Page 210 of Mother of Death and Dawn

But then, so quietly we almost didn’t hear him, he said, “Fine. I will do it.”

* * *

“What the hell was that?”I snapped at Ishqa, the moment we left Ezra’s grounds.

“You should have discussed that with us before we went,” Tisaanah said.

“My opportunities to meet with Ezra have been limited,” Ishqa said, calmly. “I had no time to waste on explanations.”

“How long have you been meeting him?” Tisaanah asked.

“Perhaps half a dozen times since the war began. The first two times he tried to kill me.”

“Wait.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “You’re telling me that was, in fact, the latest ofmanymeetings with him? He seemed like he barely even knew who you were.”

“Did he even know about the war?” Tisaanah murmured, as if to herself.

“I’ve told him about the war,” Ishqa said.

I threw my hands up. “Well, he doesn’t seem to remember much of anything you talked about with him, so yes, sure, he seems like an excellent candidate to lead a coup.”

“I do not need your permission for anything,” Ishqa snapped. “I am trying to save my peopleandyours. How I do that is between me and Ezra. It is a courtesy that I involved you in that discussion.”

“You involved us because you wanted him to think he had the full backing of the humans,” Tisaanah said, quietly.

“It would be true,” he said. “If Maxantarius takes the throne of Ara. And you, Tisaanah—you have control over the Threllian alliance.”

“Limited control.Verylimited control. I am not their queen.”

“Perhaps you could be. Have you considered that?”

I threw my hands up. “Because we are all stealing thrones today, aren’t we?”

“We need to do something. Caduan and Nura are rapidly driving towards destroying each other’s countries and taking the rest of us with them. If you take Ara’s throne, Tisaanah influences the alliance, and Ezra unseats Caduan as the King of Ela’Dar, that is the only path I see of limited bloodshed. Ezra was a great ruler, once.”

“When? Five hundred years ago?”

Ishqa’s jaw clenched. “Life has been unkind to him.”

“Well, he can join all the fucking rest of us in that. But that doesn’t mean we should put a man with diminished mental faculties in charge of the Fey nations.”

“Could we, even if we wanted to?” Tisaanah asked. “Even unpopular rulers become better liked in wartime, and you described Caduan as a king who was already beloved by his people. How could Ezra challenge him?”

Ishqa let out a breath, conflict settling in the tense lines of his face.

“Not all of the Fey would support him. Perhaps not even most of them. But some, mostly those who are too young to remember the old Houses, romanticize royal blood. They are nostalgic for days before their time. There likely are not enough of them to exceed Caduan’s support, but they may cause enough divisiveness to topple him.”

My brows lurched. “You’re talking about collapsing your own country.”

Ishqa whirled to me, fire in his eyes. For a split second, I was struck by how intimidating Ishqa could be. I was so used to seeing him as an odd, ethereal advisor that I had never really seen him as a warrior, but he must have been a formidable one, once.

“I do not doany of thislightly. I am watching my people run towards a path of extinction, and I am powerless to stop it. I don’t know what to do. Is that what you wish for me to tell you? The truth? That I am doing the best that I can under impossible circumstances? That I do not know how to save my own son?”

He snapped his jaw shut and abruptly turned away, his shoulders heaving as he let out a long breath. “That is the truth. I am desperate. But I see the end coming, Maxantarius. I see it coming fast.” He peered at us over his shoulder. “Go to your country and take your throne. I will handle mine. And maybe—maybe, if we are very,verylucky—we can save this pathetic world from extinction.”

CHAPTEREIGHTY-FOUR

AEFE

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