Before he shut the door, he said, “Some part of you hates my brother as well, for letting you go, for not being strong enough to keep you. Forget him, and nothing will stand between us.” He stroked his knuckles along my cheek. “Sleep well, Lira.”
I did not sleep at all. I lay awake all night, waiting to hear the creak of the door between our rooms, sickened by the prospect. Thrilled by it.
No. No.
Bloody fates, what was happening to me?
Why this day? What had cracked the shield I’d raised against Draki? Beyond my hate, what had I been thinking about as I’d fought him, as I’d raged and screamed and lost control?
A single, simple thought, whispering through my mind: Eighteen days.
That’s how long it had been since I swam to Draki’s ship and pledged myself as his prisoner, since I’d watched Reyker drift out of my reach, out of my life. Eighteen days, and there had been nothing. No attacks on the fortress. No secret letters. He had not even come to me in my dreams. When I wandered the ruins, calling for him, I found that I was alone.
I’d known what I was doing when I jumped off the pier, when I stepped onto Draki’s ship, and yet . . . some part of me had thought Reyker would come after me. That he would show up at the fortress and beat down the door. That he would find a way, if not to see me, at least to send a message, telling me he was all right, and he understood why I’d done what I did. Telling me that he would never stop trying to get me out.
I had clung to that hope, that belief, for eighteen days. Then, for an instant, I had doubted. I gave in to the fear that he would never come. I gave up on him, if only for a moment.
Draki had slithered in to take Reyker’s place.
I’d kissed him. The scourge on my country. My brother’s murderer.
“Never again,” I said.
I pressed my face into my hands, clinging to the hateful beast guarding my heart, begging it to keep Reyker’s memory locked there, where it could not be touched, and to let no one else past its snapping jaws.
As Season’s Eve drew nearer, Draki brought me gifts, one for each of the seven days leading up to declaring me his consort. A silver comb lined with pearls. An ornate glass bottle filled with floral perfume. An exquisitely crafted sword, the blade studded with diamond spikes. And the one gift I truly did cherish, another terse letter from my brother, telling me he missed me but all was well with him.
Each of Draki’s gifts was beautiful, eerily thoughtful. Each was a symbolic step closer to my doom.
When Draki said he had another gift for me, three days before the ceremony, I assumed it would be similar to the others, but he led me to the stables and put me on his horse. We rode beyond the lava field, to a copse of trees at the foothills of the mountains, where a circle of Dragonmen guarded someone. A man on his knees, tied up with rope. Bright red ribbon was wrapped around the man’s face, knotted into a bow.
Even without the gaudy crown pinned to his head, I would have recognized him.
I hurried over, ripping off the bow, revealing features so like those of my father and brothers. “Uncle,” I greeted him. “I warned you about making deals with gods and dragons.”
Madoc put on a show of indifference, his eyes darting between Draki and me. “Rumor has it you’ve made your own unsavory deals, niece. My only regret is that I was caught. I suppose your husband will take my head as punishment.”
“My consort prefers to kill you herself,” Draki said, passing me my diamond-encrusted sword. “Execute him however you see fit.”
Anticipation flowed into those pain-filled parts of me that couldn’t let go of the past, that longed for my enemies’ blood. I looked Madoc over. “I won’t kill a man bound and on his knees,” I said. “Release him.”
Draki nodded, and the Dragonmen cut Madoc free.
“Run,” I told my uncle.
He laughed like I was joking. The sound was quickly stifled as he took in my stance, my focus. A hunter, preparing to take down her prey. The arrogant tilt of his mouth flattened.
Madoc turned and fled into the woods.
I stalked after him through the trees, ducking beneath branches, picking my way around boulders. Taking my time, my keen hearing catching every subtle hitch of his lungs, every snap of a twig under his skidding boots as Madoc bumbled his way across the tricky, unfamiliar landscape. How it must have chafed, running from an insignificant, wayward girl—that was all he’d ever seen me as.
I would show him how wrong he was.
My wind shook the trees, branches clawing at Madoc and blocking his way. I whispered to the gray clouds above us, and when they split open at my command, I seized the rain as it fell, dumping a waterfall over Madoc’s head. The raptors swooped from the sky when I called—falcons, razorbills, great skuas, diving at my uncle, slicing at him with beaks and talons. He stumbled, screamed, ran.
Where the forest ended, the mountains began. Madoc tried to climb, slipping on gravel, sliding back down. I was close on his heels.
He spun and threw a handful of rocks at me. With my earth gift, I grabbed ahold of the rocks, hurling them back at him.
“Lira.” He kneeled before me. “You don’t want to do this. It’s murder, and you aren’t a killer. You have a pure heart. It’s what makes you better than the rest of us.”
I took a step closer.
“It’s beneath you to harm an injured, unarmed man. Give me a weapon and I will kill myself. Your hands, your soul, can remain clean.”
With the toe of my boot, I drew a symbol in the dirt—three triangles overlapping. A sacrifice to a god, in exchange for a favor. The same symbol he’d drawn on the floor of my cell in Stony Harbor.
Madoc saw it and paled. “I’m your family, your father’s brother! I have known you since you were born. Do this, and you will bear the stain of kin-slayer. It will taint you.”
“You helped destroy my father, my village, my entire clan. You betrayed our homeland, tried to assassinate my brother, and nearly burned me alive to keep your secrets. You are no kin of mine.”
Madoc reared up, lunging for my sword. I stabbed it straight through the center of his torso, diamond spikes ripping the wound wider. The sword’s tip burst through his back. I jerked the blade out, leaving a red gulch in the space between his chest and belly.
“Oh.” The exclamation came out a gurgle. He stared at the hole I’d left in him. “Oh.”
I tore the crown from his head. The false king of Glasnith fell over and died.
Draki emerged from the woods behind me. He noted the symbol on the ground. “Which god did you offer him to?”
“None. His life was mine to take, and his death belongs to me.”