Page 88 of Return of the Vengeful Quee

An hour later, Charis was in her gown, and Nalani was in the sitting room talking quietly with Holland.

“Look at you, dressed up for a ball but without a hairstyle to match.” Tal came up behind her as she sat in front of her vanity, his brown eyes warm when they met hers in the mirror, though there were shadows of worry within.

“I seem to make a habit of that,” she said, reaching for one of the small bottles of perfume that were clustered in the corner of the vanity. It was the same scent Father had given to her on her seventeenth birthday.

If she was going into battle, it was only fitting that the man who’d loved her unconditionally should be part of her armor.

“Why the pageantry?” Tal gestured at his outfit and then hers. “If Ferris is going to accuse us of treachery, why clean us up as if we still have power?”

Charis dabbed the fragrance behind her ears, a pang in her heart at the delicate scent of plum and thesserin flower. Father was the only person in the world who had ever seen Charis as delicate.

“For the benefit of the audience.” Charis set the perfume bottle down with care and reached for a stack of hairpins. “The Everlys will present your father and the Caleran nobility with what they expect to see. Ferris and his father can’t afford to look like they have more power than I do.”

“It would make people nervous.”

Charis nodded and selected a hairpin that looked like a sapphire dagger. “If Ferris seems like he’s reluctantly revealing the truth, building a case against me and the Farragins, then it will look like he’s worthy of the power the crowd will confer on him, rather than appearing to have stolen it when no one was looking.”

“Do you want to talk through the plan again?” he asked.

She drew in a cleansing breath and pushed it out again. “I have to goad the Everlys into revealing that they were working with Lady Channing. The simplest way to do that is to get under Ferris’s skin until he gives Queen Bai’elsha an order.”

“Even if they’re working together, what makes you so sure the Everlys would dare order Queen Bai’elsha to do anything?” He frowned as he took the hairpin from her hands.

“Lord Everly wouldn’t.” She shook out her curls. “But Ferris thinks everyone’s beneath him. He’s the one I have to focus on. If he slips up, the nobility in the room will see the truth. That will silence the rumors about me, and then I can tell Queen Bai’elsha that I will honor the deal she made with your father. I marry Vahn—” Her voice shook, and she cleared her throat. “I marry him, and Alaric pays the serpanicite ransom. If she accepts that, the Everlys have no support, no power, and no way to avoid being punished for treason.”

His eyes met hers. “And if Bai’elsha won’t listen to you?”

She clenched her fists and then forced her hands to open. “Then I use the moriarthy dust on the closest Rakuuna and convince her I sent ships to kill every living thing on Te’ash unless she works with me instead of against me.”

They were silent for a moment, their expressions grim. Anything could go wrong tonight. Everything could go wrong. And those she loved would pay the price.

“It’s going to be all right.” Tal’s hands came to rest on her bare shoulders, warm and steady. “Just breathe.”

“I am.”

“Liar.” He said it tenderly.

He was right. The air felt too thick, her lungs too thin, and the boulder on her chest grew heavier. If Mother had been here, she’d have told Charis that she was raised to be faster, smarter, and stronger than anyone who dared come against her. If Father had been at her side, he’d have hugged her and said he loved her and not to forget to rely on others who loved her, too. She’d rarely taken Father’s advice—mostly because Mother’s expectations were the standard Charis was striving to reach—but this time he was right. She needed to be faster, smarter, and stronger, but to do that, she needed support.

“Charis?” Tal squeezed her shoulders gently.

“What if I fail?” She forced the words out before she lost her courage.

He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, all she could see was his faith in her.

“You won’t. You’ll read the people around you and gain information no one realizes they’ve given up. You’ll find a gap in Ferris’s plans, and you’ll exploit it. He ought to know this about you, so he’s a fool for even letting you in that door.”

She drew in a shaky breath. “But I could still fail.”

“Yes.” He leaned down so that his face was beside hers and they were looking at each other through her mirror. “But you won’t fail alone. We’re all in this together.”

She swallowed, her heart beating a little faster as the scent of his soap enveloped her.

He knelt beside her, turning her chair slightly so that she was looking down into his upturned face. “I believe in you. I know we’re up against tremendous odds, and there’s no one else I’d rather trust to get us through it.”

She stared at him, her whole world narrowing down to the way his eyes lingered on her face and the tremble in his hands when he reached for hers.

“You are the best person I know.” He swallowed hard. “You still take all the air out of a room for me when you enter. I think about you far more often than I should. I even dream about you sometimes—”

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