state. As he neared the edge, I heard a horse’s sharp whinny behind me.
“Stop!” Talia dismounted and fell to her knees.
Ceren froze, just feet from the cliff’s edge. Zoi was crying at the sight of her mother, struggling with so much force I worried she’d accidentally knock Ceren over the edge. Perhaps she had believed she was calling Ceren’s bluff before, but now, seeing her daughter’s terror, Talia was in tears. “I’m sorry. You can have the throne. You can have the entire bloody kingdom. Just give me my daughter.”
Ceren set Zoi down, but his grip on her arms didn’t soften. “Do you mean it?” His eyes lit up in desperate hope.
“Yes,” Talia cried. “You have my word.”
We all stood breathless, waiting to see what Ceren would do. I didn’t know if I believed Talia myself. I knew her love for her daughter was real, but she could easily tell Ceren anything he wanted to hear right now. There was no way to ensure she would hold up her end of the bargain. Ceren might be armed, but the second he released Zoi, the Galethians could put an arrow straight through his heart. He took a step backward, his lips peeled in a triumphant smile, and I gasped, wondering if there was any chance I could reach Zoi before it was too late.
Then, to my shock, Ceren released her. She ran straight into her mother’s open arms, seemingly uninjured. Mother and daughter rocked together, Talia on her knees, Zoi stretched on tiptoe, and for the first time since I’d met her, I had faith that Talia was not lost to power the way Ceren was, that she could actually help steer this kingdom into a safe harbor.
I had stopped a few yards from Ceren when I thought he might drop Zoi over the cliff, and while everyone’s attention was on the girl, he was looking directly at me. The setting sun behind him was as bright as the gems in his crown, lighting up the sky and Ceren’s hair like flames. Even the water looked scarlet for a moment, an entire ocean of blood.
I slowly stepped closer to Ceren, palms still out to show him I meant no harm. The smile had faded from his lips, as if he knew as well as everyone that he wasn’t capable of running a kingdom anymore. “Come away from the edge, Ceren.”
“I can’t,” he said, his heels edging perilously close to the drop. I couldn’t tell how far it was to the ocean, but there were likely rocks in the water below. A fall from here would most certainly kill him, and while a part of me believed it was the fate he deserved—he had sent other people, including Lady Melina, to eerily similar deaths by throwing them from Mount Ayris—it was also a coward’s death, a way to escape without ever facing the consequences of his actions.
I realized then he had known Talia wasn’t going to give him the throne. She would put him in the dungeon, probably for the rest of his life. He had crimes to answer for, and he was a danger to everyone, including himself. But perhaps just hearing her surrender was enough; maybe he had doubted Talia as much as I had, and in his own bizarre, misguided way, was testing her.
Or maybe he’d wanted to see for himself what a mother’s love was supposed to look like.
He opened his mouth to speak, and foolish as I was, I thought he might apologize for everything he’d done. Maybe, finally, he could acknowledge his mistakes. I didn’t imagine he cared about forgiveness, and I wasn’t even sure I was capable of granting it. I just wanted to believe that the little boy was still in there, and if he asked for help, he would finally receive it.
But the next thing I knew, he fell backward, and with nothing but the flapping of his cloak in the wind, he was gone.
33
Later, when I had been reunited with my family and was safe back in Old Castle, Father would try to explain Ceren’s death was the justice he deserved.
“Ceren took too much from the sea, Nor,” he said to me as we sat under the stars in the courtyard with Zadie and Mother. We’d been back for two days, and even though I was wearing layers of clothing and had wrapped myself in a thick throw, I still couldn’t get the chill out of my bones that had crept in