The Inadequate Heir (The Bridge Kingdom Book 3)

by Danielle L. Jensen

“Who’s Aster?” Keris asked. “My father.”

Omggggg

Grinning, the man lunged and shoved his sword into Raina’s back, the tip appearing through her chest. She gasped as he jerked it back out, and Keris threw himself forward, catching her as she fell. “What are you doing? They are our allies!”

“This is the last thing I want.” His eyes burned. “I’m sick of war. Tired of the endless fighting. It’s the reason I was going to Harendell—not because of the books, but because I can’t stomach any more killing. I wanted a different life.”

Like it was yesterday, Zarrah could remember her mother begging she be spared. That she’d do anything if only they’d allow her daughter to live. And Zarrah’s dreams were haunted by the laughter of King Silas Veliant himself as he agreed. As he hacked off her mother’s beautiful head, his men fixing her body to a cross in the middle of the gardens while Zarrah screamed. But he’d kept his word. They’d tied Zarrah to the base of the cross with her mother’s head in her lap. For two days, she’d wept and screamed and struggled against her bonds as blood and worse dripped onto her, as the hot sun turned her mother’s body to rot.

Fucked up

“No!” Keris lunged, slamming into his brother with greater force than he intended, sending Otis staggering sideways. Glass shattered. Keris lifted his head, seeing his brother fall backward, arms pinwheeling as he tried to catch hold of the window frame. “Otis!” He reached, his fingers brushing the leather of Otis’s boots as his brother plunged from sight. Thud. Cold shock rippled through Keris as he stood. No. It wasn’t possible. Otis hadn’t fallen. He took one step. Then another. Gripped the window frame and looked down. His stomach twisted, the contents rising. Otis had fallen.

Oh shit

His face snapped up, and in two strides, Keris closed the distance between them, wrapping her in his arms. “I wish I could hate you,” he said into her hair. “Because then I could watch you walk away and not feel like…like…” She felt him shake his head. “If there are words for how I feel about you, I’ve never heard them. Never seen them written in any of the thousands of books I’ve read.”

Swooooon

It was not her place to advise. Not even her place to voice an opinion. So Zarrah only covered his hand with hers and said, “No one can predict the future, Your Grace. Fate favors the strong. God rewards the good. And the stars never abandon those who dream of more.”

Serin giggled, a strange, insane sound that made Keris recoil. “There is no denying that your father was a flawed and violent man, but your mother is the only woman he ever loved. It was not her defiance in going after Lara that drove him to kill her, but the things she said when he caught up to her. The revelation of her true feelings for His Grace, which were not at all what he’d believed. How swiftly love turns to hate in the face of betrayal. A feeling I suspect Zarrah Anaphora is deeply familiar with.”

“For all his faults, your father loved you. Protected you. And I think even if I were to reveal this truth to the people, they’d forgive you, Keris, because they want what you’ve promised. But Petra? Petra does not love. Petra does not feel. And Petra and I have a rapport that goes back all those years ago to when she delivered word to my flock that her sister, the true and rightful heir to Valcotta, was staying, virtually unprotected, at a villa near the border. I, in turn, whispered that information into the ears of your father.” His breath caught, horror turning his veins to ice. The empress had arranged the murder of her own sister. Zarrah’s mother.

“Oh? Then you won’t mind if I take this?” Nana reached for the blanket and Aren cursed, snatching at the bedding, the two engaging in a vicious tug-of-war while Jor and the other guards gaped in the doorway.