The throne room erupted into chaos immediately. The enemy wolves spread out with tactical precision, trained warriors even in unfamiliar territory. They were assessing the situation, searching for weaknesses in our defense. One of them spotted Wen and went straight for her, recognizing the portal caster as the most dangerous person in the room.
I moved to intercept, my damaged ribs screaming in protest, but someone else got there first.
Prince Gregyor, who’d been waiting as planned, stepped between Wen and the attacking wolf with his sword already drawn. The blade flashed in the torchlight. The wolf went down with a yelp, not dead but no longer an immediate threat.
I’d buy him a drink later. Maybe name a holiday after him. Right now, King Igrid was my priority.
The king climbed fully to his feet, looking around with growing horror and something that might have been fear finally cracking through his arrogance. His son standing protectively near my mate. His wolves surrounded by my guards, outnumbered on foreign ground. The portal closed behind him, his escape route severed, his army left behind.
Trapped. Defeated. Finished.
His gaze found Gregyor and something ugly twisted in his expression. The mask of the dignified king slipped entirely, revealing the mad tyrant beneath.
“Traitor,” he spat, his voice venomous. “You dare stand with them? With these animals? With murderers who killed your own people? Your own blood? I am your father!”
Gregyor’s face could have frozen fire. “I stopped having a father years ago. When you started burning children for abilities they didn’t choose to have. I stand with my people now. Something you stopped doing decades ago when you started your mad quest for power.”
“I did what was necessary! I did it for our kingdom! Everything I did was for Igryside!”
“You did it for yourself,” Gregyor said flatly. “For power. For immortality you’ll never have. Our people starved while you poured resources into your research. Witches died while you hunted them for abilities you couldn’t steal. Our kingdom withered while you dreamed of living forever.”
“Those witches were dangerous! Their power needed to be controlled!”
“Their power needed to be respected. Not stolen. Not destroyed. They were our people too.”
“I am your KING!”
“Not anymore.”
The fighting around us was brutal but brief. The enemy wolves were good, well-trained and experienced, but they were outnumbered three to one in hostile territory with no backup coming. Within minutes, all five were down on the blood-slicked floor. Not all killed, but all defeated, no longer capable of fighting.
King Igrid was alone in the center of our throne room. Surrounded by guards with swords pointed at his throat from every direction. His royal colors were torn and bloodied. His arm hung useless at his side, still dripping from my teeth marks. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. His obsession had led him here, to this moment, to his end.
Gregyor approached his father slowly, his footsteps echoing in the sudden quiet that had fallen over the room. Everyone had stopped moving, watching this final confrontation between father and son. The air felt heavy with the weight of what was about to happen.
“You destroyed our kingdom with your obsession,” Gregyor said, his voice carrying to every corner. “Killed innocent witches because they had power you wanted. Tore apart families. Burned children. Started a war we could never win against kingdoms that only wanted to be left in peace.”
“I did it for POWER!” Igrid screamed, his composure completely shattered now, his voice cracking with rage and something that might have been fear. “For immortality! For the chance to live forever! Don’t you understand? I could have lived forever! I could have made us immortal!”
“For nothing,” Gregyor finished quietly. “You did it all for nothing. And now you have nothing. No kingdom. No power. No future. Just death in a foreign throne room, surrounded by the people you tried to destroy.”
He looked at me then, holding my gaze across the blood-stained floor. “The kill should be yours. You led this mission. You lost men. The honor is yours by right.”
I was barely standing. The wound in my side was still bleeding freely, hot and sticky, soaking into the waistband of my hastily donned pants. My ribs made every breath feel like knives stabbing into my lungs. My vision was starting to blur at the edges, darkness creeping in from all sides. But I understood what he was offering. The symbolic weight of it.
“No,” I said, my voice rough but certain. “He’s your father. Your kingdom. Your people he wronged and murdered for decades.” I met his eyes steadily despite the black spots dancing in my vision. “The kill is yours. You’ve earned it. You’ve paid for it.”
Something shifted in Gregyor’s demeanor. Respect, maybe. Or gratitude for understanding what this meant to him. He turned back to his father, his sword rising.
“For my people,” he said, his voice ringing with finality. “For the witches you murdered in your pursuit of power. For the families you destroyed. For the children you burned. For the suffering you caused across decades of tyranny.”
His sword moved faster than I could follow with my blurring vision.
King Igrid fell, dead before his body finished hitting the stone.
And in the same moment, as if the king’s death had been the last thing holding me upright, my legs gave out completely beneath me. I’d been running on pure adrenaline and spite, and now that the threat was ended, my body was done pretending it wasn’t severely damaged.
I heard Wen scream my name. “MAL!” The sound came from very far away, like I was hearing it through water or from the bottom of a deep well. The world tilted sideways in a way that had nothing to do with portal travel, everything spinning and blurring together.
