stranger to seeing others pay for her mistakes. Lan, whom she’d failed as a sister. Maro, dead by her hand. Luto, her chief of staff for only a few months. Wen and Anden, ambushed in Espenia. The unborn child she’d aborted. Woon’s first wife, Kiya. Dudo would be the next. Was this what it truly meant to hold power, Shae wondered, almost detached from her own sense of ballooning fear. Passing on the worst consequences of your failure to others, whether you wanted to or not? The chains pressed into the skin of her wrists. The white ceramic was cold against her bare legs.
