My eyes bounce between his as my vision fills with tears before clearing, over and over again. His fingers flex over mine, the blood of Sterling and the woman having seeped between our hands and making the skin there sticky. Yet I hesitate. My hands arestainedwith the blood of two lives, the fate of a third dependent onme, and still, I hesitate.
And the king notices. Though he is shorter than Nox, at this moment, he towers over me, a monster trapping his prey and waiting for the right moment to strike. It comes not by his hand or with the dagger we hold jointly. It doesn’t even come by his tongue. No, the king turns me slowly, his hand returning to the permanent reminder of his ownership over me, and forces me to see the third victim in his deranged game.
This time,screamsof protest scrape up my throat. This time, I try to fight him, but the magic keeps me from doing anything more than shaking my head. My knees threaten to buckle, and I think I might hear Xander or perhaps one of the other guards speaking or shouting, but it’s all discordant in my ears as I staredown at not a man or a woman but achild. A child who is kicking and screaming. Whose bruised eye is nearly swollen shut. One who looks up at me with pleading brown eyes, his blond hair messily strewn over his forehead in stringy clumps.
“A new compromise,” King Dolian breathes near my ear, his voice soft but laced with warning. “You must give mesomething, Rhea, that shows your loyalty to me and this kingdom. After all, is it notyourstoo?”
It’s the first time he’s ever acknowledged my claim to the throne, but it doesn’t matter. Despite his words, it isn’t mine. No kingdom is, and after today, no kingdom should ever be.
“This boy’s life is in your hands, and what I want from you is fairly simple. Vow to me that you willobliterateanyone that says they will take you away from me. Away from the Mortal Kingdom.”
My mind whirls around his words as they surround me, the consequences of them firing off like a distant siren in the back of my head. But in front of me, there is a boy no more than ten, his body finally giving out and sagging in the guards’ hold as his chest rises and falls too quickly. And there is no choice in this, there never was, but that’s always been part of King Dolian’s game. Giving me the illusion of choosing when the only options were always curated by him.
“Okay,” I whisper, swallowing back the nausea that rises. The king doesn’t respond, and when I turn to look at him over my shoulder, suspicion narrows his eyes and brackets his mouth. “I will vow to never leave you. Vow to being yours, and you can command me to kill anyone who tries to take me away from you. Who tries to take me away from this kingdom.” There are no loopholes in my wording, no skirting around the magic that will lock me into this deal. But I can give this version of myself to him. I can stop pretending that the person here worthy of being saved is me. Still, the king does not move beyond a twitch of hisfingers at my hip. “Command me,” I say, wrapping the words up as a plea while staring into his eyes. “And let the boy return to his family.”
“The boy is free to go,” he says, gesturing with his chin to Xander. “Come. You’ll be our witness. The rest of you, clean them up.” Plucking the dagger from my hand, King Dolian hands it to Xander, whose eyes try to catch mine as he takes it and returns it to the sheath at his belt. But I won’t risk the king suspecting anything between us, so I keep my gaze down as I’m tugged away from the carnage I’ve created.
But the boy’s cries draw my attention back over my shoulder, and I watch as the boy falls to his knees and turns to look at the dead woman lying next to Sterling. “Promise me that you will return him to his parents,” I say through the broken beating of my heart.
“I’m afraid that is impossible.”
I turn to look at the back of King Dolian’s head as we pass the guarded doors, a cold sweat breaking out over my body. “Why?” Behind me, the boy begins to wail again, the sound pained. Torturous.
“Because you just killed them.”
Chapter Seventy-Three: Rhea
Itstartswiththeking’s command, magic drowning me as he speaks. Then, with Xander standing guard, my blood drips onto the courtyard outside, King Dolian’s joining it as he clasps my hand and I make my vow. White magic—magic not unlike my own—flares from the ground and swirls up to our hands, wrapping around our wrists before sinking into our skin. Its warmth tingles for a few seconds before it dissipates. I feel no different, yet everything has changed.
You just killed them.
His words ricochet inside of me.
You just killed them.
A part of me is dead now too.
Chapter Seventy-Four: Aria
Ithadtakenafew weeks for Lyre and I to develop a plan that we both felt comfortable with to get the seamount sirens their weapons back. With her order to stay in the palace because of her pregnancy, Lyre was limited on what information she could gain.
Or she should have been. As it turns out, my sister’s resourcefulness has no limits.
Since informing her of Nia’s many threats, which hadn’t yet resulted in me being apprehended and dragged through thepalace to face my mother, Lyre has not only learned how many weapons are being stored in the Queen’s Legion’s arsenal but where we can find them. In the same amount of time it’s taken me to reconcile knowing what the shape of Myla’s lips pressed against my own feels like, Lyre has accrued more information about the arsenal than I even know what to do with.
“How in the Five Realms did you do this?” I ask her as we sprawl her notes out on my bed—detailing the number of sirens guarding the arsenal, a drawn map to them, and ideas to draw both Allegra and Sade away to give us time to haul the weapons out.
Lyre shrugs, leaning back on her hands, the swell of her belly prominent. “It’s easy when plenty of females owe you favors. Or when they hate Allegra.” Her lips quirk to the side. “There are a lot of sirens who fall into the latter category.”
I pinch my lips together to keep my smile from growing. “So this is it, then?” I ask, looking from my sister to the mess of notes spread out before us. “We’re really going to do this?”
“It’s well thought out and the best we can do given the dire circumstances. Just because Nia hasn’t made good on her threatyetdoesn’t mean that she won’t. And while I still think it would be difficult to tie it all to you, I don’t want to risk it. We empty out as many of their weapons as we can while the guards are distracted.” She taps the map she’s drawn, arrows indicating the hallways to follow when we enter the building. “Hopefully enough for the seamount sirens to do something with, while avoiding getting caught ourselves.”
“Hopefully,” I repeat, pursing my lips. “Are you sure it will be safe for you to sneak out without our mother noticing?”
Lyre nods. “The queen’s attention has been solely focused on building the legion’s numbers and bringing them to the Mortal Kingdom to be healed. Between that and her research withDyanna, there hasn’t been much focus given to Allegra or I. Something that annoys our older sister to no end.”
“And the plan for Allegra?”
