Page 126 of The Endless War

God help him, he wished she was right. But Vencia was half a continent away, and he swore he could taste the ash of its destruction. And their dream was the fuel Petra had used to set it aflame.

Dropping the reins, he cupped her face, using his thumbs to wipe away her tears. And though each word rent his heart, he said, “Some dreams are never meant to be a reality.”

She shuddered, the general, the empress, falling away to reveal the woman beneath.

His control crumbled, and he pulled her against him, blind to the rebels looking on as he tangled his fingers in her hair. “You are Empress Zarrah Anaphora, rightful ruler of Valcotta and commander of the army that will liberate it from a tyrant. You need no one, least of all me.”

Her fingers dug into his shoulders. “Tell me there is a chance, tell me there is hope, tell me that on the other side of this, we will find a way back to each other.”

He wanted to say yes. Needed to. Instead he bent his head and kissed her softly, then swung up onto his horse. “Goodbye, Imperial Majesty.”

Digging in his heels, he trotted through camp, following Arjun’s lead to the coast, where he’d board a ship to Maridrina, knowing full well that by the time he reached his homeland, he might be a king of nothing at all.

THE REBEL SHIPwas built for speed, and they made no stops as they sped north, avoiding contact with any other vessels.

Keris barely ate, his stomach in ropes. Barely slept, his dreams plagued with nightmares of what he’d find when he reached Vencia.

“Nerastis, Your Grace,” the captain said as they sailed past thecontested city. The man handed him a spyglass, and girding himself for the worst, Keris lifted it and turned his eye to the coast.

It was too far to see details. Yet his eyes burned as he remembered his time there, it seeming like both yesterday and a lifetime ago.

He moved his line of sight up the coast, searching for smoke, but there was nothing. Which meant the attack had happened farther north.

The coward deep in his soul crawled upward, whispering that there was no point in carrying on to Vencia. That it was better to fade into the wind than to see the consequences of his distraction.

“You will go,” he growled at the coward, not caring when the captain gave him a startled look. “You will face your failure.”

Keris shoved the spyglass into the captain’s hand, muttering, “Full sail to Vencia.”

THE SEAS GREWrough as they drew closer, the tail end of a storm in the Tempest Seas turning the waves to mountains, though the skies remained clear. Clouds would have been better, because they’d have spared him the hours of watching smoke rise into the sky as they hunted for a cove where he could be safely brought to shore.

“Let us send men with you, Your Grace,” the captain said as they rowed the longboat to shore. “After battle, the worst of men come to pillage and loot. It isn’t safe.”

Keris shook his head. “The Empress will need all the ships and men she has in the battle to come. Return to her with news of what you’ve seen. I’ll send word when I can.”

The man looked as though he might argue, then eyed the towering plumes of smoke that Petra had left in her wake and instead gave a slow nod. “Condolences, Your Grace. May you find honor in vengeance against the Usurper.”

“She’ll bleed,” Keris answered, stepping into the water. But it wasn’t until he was on the beach that he added, “Though not by my hand.”

He made his way inland until he reached the main highway that ran down the coast, following it toward the city of his birth. The sides of the road bore the signs of an exodus, broken carts and belongings discarded when it was discovered that survival was worth more than possessions.

Of life, he saw not a single soul, only flocks of ravens soaring in the direction of the jewel of Maridrina.

He saw the first corpse as the blackened and broken walls of the city came into sight. A woman, long dead, an arrow in her back and eye sockets empty, a morsel in the feast of carrion Petra had left behind.

The gates to the city still stood, but the wall to the left and right was crumpled, the massive stones from the catapults sitting like sentries in the ruins.

A gust of wind hit him, and Keris gagged on the stench of rotting flesh that rolled over him, bits of ash falling from the sky.

Because Vencia still burned.

As he climbed the ruined wall, Keris stopped in his tracks to look down the hill toward the sea, the white city he both loved and loathed now a ruin of blackened and smoldering rubble, the shattered tower of his father’s palace poking up from the ashes like a broken spear.

Keris’s knees buckled and he dropped to a crouch, knuckles pressed against blood-smeared stone as he took in the broken harbor chain, dozens of burned-out merchant ships listing on the waves. The wharves were gone, markets burned, buildings collapsed into the streets, and above it all, crows circled, bellies fat on Maridrinian flesh.

This is your fault.

He forced himself back to his feet, then his feet to carry him into the streets, picking his way toward his family’s home. “Please let them have gotten out,” he muttered, visions of his elderly aunts and his youngest siblings filling his mind’s eye. But Sara most of all, for she could not run. “Please let Sarhina have gotten you out.”

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