Frozen Tides (Falling Kingdoms 4)

The emperor frowned. “What is wrong with you?”

She wiped her mouth with a silk cloth. “I know you won’t believe me, Father, but I am sorry. I wish there could have been another way.”

His quizzical expression shifted quickly to distress. He clutched his throat. “Daughter . . . what have you done?”

“Only what I had to.” She glanced at her brothers, who were also clawing at their throats and gasping.

The poison was supposed to act very quickly and not cause any pain.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, her eyes stinging.

One by one, each of her family members dropped to the ground, twitching, their faces turning purple as they stared at her with confusion, and then hatred.

Just as Ashur had.

Finally, they were still.

Amara turned to face the four guards who’d reentered the solarium during the wedding ceremony. Their hands were ready on their weapons, eyeing each other with uncertainty.

“You will not say anything about this,” she told them. “To anyone.”

“They won’t listen to you,” the king said, his voice surprisingly calm. “Felix, Milo. Take care of this.”

Felix and Milo were on the guards in seconds, flashes of steel in their grips.

The guards were dead by the time they each hit the ground.

Amara let out a slow, shaky breath, her wild gaze now meeting the king’s.

He regarded her without any accusation or shock. “I had a feeling you were up to something. But I had no idea it would be this extreme.”

“You call it extreme. I call it necessary.” She swallowed, hard, eyeing his deadly bodyguards with new apprehension. Felix had followed the king’s command. Would he kill her just as swiftly as he’d killed the guards if the king ordered him to?

“I was once given a prophecy that I would rule the universe with a goddess by my side,” Gaius said. “I was beginning to think it was a lie. Now I’m not so sure.” He bowed his head. “If you’ll have me, I would like to remain your husband and your servant . . . Empress Cortas.”

A violent roiling inside of her grew still as she suddenly realized that she’d succeeded.

Bloodlines ruled in Kraeshia, and she was the first infant daughter to survive an emperor’s—and all his male heirs’—death.

An infant daughter that had grown to become a woman.

And the first empress Kraeshia had ever seen.

Perhaps she and the king made a excellent match after all.

• • •

King Gaius and Amara notified the captain of the guard that rebels had infiltrated the palace and poisoned the royal family. Amara was the only Cortas to have survived this stealthy attack.

Of course she’d blame it on rebels. Who would ever believe that Princess Amara poisoned her family?

Amara went to see her grandmother after the bodies were removed from the solarium. Her smile and embrace made some of her pain fade away.

“This is all for the greater good, Dhosha,” she said. “I knew you’d be victorious.”

“Without your belief in me, I don’t know if I could have been.”

“Do you have doubts about what must come next?”