“You’re dead,” Taran yelled.

Magnus fought hard to keep the blade from cutting him, but Taran had taken him by surprise and possessed the vengeance-driven rage to double his strength.

Then Felix loomed behind Taran, bringing his arm around the rebel’s throat and wrenching him backward. “Don’t make me whack you again. I lost my piece of wood.”

Jonas moved to join him, wrestling the dagger from Taran’s grip.

“I’ll kill you,” Taran spat out at the prince as Felix dragged him backward. “You deserve to die for what you’ve done!”

Magnus offered no rebuttal to this. All he did was stare at the boy, his expression stony.

“I think we all deserve to die for something we’ve done,” Jonas said, relieving a bit of the tension brewing between the prince and the rebel. “Or for something we’ve failed to do.”

The prince broke his steely mask to send a glare of disbelief at Jonas. “Is it only my imagination, or did you just help to save my life?”

Jonas grimaced at the thought. “Seems that way, doesn’t it?” He glanced over at Cleo. Her expression was filled with relief. Surely the princess hadn’t wanted to see any more blood spill tonight, he thought. Not even Magnus’s. “I may be about to make a horrible mistake, one I’ll regret for the rest of my life, but I have decided to accept this alliance—this temporary alliance—until Amara has been cast from these shores.”

He waited for Ashur’s response to this. The Kraeshian prince’s expression remained grim, but he nodded. “I can agree to that. Amara needs to realize what she’s done. Even if she feels she was in the right for her actions, it was the wrong path for her to take. I will do what I can to help you.”

“Good.” Jonas then pointed at Taran, whom Felix still had in his grip. “I understand your grief and outrage, but your lust for vengeance has no place here.”

Taran scowled back at Jonas, clutching Felix’s iron bar of an arm across his throat. “You knew what I came here for before we left Kraeshia’s shores.”

“I did, but that doesn’t mean I agreed to it. Now I’ve made my decision. You will not make another attempt on Prince Magnus’s life. Not while we’re engaged in this alliance.”

“Did you hear that through your battered skull?” Felix asked Taran, his voice as rough as gravel as he clamped his arm tighter. “Or should I repeat it to you slower?”

“I abandoned a rebellion to come here and avenge my brother.”

“A rebellion doomed to fail before it even began,” Ashur added.

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. I don’t take pleasure in this knowledge, but I know it. Perhaps one day the empire my father built will be torn apart, but it won’t be any time soon.”

“We’ll see.”

“Yes, I suppose we will.”

Taran shifted his angry gaze to Jonas again. “You would join them freely, by your own choice?”

“I would,” Jonas confirmed. “And I urge you to consider staying as well. We could use your help.” He paused. “But don’t misunderstand me, Taran: If you attempt to end Prince Magnus’s life again, I’ll end yours.”

CHAPTER 15

AMARA

PAELSIA

The god of fire had been very specific about where he wanted Amara to go to achieve infinite power. It was a place, he said, that was touched by magic. A place that even the immortals themselves recognized as a seat of true power.

She instructed Carlos of the change of plans. She would not be moving into the Limerian palace after all. No, instead her destination would be farther south into Paelsia, to the former compound of Chief Hugo Basilius.

Carlos didn’t question these orders but instead made immediate plans. With five hundred soldiers, Amara, Nerissa, Kurtis, and Amara’s captain of the guards made their journey into the central kingdom of Mytica, which Amara hadn’t yet experienced.

From the window of her carriage, she gazed out with surprise as the ice and snow of Limeros melted and gave way to parched earth, dead forests, and very little wildlife.

“Has it always been like this here?” she asked with dismay.

“Not always, your grace,” Nerissa replied. “I’ve been told there was a time, long past, when all of Mytica from north to south was warm and temperate, always green, with only mild changes from season to season.”

“Why would anyone choose to live in a place like this?”

“Paelsians have very little choice in their fates—and they are well known for accepting this, as if this acceptance has become a religion unto itself. They are a poor people, bound by the rules their former chief and the chief before him set into place. For example, they can only sell wine legally to Auranos, and wine is their only valuable export. Much of the profit is taxed, and these taxes were claimed by the chief.”

Yes, Paelsian wine, infamous for its sweet taste and its magical ability to bring about swift and pleasurable inebriation with no ill effects afterward.

It was the wine Amara had brought back with her to Kraeshia to poison her family.

No matter what was said about the drink, she swore she would never drink Paelsian wine because of this memory.

“Why don’t they leave?” she asked.

“And go where? Very few would have enough coin to travel overseas, even less to make a home anywhere but here. And to journey into Limeros or Auranos is not allowed for Paelsians without express permission from the king.”