“I was supposed to be her father. But all I ever did was make her into something that had to survive me.”
I shift, jaw locked tight.
“She’s a fighter.” It’s all I say. But Lev hears what I don’t.
He turns his head and stares at me like only a father can—like he already knows the truth I haven’t spoken.
“Have you tried convincing yourself you’ve got a heart?”
I don’t answer. Can’t.
Because whatever lives in my chest, it doesn’t beat the way it should. It doesn’t soften. Doesn’t yearn. It justhurts. A dull, relentless ache I’ve been trying to carve out ever since the night I heard her scream with a gun pressed to her skull.
Please, Priest.
That voice still scrapes along my ribs, echoing in the parts of me I didn’t think could feel. I can’t cut this out. I’ve tried. With rage and violence. With everything they taught me at Valcross.
But it’s still there. Still fucking there.
Maybe it’s a heart. Maybe it’s just the last echo of whatever human piece of me never got beaten out. All I know is that it started with her. And now, it won’t stop.
“She’s too fucking good for this world,” he mutters. “Got her mother’s fire. Her mother’s faith. Everything I didn’t deserve.” He sucks in a shallow breath. “I gave everything to the Sovereign. My youth. My blood. My wife. My daughter.”
His voice drops as he swallows blood. “Men like us don’t get good things, Priest. We take them. And if we’re lucky, we get to keep them for a while before the world takes them back.” He looks toward the ceiling. “I lost Irina because of what I am. I lost Arlo because of what I chose. That was my path. My punishment.”
He goes quiet. For a moment, I think he’s slipping. But then he shifts, just enough to look at me again.
“That’s why Sterling fears you. Because you survived the place that was supposed to kill you. Because you became what he never could.You’re everything he tried to be. You don’t have to lead, Priest. You just have to end it. Burn it all down so something better can crawl out of the ash.”
I hate this conversation. Hate what it means. Hate that some part of me doesn’t want him to be wrong. Lev’s eye starts to close.
I turn to leave.
“Priest.”
I pause.
“Kill me. Give me what little honor I have left. Don’t let me rot in a bed. Let the Sovereign remember me as a man whomade his death count.” He coughs again. “Give me a Sovereign’s death.”
I stare at him. At the wreckage, the blood. The bones that once held up a legend. A man Sovereigns whispered about like a myth.
And now?—
Reduced to this.
The others file in behind me, the sound of boots heavy against the concrete.
Lev’s breaths come shallow, wet. His eye drifts closed, mouth trembling as he mumbles incoherent fragments, names, numbers, and ghosts. He’s slipping. And there’s no coming back.
A Sovereign’s death. The final honor. A choice only the strongest are granted. I’ve denied that honor to hundreds. Left them to bleed out in dirt and silence.
But this man…this broken legend…
He’d earned it a thousand times over.
Lev’s gaze locks on mine, his breathing grows shallower, every word slower now. “My daughter’s a firecracker. Too fucking good for this world,” he repeats. “For men like me. Like you.” He reaches up, fingers curled in a weak grasp, and pulls me closer, saying something only I can hear.
My chest tightens, an unfamiliar weight pressing against bone. I give him a small nod. It’s all he needs.
