“You are a madman,” Giulietta says. I shiver at how her voice reminds me of Enzo’s. “You cannot tell sympathy apart from strategy.”

Teren shakes his head. “You cannot be a pure-blooded queen chosen by the gods.” He holds out a gloved hand and gestures at the Inquisitors. They shift their crossbows from Teren to the queen.

Giulietta narrows her eyes at Teren as she takes a step back. “What have you done to my men?” she demands.

“They are my men,” Teren says. “They have always been mine. Not yours.” He raises his voice. “You are under arrest, for corrupting the crown.”

My powers surge out of control. The world turns black, then scarlet. The whispers claw to the surface, seizing my mind. I feel my rage and fear surge forward in unison. Giulietta lets out a strangled cry as the pain in her wrist spreads to the rest of her arm, then to her entire body. At the same time, I wrap my illusions harder around Teren, caressing his subconscious thoughts, reminding him of everything Giulietta has done to betray him.

Look, Teren. She is a malfetto queen. You cannot let this go on. The whispers turn into a roar in his ears. End this now.

End this. End this!

Teren draws his blade. His eyes pulse with madness, hypnotized. He steps toward Giulietta. She backs away, puts her hands out in defense, calls his name, calls once again for her traitorous Inquisitors to listen to her—but it is too late. Teren seizes her by the arm, pulls her toward him, and stabs her straight through the heart.

“Now, are you happy? Have you finally achieved all you set out to do? What will you do next, little assassin, with no one left to see you?”

—One Thousand Journeys of Al Akhar, various authors

Adelina Amouteru

I flinch, even though I knew it was coming. The whispers in my head burst into delight.

Teren grits his teeth and plunges the sword deeper into her chest. My threads of energy tighten around him, blinding him, continuing to feed his frenzy. I’m not sure whether I’m even controlling my energy anymore. “I do this for Kenettra,” he says through clenched teeth. Tears stream down his face. “I cannot let you rule like this.”

Giulietta clings tightly to him. Her knuckles turn white, the color of his cloak that she clutches in her fist—and then, gradually, she starts to slip, sliding toward the floor like a flower meeting the frost. Teren keeps his arms wrapped around her. He lowers her gently, until she crumples to her knees beneath him, blood soaking her traveling cloak.

Only then do I unravel the illusion I’d woven into Giulietta’s hair. The red-gold lock shifts back to dark brown. I pull back the curtain I’d woven over Teren’s eyes. The throne room comes back into clear focus for him—gone are the images I’d painted of Giulietta with Raffaele¸ of Giulietta pardoning the malfettos. I pull all of it back, leaving Teren alone with his thoughts again.

Teren breathes hard. He blinks twice, then shakes his head as the fog clears. He seems suddenly unsure of himself. He stares at the darkness of Giulietta’s hair, as if finally regaining some semblance of his sanity. I feel his energy shift violently from one extreme to another, his hatred and grief transforming into rage, and then fear. Sheer terror.

He finally realizes who it is that trembles on his blade, bleeding and dying.

Teren looks sharply at her. “Giulietta?” he says. Then he lets out a wrenching cry. “Giulietta.”

Giulietta’s grip on his cloak softens. I can sense the energy shimmering around her, the strings of light fading, going dim, leaving her and returning to the world, seeking the dead ocean. Her face twists for a moment, but she is too weak to speak now.

The energy within her fades then, and she goes limp.

Teren shakes her shoulders. His head stays bowed over her, and his voice cracks. “We were supposed to fix the world together,” he says. I can barely hear him. He sounds confused, still shaking off the remnants of my illusion. “What have you made me do?”

Giulietta just stares back at him with empty eyes. Teren lets out a choked sob. “Oh gods,” he breathes as he finally realizes what he has done. My darkness swirls, and the whispers in my mind coo at the sight. From the corner of the room, my father’s ghost laughs, his shattered chest heaving in amusement. He keeps his stare focused on me. I see for an instant what Teren might have been like when he was younger, a little boy in love with an older girl, watching her dance while he hid in the palace’s fruit trees, infatuated with an idea that he could never become. My smile turns savage.

I could have killed Giulietta myself … but this is better.

“I suppose she is a pure-blooded royal, after all,” I say aloud. I give Teren a bitter smile. “Now you know how it feels.”

In the midst of his grief, he lifts his head to look at where Raffaele is now on a hovering balira’s back. A spark of fury burns in him. No, not fury. Madness. The madness in him is growing. It fills him until it threatens to spill out. “You,” he snarls. He turns back to me. “You did this to her.” His rage grows and grows, until it seems to blind him. I gasp at the rush of it.

He shouts for his Inquisitors to attack me. Magiano whips out a dagger and braces himself. But we stand our ground. I glance at the Inquisitors walking behind Teren, then smile and gesture to them.

Some of the Inquisitors aren’t Inquisitors at all. They are my mercenaries, in disguise.

They break rank with the real Inquisitors, draw their weapons, and attack. Two Inquisitors fall, screaming, clutching at their throats.