Chapter twelve
Just Delia, playing the harpThe empress stopped moving.
Breathing evenly, alert, motionless, still as a reptile waiting to strike, the empress crouched in the shadows and the words she had just heard reverberated in her brain.
“The moment the empress arrives and can be killed...”
Escape this night, then, was out of the question.
Delia fancied she wanted to know a little more of the plot to kill her. If she ran off now...? Well, she could always return with the armies, as she had planned. That way something might be decided. But she was Delia. She was Delia of Delphond, Delia of the Blue Mountains. She was Delia of Valka, and Empress of Vallia, and also queen and princess of this and that, and kovneva and Stromni of other fair places on Kregen. She was honest enough to a
