Luca pushed into the jail, ignoring the on-duty soldier’s protests.
“Please, Your Highness, the general—”
She half turned and said over her shoulder, “Shut. Your mouth. And wait outside.”
He shut his mouth. He closed the door and waited outside. It was easy to be a villain when she felt like one inside. She was hurting herself, too, and she had to give them both one last chance to save each other.
The first time she’d met Touraine in this jail, she hadn’t been attached to anything here. Curious about the Sands, even more curious about the handsome soldier who’d saved her from assassins and been abducted by the rebels. The gloom had been harmless and temporary. Now a desperate tug drew her to the cell where Rogan had dumped Touraine, and the darkness pressed her on all sides, threatening to trap her.
“Touraine?” Luca whispered. Any louder, and she didn’t trust her voice to stay true. She had hoped for confidence, something Touraine would have faith in. Something Touraine would not doubt.
A laugh, sharp and disbelieving. “Your Highness.”
So it was back to titles, then.
“I came to check on you. To make sure… Rogan didn’t hurt you.”
“Hurt me?” Touraine’s voice flared with the crackling rage of fire on a new log. “He threatened my old soldiers so I would hand him my new ones. And I gave them to him.” Luca heard the waver of tears, too.
“The Sands were never in danger. I would never have let him hurt them. I just needed you to believe it; I needed you to stop. If it were me, you would have known I was bluffing—”
“Stop talking. You’re not making this better. You used them against me.”
Luca finally gathered the courage to step closer and let the narrow stream of lantern light illuminate Touraine’s sharpened cheekbones, her grief-hollowed eyes. She was half-naked, and the smell of piss wafted over.
“What happened?” Luca asked sharply. “What did he do?”
“Just let me out. You’ve done it before.”
“There are guards posted outside. You’re not my prisoner.”
“But I was yours.”
The words, and the plaintive truth in them, cut her. Made her want to undo the last year entirely and fashion them so that she had another choice. She imagined them at a ball in Balladaire, dancing together, with Touraine in a fabulous suit with the right to a pistol at her hip.
“Cantic already let you go once; she won’t do it again. Not after all of this. She’s brittle iron—she doesn’t bend. She’ll break first. You know that better than I do.”
“Then why are you here?”
Luca swallowed the nerves climbing up her throat like worms.
“If you recant, confess, I can keep you alive longer. A pardon from execution. You’d come to Balladaire a prisoner, but I could get you out between here and there. I’ll find a way. I can’t get you out of anywhere if you’re dead.”
“Why? You lied to me. You said you’d help us.”
“I have never lied to you.” The words fell softly, like the last clinging leaves before winter.
“Then what has all of this been?”
“Not a lie.”
“Then why are we here?” Touraine slammed the bars of the cell with her palm. The sound rang through the empty jail. “No, I know. I know. Your precious throne.”
A cold anger settled in her stomach at the judgment in Touraine’s voice. Touraine had ruined Luca’s first peaceful attempts to end the rebellion for a handful of soldiers, and she dared judge her for selfishness?
“I am my throne. You stupid, stupid woman. I was born to this, raised for it, and I have fought for it this year harder than I have ever fought for anything. There is more at stake here than who I want to fuck, and I have made sacrifices because of that.”
Touraine’s shoulder, holding her up as they danced in the circle of Qazāli. The brief moment of skin against skin in her bedroom after. The anger and shame and arousal that washed over her the first time Touraine called her out for her pretensions.
With her head against the stone, Touraine sighed. “I’ve made sacrifices, too.” She limped back from the cell door and lowered herself gingerly. “For the soldiers who follow me and the people who welcomed me as I am and not for how they think I’ll be useful. Though I can’t say I’m sure who’s who.”
“I’m not doing this so you’ll be useful to me.”
“I know. If you thought I’d be useful, I’d be free by now.”
It stung worse than a slap.
“When I’m in power,” Luca said, “I can make this better. Even Cantic will answer to me when I’m crowned.”
“Executing a traitor and stopping the rebellion will help you get there. They’ll know you’re strong, efficient, and willing to do what’s necessary.”
“Touraine, please—”
“I hope your rule is so magnificent that this was worth it.”
There was no spite in the other woman’s voice, no sarcasm, only calm certainty. She could hear the unspoken words, too: I hope you think about this moment every day you sit on that throne.
Luca looked away. Her magnificent domain, the jail, sandstone and clay, the piss and shit of prisoners Touraine had freed. Just outside, more prisoners and the dead. Beyond that, other compounds in Qazāl, throughout the whole empire, perhaps only a breath away from catastrophe like this. She and Cantic had seen a chance, and they’d taken it. The rebels were crushed. Their
