Furat and I arranged to meet a few days later. We met in the same garden where we’d met on her arrival at the palace. She arrived ahead of me and by the time I managed to slip away she was already sitting in the gazebo. Because of Maram’s clear position on her I hadn’t been able to speak to or see her for the majority of the visit. And because of the friendship I’d engineered with the Banu Ifran she likewise had stayed away. But she smiled when she saw me, rose to her feet and held out her hands.

My sojourn with Maram still lingered in my mind. If she could trust Idris, might there come a day where she would welcome Furat as well? The Wattasis had been close allies of the Ziyadis, and in another world Furat and Maram would have grown up side by side, hand in hand. Fear held my tongue captive whenever I considered bringing it up to the princess, but one day I would have to do it. She was a key member of the rebellion—there was no way for them to keep up the Vathek-instilled feud.

“You have been very busy,” she said, kissing my cheeks. “It seems you have the Banu Ifran on your side.”

I smiled and nodded. “Rabi’a met Arinaas a few weeks ago.”

“And showed you your family, I have heard.”

I grinned. The most daunting blade hanging over my neck had at last been neutralized. My family was safe and the Vath could not use them anymore to stay my hand. There was still danger, to be sure—every day under the eye of the Vath was dangerous. But never again could Nadine use their pain against me.

“So,” I said, sitting down. “What would you have of me this time?”

“Did Arinaas tell you why she came to this region?”

“The eastern continent is under siege.”

“And?”

I frowned. “And what?”

“They are going to assassinate the king.”

I felt as if I’d been struck. I found that for a moment I didn’t understand what she’d said. That my mind refused to comprehend the sentence.

“Assassinate?” I breathed. It would mean—Dihya, it would mean so many things. A rapid ascension to the throne for Maram, the expulsion of the Vath, a return to the world of before.

“Yes. Do you balk at it?”

I swallowed around a lump in my throat. “No,” I said. “No. I just didn’t think we would take such action so soon.”

I remembered Arinaas’s comment, that we might avoid war entirely. If Mathis died, Maram would take his place and there would be no need for war. Just an expulsion of the Vath and their power structures. A difficult transition, perhaps, but one with us in power. With the state back in the hands of the people.