Page 174 of The Inadequate Heir (The Bridge Kingdom 3)

And yet for all he’d done, she still loved him.

“General,” the captain pleaded. “We must turn south. Give the order. Please!”

“I can’t! We have to help them!” She couldn’t live with herself if Ithicana fell. If Aren and Lara and all their people died because of her. Better to go to the grave knowing she’d done everything she possibly could.

“Then you damn us all!” The captain abandoned the wheel to his first mate, gripping her shoulders, both of them struggling to balance on the storm-tossed ship. “A thousand Valcottan souls will perish if you don’t abandon this course.” He pressed his forehead to hers. “They say the tempests defend Ithicana—trust that they will do so now.”

Tempests wouldn’t be enough to stop Silas Veliant. Yet all around, she saw her crew, her soldiers, clinging to ropes and rails. All of them had agreed to this. All of them had been willing to risk life and limb to do what was right, but would she be in the right condemning them to death?

I need to honor myself.Her own words repeated in her head, and slowly, Zarrah bowed her shoulders. “Turn south. And may fate, God, and the stars have mercy on Ithicana.”

And on her.

86

KERIS

For nearly an hour, he’d been kneeling on the dais while a series of priests and priestesses conducted his coronation. Old men and women droning on about his divine right to rule and other such nonsense, it not lost on him that given the Veliant family’s infamous lack of piety, it seemed unlikely that God had anything to do with his current position.

Keris barely heard half of what they said anyway, their voices drowned out by the endless repeat of his last conversation with Zarrah, his eyes filled with her tear-streaked face. He’d woken up on the ground, his head aching and his vision swimming, but he’d had sense enough to climb the lookout tower in time to watch her sail away. To scream her name, because he’d been certain the storm would claim her.

That despite everything, she was going to die.

I don’t regret it.Those were the words he’d told himself a hundred times. That it didn’t matter if Ithicana fell, didn’t matter if she hated him, didn’t matter if he hatedhimself, he wouldn’t regret it. Yet every time he’d spoken those words, they’d been a lie.

Because he regretted everything.

Something heavy settled on the top of his head, and Keris twitched, realizing that it was a crown. The crown of Maridrina. Hisfather’scrown.

His father was dead.

Ithicana, under Aren’s leadership and Lara’s bravery, had prevailed, his father’s fleet nearly destroyed by the storm and hundreds of lives lost beneath the waves. And despite it having been his plan that failed, his plan that had lost the bridge, Keris was being raised up high as king, the people singing his name in the streets and proclaiming that Maridrina would enter a new era of peace under his rule.

The last thing he deserved was songs.

His knees cracked as he rose, one of the priests handing him the jeweled scepter of his office, and as Keris turned, the man intoned, “All hail King Keris of Maridrina!”

As one, the masses of nobility filling the cathedral dropped into deep bows and curtsies, the enormous structure entirely silent as he said, “As your sovereign, I swear in the eyes of God to uphold Maridrina’s laws and protect our borders from those who might do our people harm. To raise Maridrina up high so that it might shine as the brightest jewel of the known world.” He cleared his throat, the next not words that had been given to him to say but those he’d given himself. “I swear to pursue lasting peace and true alliances. To listen to my people and be their voice. To protect those who need protecting and to bring the villains who would prey upon them to justice. This I swear.”

The nobility all stared at him in silence, but Keris heard the whispers of his words being repeated, moving back through the building and out into the open air, where throngs of civilians waited. Heard their cheers and calls of his name.

And felt hollow.

He was supposed to walk in a stately fashion down the aisle toward the rear, but Keris found himself striding quickly, looking neither left nor right as he passed, leaving the procession behind him. At his nod, the guards flung open the doors, and he blinked away tears from the brilliant glare of the morning sun before stepping down the steps to the awaiting carriage.

Settling in the rear seat, he fought the urge to yank the curtains closed even as he struggled to regain control of his thundering heart, the weight of the responsibility he now held only just starting to take hold. The carriage rocked as it started to move, slowly making its way through the cheering throngs.

Throngs that only yesterday had been weeping for the loss of so many soldiers—husbands, sons, fathers, and brothers who’d died on the slopes of Eranahl or drowned in the Tempest Seas. Throngs that cursed his father for all that he had done, and Keris wanted to climb onto the roof of the carriage and scream,It was my plan! It is me you should blame!

Just like she does.

Zarrah.

Her ships had been spotted heading south, though there was no word yet from the spies of whether she was on them or not. But he knew. Knew in his heart that she was alive.

Keris bent forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and the crown slid from his head to land with a heavythudon the carriage floor. Gold glinted in the sun filtering through the windows, the Maridrinian rubies that adorned it looking like drops of blood.

She consumed his thoughts. Ruled his dreams to the point he’d had to drown himself in wine to silence her voice. To vanquish her eyes, which always stared at him with the pain of betrayal.

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