“Stop,” I hissed.
Kairos frowned. “You need to understand what’s at stake.”
“I get it. If I stay here, you can figure out how to use me.”
He flinched. “That’s not true.”
“You just want to scare me into compliance.” My hands curled into fists. “Make me so afraid of what’s out there that I’ll do whatever you ask.”
Kairos glowered at me. “I’m trying to keep you alive.”
“By controlling me.” Heat flooded my chest. “You sound like him.”
“Who?”
“Vaeris. He said the same things. That he could teach me. That I needed him, and I believed him.”
Kairos stood so fast his chair fell over. White fog leaked across the floor, coiling up the legs of the table, sliding toward me.
“Don’t you dare compare me to him.”
My pulse leapt, but I held his gaze. “Why not? You both want the same thing.”
He snarled, inches from my face.
“That’s enough,” Elwen snapped. “You’re proving her point. Control your temper.”
He pulled back, breathing hard. Something raw flickered across his face. Kairos exhaled slowly, and the mist dispersed. He righted the chair before sitting.
Elwen patted her brother’s arm. “We still have more to discuss. Like the fact that your return has thrown the realm into chaos. Your people need to know that you’re not a rogue with a vendetta. You’re theirking.”
Kairos dragged a hand down his face. “What do you suggest?”
“We’re throwing a celebration. A formal one to reaffirm your rule.”
Kairos’s nostrils flared. “The summit is in seven days.”
“What summit?” I asked.
“The realms are demanding a meeting.” Kairos shot me a twisted smile. “The kings and queens of Caelir, Thalir, Lunir—all crawling out to clutch their pearls over Skalgard.”
A shudder rolled through me. The bodies. The blood. The screaming nobles.
Elwen grimaced. “They’re calling it a massacre.”
“They chained me for a hundred years,” he said in a black voice. “Treated me like a fucking slave.”
“I know, but the realms are nervous. They want proof you won’t do the same to them. That this was about freedom, not conquest.”
“And if I refuse to meet with them?”
Elwen frowned. “Then they assume you’re planning an attack. They’ll form alliances against us.”
Kairos snorted. “So I’m supposed to apologize? Grovel for defending myself?”
“Show them you’re in control. What happened in Skalgard was justice, not madness.”
“Vaeris might want reparations,” Uther added darkly. “Blood price for the nobles you killed. Trade tithes. He’ll try to weaken us.”
