I woke screaming, feeling like my chest and head were going to rip apart. The feeling calmed quickly, but still left me with a throbbing headache and chest pain. A doctor hovered over me, and a servant rushed out of the room.

“Drink this,” the woman said, lifting my head up and a vial to my lips. I did as told, and the bitter stuff burned along my throat, but the pain subsided almost completely, as always.

I caught my breath and leaned back into the pillow. “Thank you. I’m fine now.”

“I’ll make sure your mother is on the way, Chosen.” She bowed and left.

I lifted my hands above me. Clean nightgown sleeves covered my arms.

Well, that meant someone, probably Mother, cleaned me up and found my knife. Wonderful.

My tablet dinged in my ear, making me flinch. I grabbed it and flicked through the messages. I had… gods, eleven from Yesida. The most recent read, “I need to know you’re okay. I know who you are. Call me when you can.”

I groaned and dropped the tablet on the mattress. I didn’t care how he’d found out who I was. It seemed that didn’t bother him much, but word would get around soon enough about my provocative dance with Lenan before letting him guide me back to his quarters in plain view of so many nobles and guards and servants. I wasn’t overly fond of Yesida beyond his prowess in bed, but I’d thrown him aside and was about to break his heart, and for what?

I’d planned to claim someone else had murdered Lenan in front of me. I hadn’t expected it would actually happen.

That desen had been dead serious about murdering the emperor. If I’d done as told and just waited, he would have done the work for me, without all this mess.

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Me and my gods damned impatience.

I sat up, but a pile of items on my desk caught my attention, and my breathing stopped. My commoner’s clothes, my leather bag, and my daggers and knives were all laid out in plain sight.

Well, fuck me.

I flopped back into the mattress and waited for my mother’s inevitable rage, and sure enough, she stormed into the room without knocking and slammed the door.

“What have you been doing?” she hissed. “What the fuck is all this? Why did you have a knife on you at the ball, only to take the emperor back to his quarters right before he was murdered? Explain yourself, Eujia!”

I stared at the ceiling, thinking. I couldn’t sell out Ilena and her group, couldn’t admit I’d been stealing. But the sneaking out, that much was obvious. And as for Lenan… “I’ve been going out drinking,” I said quietly. “Almost every night. I hate it here, Mother. I hate all of it. I hated Lenan. You saw the way he looked at me, and you never said a damn thing. You were over the moon yesterday when I was flirting with him, weren’t you? You thought I’d finally given in, thought I’d finally marry him and let him fuck me.”

I sat up and found her with her mouth hanging open, unable to speak.

“I was going to kill him,” I said. “I was going to stab him in the heart and claim someone else had done it. But then someone else really did it for me. Do you know what Lenan did before he found my knife?” I climbed out of bed. “He said he’d marry me if I asked for it. He meant if I begged. He choked me when I didn’t ask nicely. That’s the kind of man you wanted to hand me over to. That’s the kind of man you’ve been grooming me for over the last fifteen fucking years.”

A hand whipped across my cheek, and I stumbled to the side. Mother yelped and clasped her hands over her mouth as if her palm had flown on its own. “Oh. Oh, my gods.” Horror crossed her face, and tears spilled onto the floor. She stammered, then rushed from the room.

Maybe I should have been relieved to get that off my chest. Maybe I should have been as horrified as Mother was. But I felt nothing but numbness, with a faint stinging in my cheek.

I’d finally told the truth, and come what may, I didn’t care anymore. I was ready. Gods knew Mother, Jesun, and I deserved to be thrown out, and Ranine didn’t care for the castle in the first place. Mother and Jesun could burn for all I cared, while I’d fight for Ranine with every fiber of my being. She would not suffer for our mistakes any more than she already had.

I swore on all the gods’ names, if nothing else, I’d see to that.