“Only a fool would betray a goddess,” she seethes, flashing her incisors.
“Betray?” Rian clutches his head, trying to lean forward, but meeting the sharp side of my blade. He throws me an irritated look over his shoulder. His hands tense on the armrests, knuckles going white next to hers. “Sure, call it that if you like.”
She laughs bitterly. “What would you call it?”
“Don’t blame me for doing what neither of you had the spine to do!” His voice cuts through the air, sharp as my blade. “You were too cautious to do it yourselves. Too afraid. But look at what my little stunt accomplished—exactly what you wanted. As we speak, the public is fawning all over your precious fae even before they set foot in our kingdom.”
He shifts, pressing as far as he dares against my blade. “I had the courage to act. You should be bowing at my fucking feet, not holding a knife to my throat.” He leans back, looking far too comfortable on the throne, with a grin like he owns the world. “You’re fuckingwelcome.”
With a growl, I lower the knife and lean over to grab him by the collar instead, shoving my face an inch from his. “You’re trying to claim you escaped so you could help us? Bullshit.”
“What choice did I have?” he spits back at me, matching my fervor. “Your stupid plan to have the fae pardon them would never have worked, and you were too dense to listen to me!”
I pull back, throat thick.
“So why run?” Sabine says after a beat. “If you were justhelping.”
His eyes shift to hers, simmering and moody.
He shifts his hips as he snakes out his tongue, wetting his lips. “Because you’d never believe me. Not even after I just fucking won you exactly what you wanted. And the best part? You didn’t have to lift a finger. I did the dirty work. The murder. The violence. Ialwaysdo the dirty work for you, songbird, can’t you see that? I make the hard calls.”
Sabine rears back, eyes wide and incredulous, a streak of soot down her cheek like a blackened tear. “Hard calls? What, as in handing me over to my father?”
“Yes!” He tries to lean forward, but I still have his collar in my fist, and I slam him back against the throne. He winces, writhing beneath my hold, eyes sparking hot on me, too, before shifting back to Sabine. “Admit it, Sabine. You know I did the right thing. For both of us. I got the throne, short-lived as my time on it was. You got a family—you got fuckingpowers of a god.”
A strange look crosses Sabine’s face. She straightens, touching the point of her ear. She swallows hard, her throat bobbing around something hard and bitter.
Rian shifts his hips, gettingreallyfucking comfortable on that throne, if you ask me.
“Sabine,” I say. “He’ll say anything?—”
But Rian plows ahead, eyes fastened on Sabine. “I helped you when you wouldn’t help yourself. You’re held back by your humanity, both of you. But you, songbird…you’re starting to wake up, aren’t you? You’re beginning to realize there’s so much more for you out there.” He bites his lip, shaking his head with atsk-tsk, and mutters almost to himself, “Gods, we would have made one hell of a couple. If the two of you would only get your heads out of your asses, we could still be something. The three of us. Loyal to one another.”
“Loyal?” I growl, fisting Rian’s collar tighter, dragging him a few inches off the throne. “I lost my fucking memories because of yourhard call!”
He pulls back his lips, meeting my anger with his own. “And what about me? Do I look like I came out ahead? You’re on the throne. You have Sabine. Hell, you even have my family name! What more do you want from me, Basten? My blood on your knife? Fuck, go ahead, then. I’m so sick of your griping! Put us all out of our misery and just do it.”
He tilts his head back, teeth still bared, fully exposing his long neck to me.
I freeze for half a breath, the knife trembling in my other hand. A flicker of regret—longing for a different outcome—flares in my chest. But I shove that feeling down deep.
And I press the blade to his throat anyway. “Gladly,” I snarl, though my voice cracks at the edges.
“Wait!” Sabine holds out her hand, the fey line on her palm pulsing faintly. With her dress in tatters, her hair soot-streaked, she looks like she’s just been through battle. “Wait, Basten.”
“Wait?” My voice is hoarse. “You wanted this. His death.”
“I did.” She drags a hand through her hair, pacing in front of the throne, her own tongue darting out. “Part of me still does. But now, I…agree with Rian.”
“What?” I explode, stepping back from the throne like it’s on fire.
She clasps her hands, fingers wringing together. “I…I think we were wrong. About pardoning the traitors, I mean. And…maybe about more. Look, Rian is…” She huffs out a long burst of air, sliding Rian a side-eyed look. “Rian is a lot of things, plenty of them unspeakable, but you saw how the people reacted to his stunt. Itdidgive us what we wanted.”
I take a moment to breathe, to process what I’m hearing. Gods, I hate this. Being on opposite sides of a silent war with Sabine.
And worst of all? I hate that a part of me wonders if she’s not entirely wrong about Rian.
He got his hands dirty tonight—dragging Gaez out of the dungeon, slitting his neck, burying a fucking axe in his head.
