he didn’t have. I laughed, letting it be bitter. “That’s right. You don’t. The only piece of information you really wanted was the throne room. You already had a plan when you walked in here, the same fucking plan you’ve had all along, Conrí,” I spat, letting my fury rise. “All you care about is killing Anure. Worse, you don’t care if you die doing it.”
“That is not true,” he roared back at me. “I care about rescuing Rhéiane, too. I can do both!”
I folded my arms, the butterfly jewelry tinkling. “What about what we discussed? Rescuing all the royals, returning them to their lands, undermining Anure’s power so that the fraud of an empire he created falls apart in his hands?”
“We can still do that and kill Anure,” he snarled.
“With this plan?” I loaded incredulity into the question. “It’s not even worthy of the word. You’re just lunging at your chain, waiting for the moment it breaks so you can devour your enemy.” Our fascinated audience snapped their heads back to him for his retort.
“And what if I am?” he shouted at me across the table. “I want this for you, too, Lia. Don’t you want them all to suffer like you suffered?”
“No!” I shouted back. “Because nothing that happens to them will change My pain. Adding suffering to suffering doesn’t equal zero, Con—it only adds up to more suffering.”
“Well, you know I never learned much math,” he replied with blistering sarcasm, “since tutors were scarce in the mines where I was enslaved for most of my life.”
“You’ve apparently learned nothing since then, either,” I informed him, slicing to the heart of it coldly. Someone hissed in a breath at the point scored.
“I have!” He thumped his fist on the table, and the tower near him shivered into a heap. “I’m not using you this time, am I? I promised you’ll be safe, and you will be. No more using anyone else as bait.”
“Just yourself,” I said with pointed softness.
“It’s my life to use,” he snarled back.
“This craving for vengeance will destroy you, Conrí.” I dusted my hands together. “It eats everything else, making all your words into lies.”
“I drank your waters of truth, didn’t I?” He threw up his hands.
“Seeing the truth doesn’t force you to act upon it. That part is up to you.”
“What have I said that’s a lie?”
Our audience looked back to me. Fine. “You said you loved Me, wanted to marry Me and build a life here on Calanthe.”
He reeled back as if struck, baffled. “I do, but you won’t—”
I held up a finger to stop him. “Can’t you see? If you truly wanted that with Me, you wouldn’t contemplate this suicidal plan for the sake of vengeance.”
“It would be after that,” he offered, far too tentatively. “Once Anure is dead, then—”
“Then what?”
He stumbled, golden eyes flashing with frustration, and he raked a hand through his long black hair, hitting the tie and furiously yanking it out. “Then I come back here.”
“What about Oriel?”
“I mean, Oriel first, then back here.”
“What about the other forgotten kingdoms?”
“Them, too. I don’t know, Lia! We’ll figure it out when that happens.”
I shook my head, sorrow and frustration warring in my heart. “You don’t know because you can’t even conceive of a life after Anure. You’re a broken man, Conrí, living for one thing only. Which is why you don’t care if you die doing it.”
“I told you I was broken,” he grated out. “I haven’t changed.”
“No, you haven’t. And that’s the problem. An insurmountable one. Therefore, I am done.”
He stared at me, stunned. “Lia, what…”
“Done,” I repeated. “Done with you, done with this farce of a strategy session.” I waved a hand and sent the model sliding into a featureless surface again.
“Damn,” Sondra muttered. “I thought I got to blow it up.”
“I apologize to all of you that your time and energy was wasted today. You may continue to assist Conrí in his self-destruction or not. It’s entirely your choice.”
“Does this mean the Last Resort is de-commandeered?” Percy asked, glancing up from the notes he’d been taking in order to share the gossip.
I looked to Con, who stared at me in flabbergasted silence. He leaned on the table, hair hanging wildly around his face, looking like a man who’d had his feet cut out from under him.
“Whether you donate your yacht to Conrí’s doomed venture is entirely up to you,” I replied, and Percy did a chair dance of joy, flashing a triumphant look at Con.
“Lia.” Con growled