Page 57 of To Dance with Death

I will away the blush feathering my cheeks and spear Sundar awhat in the Fates are you doing hereglare.

But he ignores me, snatching a chair from the side and dragging it toward the table. He plops down, grabbing himself a platter of grapes. “Majesty. Vastianna. What a fine evening it is.”

“Sundar—” I say, but Anton cuts in.

“Ah, I had heard that you had found your way to the Realm of the Dead.”

“Indeed, Sire,” Sundar says happily. “A pleasure to see you again.”

“A shame I cannot say the same.”

“A shame indeed,” says Sundar, crunching a grape between his teeth. “You missed my birthday, you know. I figured you should make it up to me.”

“I do not recall inviting you to this dinner,” Anton says. “In fact, I am surprised to see you among the Exalted at all. I’ll see to fixing that at once—”

“Don’t you dare,” I say, but Anton glowers.

“He’s a traitor. A liar. He was clearly misjudged—an oversight I’m eager to fix.”

Sundar pulls something from his robe and thwacks it onto the table before us.

A codex. Glimmering dark purple and teal, as if made from the scales of some beast. Anton doesn’t reach for it, so I do, flipping it open.

It’s Sundar’s codex.

I try to speak—try to tell Anton to read it—but the words vanish from my tongue as if Moranya herself had plucked them from my lips. The curse at work. I blow out a frustrated breath.

“Perhaps you are right, Majesty,” Sundar says. “Perhaps I am not deserving of my place among the Exalted.” He nudges the codex toward Anton, the unspoken words splayed between them.Find out if Moranya’s judgment was correct.

I glance at him.

That was…clever. A way around the curse, because he framed it with a different intent.

And now that I think about it, if Anton merely glanced at the list of sins in the back, he would see that Sundar isn’t guilty. It’s not like we can say that, though, and for the appeals, it seems Anton doesn’t take those last pages into account. Rather, he reads the full thing.

That’s what Sundar is banking on, I realize.

But Anton merely folds his arms. “Why would I bother with such a headache when I can simply remove your status? I can’t decide what would be more satisfying: sending you to the Sands or designating you a Shadow. Now that I think of it, I’d rather enjoy making you scrub my private pool.”

“Do either,” I hiss, “and you can consider our deal dissolved.”

A risk, but I refuse to let Sundar suffer.

Anton looks to me. “Why go to such lengths for him, I wonder?”

“He is a friend. It’s as simple as that.”

Dark brows arch artfully over his even darker eyelashes, his gaze now pinned on Sundar. “Tell me,” he says, “just howfriendlyare the two of you?”

“There’s nothing between—”

“Veryfriendly. You don’t mind, do you?” Sundar answers happily.

He’s going to get himself sent straight to the Sands.

“You are the son of the woman who betrayed me. I mind a great deal.”

“I mean it,” I say. “Judge him for yourself if you wish, by reading his codex. Otherwise you willnotthreaten him without a fair assessment. It’s not who you are.” If I could just appeal to his sense, his true nature…