Page 149 of A Dance of Shadows

Except for the anguish etched on his face, which even now I could almost believe is genuine.

Bastien pushes forward, his voice taut. “You can’t say that to her. Not after everything you put her through.”

“Iput her through? Fucking Linus?—”

I cut him off with a step toward him, my slippers rapping against the thin rug. “It wasn’t just Linus. Who hurled knives at my head? Who burned my hands raw and had me dance until my feet bled? Who sent me teetering across Estera’s maze unprepared and forced me to burn your wretched crest into these men? I might not know perfectly which times I was dealing with you, but in most if not all of those instances I was, wasn’t I?”

The wavering of the defiance in Marc’s expression confirms that my guesses were mostly accurate. “We needed to be sure of our empress. I knew when enough was enough. It’s Linus who wasn’t willing to let it go.”

“Neither am I.”

“Aurelia.” He strains against the ropes. “I swear to you, we can make this right. Iwilldeal with him. We can rule as we were meant to.”

His attention slides away from me to the watching princes, and his jaw ticks. How does he think he’s going to deal with them if I free him now?

How can he expect me to believe we’d put all this behind us? Just a little misunderstanding, some light kidnapping between lovers?

Great God smite us, why does his plea tug at something inside me all the same?

Lorenzo shifts with a few motions of his hand by his side. Raul nods in apparent agreement. “We’re getting nowhere. Let’s deal withhimand stop this horseshit.”

Marc’s mouth tenses. He’s definitely not promising them leniency any time soon.

But it isn’t even a question of how he feels about them, is it? All the promises he’s making me, the love he’s claiming—they’re for some other woman, not the one who’s actually standing in front of him.

If part of me still balks at murdering him, there’s an easy way to resolve my hesitation. To wipe any doubt from my mind about whether we could ever have peace between us.

“Not yet,” I say, and move even closer, my feet just inches from Marc’s where they’re pinned by the chair. He looks up at me, with a trace of hope in his eyes that wrenches at me more than I’m prepared for.

That hope can’t torment me if I shatter it.

“You want to know how you ended up here?” I say, cool and quiet. "I dosed you with a potion that knocked you out… the same way I delivered the poison that killed your father."

For the first few seconds after I've spoken, Marc simply stares at me—not in shock but utterly blank, as if he can't comprehend what I've said. A muscle in his cheek stutters. "You..."

"I got rid of a man who'd tormented my family and the people of my kingdom for far too many years. Who believed an appropriate response to his own nobles making a complaint was to slaughter their daughters—some of whom didn't evenwantto marry you anyway. Who ruled through terror and the crushing of any spirits strong enough to stand up to him. I have no regrets."

Behind me, Raul lets out a strangled sort of guffaw as if he can't quite believe my boldness.

Marc doesn't appear to know what to make of it either. His mouth opens and closes a few times before he works his voice from it. "Your dedication to Elox. You've always argued against violence."

How dare this man throw my commitment in my face. "I've argued for peace. It was clear no one was going to get that under Tarquin's reign except himself and perhaps his heir. Even Elox could see as much. So I did what needed to be done. I wanted that one act to be the end of it. I wanted to believe you'd consider at least a little of my concerns."

I cut myself off before more anguish than I want to let him see bleeds into my words. "You've made it clear time and time again that's impossible. I have a duty to my people, to every country on the continent, to stop the horrors you're committing before they get any worse."

Marc's lips twist. "Linus?—"

I swipe my hand through the air. "It doesn't matter which of you it was. You didn't stop him. You played along with his games. Even when you finally 'let me into the family,' it was all another test designed to crushme."

At my sudden movement, the baby elbows my side. I adjust my other arm against my belly.

Marc tracks the movement. His throat works. "Our child. For the sake of our daughter, there has to be a way through this."

His plea is too measured, tooreasonable. He still doesn't sound furious. He isn't spitting curses or glaring venom at me.

How much deeper do I need to dig the dagger to bring out the monster I know he is?

"Ourchild?" I say, as harshly as I can manage. "Do you really think I'd give my body over to a man who tortures and reviles me? I've endured what I had to, but most of what you and your brother remember of our intimate moments is pure hallucination."

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