Page 93 of Return of the Vengeful Quee

Reuben crouched down next to her.

“Take Tal’s dagger and get them away from us,” Charis said.

Reuben slumped against her side and slowly slid onto the marble beside Tal, his glassy eyes staring at nothing. Charis made a noise as though she’d been the one with a blade in her chest.

She’d hated Reuben. Fought with him. Resented him. And then learned to rely on his unquestioning loyalty to whomever wore Calera’s crown. He’d taken Milla, Luther, and Fada from her on Mother’s orders. And then he’d given his life for hers. It was impossible to identify the swell of emotion within her.

Tal rolled his head to the side to look at Reuben. “Is he—”

“Yes.” She pressed her skirt to Tal’s wound, trying to stanch the bleeding as behind her the sounds of fighting ceased.

“Tal?” Zale pushed her way past her guards and took in the bloody scene in a swift glance. “Here.” She snatched a napkin and bent to press it against her brother’s wound. It worked better than Charis’s skirt, so Charis eased back.

“Hi, sis,” Tal said weakly.

“Hi yourself.” Zale looked at Reuben’s body and then lifted her gaze to something a few paces away. “Oh, Charis. Your Majesty. I’m so sorry.”

Charis turned to see where Zale was looking, and the breath left her body. A hoarse wail tore its way past Holland’s lips as he dropped to his knees beside Nalani, still holding a fork in her left hand, a dagger thrust into her chest.

Thirty-Four

“NO, NO, NO.” Charis crawled past Reuben, her dress catching on splinters of the chair Tal broke when he leaped to her defense. When she reached Holland’s side, she reached for Nalani’s neck, her fingers shaking so badly, she couldn’t tell if she could feel a heartbeat.

“Somebody help,” Holland yelled. “Somebody help my sister.”

Charis curled over Nalani’s face and pressed her ear to her cousin’s mouth.

Nalani lay so still. The roaring of Charis’s frantic pulse made it difficult to focus.

Nalani had to be all right. She wasn’t gone. She couldn’t be.

Pain was a living thing, tipped in fire, unfurling within Charis and spreading through her veins until everything hurt.

“Charis?” Holland whispered. “Will she be— Can we fix this?”

A faint tickle brushed the side of Charis’s face. She jerked back, staring at Nalani. Seconds later, Nalani’s eyelashes fluttered.

“She’s alive.” Charis’s voice shook as much as her hands. Frantically, she snatched at a fallen napkin. “Don’t pull the dagger out. It’s helping slow the bleeding. Press this around the wound.”

Holland snatched the napkin from her and tenderly placed it around the exposed blade, pressing to help keep the wound from losing too much blood.

Tal and Nalani needed immediate help, but Charis was in no position to get it for them.

They were trapped in a room with no allies. People had just been murdered in her name. At any moment, the Everlys would blame her for the ships that had been sunk, for the invasion, and for the bloodbath that surrounded them. Reuben was dead. Charis, Nalani, and Holland would be accused of treachery and put to death, and no one would be punished for tearing her kingdom to pieces.

“Charis, she needs a physician. Quickly.” Holland’s voice was a ghost of its normal strength.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I don’t know how to make that happen.”

The pain within Charis coalesced into a single, burning flame as he collapsed, laying his face against Nalani’s cheek, his dark eyes full of misery.

“What do I do now?” he asked, though he wasn’t looking at Charis.

There was nothing he could do.

There was only Charis, with her little satchel of moriarthy dust and her willingness to be the most ruthless person in the room.

As Lord Everly called the room to order, instructing the servants who hadn’t taken part in the fight to haul the bodies off to the side of the room, Charis climbed slowly to her feet.

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