Page 146 of This Monster of Mine

“I warned you this would end badly,” Cisuré bit out. “For once in your life, just do as you’re told, and you’ll be saved.”

Sarai wiped her wet cheeks, pondering the ends of her ruined braid.

Cisuré kicked the bars. “Say something!”

“I’m surprised you’re still fawning over him.” Sarai refused to turn to her. “He didn’t think twice about breaking his word to you. You don’t know what he’s done.”

“You know what Kadra’s done.” Cisuré’s voice was venom. “Are you as gormless as the people of his Quarter to forgive it?”

“His people aren’t brainwashed.” Sarai faced her. “They’re relieved. Because life is hard, and cruel, and they have a Tetrarch who will fight for them. I’m not surprised that you don’t understand that.”

“The victim returns.” Cisuré sneered. “I’ve done everything I can for you!”

“Someday, you’ll realize that love isn’t possession!” Sarai snapped back. “It isn’t bowing someone to your will and perspective. It’s—” She swallowed at the memory of her first week working with Kadra. “It’s disagreeing with them but trying to find a way forward because you care. It’s understanding them … even if I would never have done what he did at Sidran Tower.”

On the other side of the wall, she heard a sharp intake of breath.

“You’re pathetic,” Cisuré spat.

“And you lied to me for four years, you bitch!” Sarai pushed her face against the bars and dropped her voice so Kadra couldn’t hear her. “I remembereverything. I saw you at the end. I saw yourun away. You’ve hated Kadra all this time, but you left me for dead just as he did.” Cisurépaled with each furious word. “He’s never hurt a hair on my head, but you?” She touched the wounds on her forehead. “You have committed almosteveryviolence against me.”

Cisuré averted her eyes. “You’re wrong—”

“If you ever had any regard for me, find Anek and give them this.” Sarai thrust Cassandane’s red handkerchief between the bars. “You owe me that much.”

“Only if you swear not to throw your life away for him.”

“I have no intention of dying.”

Cisuré opened her mouth, then pressed her lips together before storming from the jail.

“Do as she says.” Kadra’s voice seemed to have deteriorated even further in the scant minutes that had passed. “Don’t risk yourself for me.”

“Ordering me around, even in prison.” She tried for levity and was rewarded with a rusty chuckle.

I won’t let them ruin either of us any further. If Cassandane would help, then there was a chance for them to survive. It was a slim ray of hope, but she was the Sidran Tower Girl. She had clung to less.

Settling against her shared wall with Kadra, she kept her gaze on the wavering candle stub. And waited for dawn.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

It was a fair morning for death.

Edessans swarmed the Aequitas under a cloudless sky, having woken to the horrifying announcement that one of their Tetrarchs had killed another and was to be tried immediately for treason. On top of the insidious scutum conspiracy, it was enough to cause widespread panic.

Shackled in a prison raeda outside the Aequitas, Sarai listened to the furor through the windows, noting with grim pleasure that most people seemed to think there was more to the matter than they had been told. She made sure her illusion was firmly in place. Only Tullus had seen her scars last night, and she needed it to stay that way for now.

The horn sounded with a sonorous boom. Aelius’s ivory-liveried vigiles dragged her out of the carriage, shoving her through the prisoners’ entrance. She kept her features blank, praying that Kadra would be there, too. They’d pulled him out of his cell at least an hour before her, and she dreaded to think of what they could have done in the interim. Killed him, perhaps, with the goal of holding a sham posthumous trial …Stop, she ordered herself.Aelius wouldn’t miss a chance to crow over him in public.

The thought brought little comfort.

She kept her eyes on the ground until they reached the doors that would bring them onto the stage. Raising her head, she sighed in relief at the tattered black and gold robes of the man in front of her. Deep cuts marred Kadra’s broad back but all that mattered was that he was alive.

The double doors into the Aequitas parted, giving her a view of the chaos as people raced to any available space to witness what would be the trial of the century. Never before had the Tetrarchy shattered from within. She swallowed. An hour or less from now, it would all be over. Who would the people hail as victor? Whose corpses would litter the Aequitas’s stage?

“Bring in the accused,” Aelius intoned.

It was time.

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