him about it.’ Anger threatens to rise within her. ‘Lio came here, in the middle of a plague whenhundreds of thousandsdepended on us being focused on ourjobs, and I told him everything.’
‘No.’ Hamad shook his head. ‘No, you disagreed with Adalei’s proposals too. You said—’
‘I gave anoathto my king to trust his commands,allof them, even if I didn’t agree. My brother entrusted Soleb to our cousin, to your crown princess, Adalei. In his absence,shehas my allegiance. And I can hate her orders, I can loathe them, I can detest them and debate them and try to find another way, I can swear to talk to my king once he returns, but I will never disobey them. And I would never dishonour my brother or my country by treasonously attempting to remove her from the positionheput her in, nor dismantle their government while our king is away.’
‘You said yourself he commanded the gates shut!’
‘He did! But his order forAdaleito be in charge supersedes any other order when he isn’t present. I trust my king. I trust him to know what’s best for us and our people, and so I will trust Adalei until the day she turns against her people, which she has not done.’
‘Thousands are dead!’
‘But we don’t have a famine – the farms rallied.’
Lio had sat her down. Showed her the numbers, spent hours explaining it even if she didn’t like it. He had done that, for her, while she and Cieli held on to a little girl that never should have been born. They will never know whatcouldhave happened if they made other choices. But they know what did happen here, and Fen can see: it could have been worse. ‘Hundreds of thousandsmorearen’t doomed because of it. The Exalted are trained, and our country has a new corps of physicians and nurses learning to ensure this never happens again. All of us are working together to save lives – and now we know what to do.’ A thought crosses Fen’s mind. She laughs. ‘Adalei saw it: life and death in balance. Accepting one is inevitable in the face of the other. She understood. She made the choice.Youand youradviserswould have stabbed her in the back.’
Hamad shakes his head. He looks back at Lio, still standing vigil at the door. At Fen, who guards Aniya with equal ferocity. ‘I told Adalei about our meeting in Himmelsheim,’ Fen says to him. ‘She’s had an armed guard oftrustedsoldiers of Marina’s and Lio’s choosing around her since the moment you reached out to me.’
‘No one would have got close enough to harm her,’ Lio says. ‘Unlike you,mymen are loyal.’
Hamad’s jaw clenches. He glares at Lio, at a childhood playmate turned bodyguard turned royal-in-waiting, a future prince consort who will one day wear Soleb’s crown. ‘You areunworthy,’ he spits out. Lio grins.
‘I know. But I’ve laid down my life for this country time and time again, and I still do it now. When have you ever had to sacrificeanything, my lord?’ Lio lifts his blade, wickedly sharp and deadly in his hand. ‘Fight me,’ Lio goads. ‘If you lose, maybe we’ll bring you back and you can see if anyone still wants you on the throne whenyou’rethe one who’s been revived.’
