“Stop!” Vaasa screamed.
Amalie, her closest friend, was supposed to besafe. Vaasa had killed for it. Had slaughtered her own brother to ensure it. How were they right back in this place?
“Ozik, let her go! Please,” Vaasa begged, throwing all her weight against the sentinel to turn and face Ozik. The man’s grip was so tight, but he faltered just a step, and it was enough.
Ozik must have known everything Dominik had done in Icruria, right down to whom he had used for leverage against Vaasa.Of courseOzik knew. Vengeance, thick and angry, flowed onto her tongue. Her words came sharp, the Asteryan consonants catching on the roof of her mouth as she pierced him with her indigo gaze. “You have just signed your death warrant, as Dominik did.”
Ozik looked down at her, a small smile at watching her struggle against a second sentinel who’d started to dig his toe into Vaasa’s calf.
“Behave, and in time, you will see her freed,” Ozik said.
Vaasa stopped struggling as the sentinels pulled her away. Her limbs went slack. She only stared at her closest friend—her first true friend—who was barely still within sight. Dirt was smeared over Amalie’s face, and her expression seemed lost. Broken.
Then it shifted.
All the warmth Vaasa knew disappeared.
Amalie raised her chin, locked eyes with Vaasa, and smiled. Through her tears, Vaasa saw something that made her tremble. Her friend wore a wicked, vengeful expression, completely unlike the woman Vaasa knew, and for a moment, Vaasa swore Amalie’s eyes flashed moonlight-white. Just like the snake, just like the wolf that Vaasa had summoned to kill her own brother. She recalled a faint memory of the moments just before Reid’s mother Melisina had found them both beneath that colosseum, before Vaasa had murdered her brother to save all their lives.
Hadn’t Amalie’s eyes flashed white then, too?
Ozik grabbed Vaasa’s face, fingers tight on her jaw, and forced her to turn and look at him again. His other hand wrapped sternly around her throat. Vaasa bucked like a wild animal, but Ozik remained unmoved. He tightened his grip until her air almost ceased.
Desperation struck Vaasa like lightning, but she did not move. She forced herself to calm, to not utter a word or strike Ozik again. She needed to survive this moment first.
“And now you know,” he warned in Icrurian, low and deadly, “that if you make one wrong move, Vaasalisa, I will forfeit that girl’s life quicker than I took your father’s. I will slaughter her the way you did your brother—without mercy. So youwillcooperate. Have I made myself clear?”
He didn’t want anyone else to hear those words. The truth of who—and what—Ozik was would be his unraveling. Vaasa wouldkill him. And afterward, she would bury his body so deep in the ground that not even the dogs would find him.
She nodded.
“Good,” he said, releasing her throat as she fell to her knees, gasping for air. As he stood there like a malevolent god looking down on her, Vaasa’s rage melded with powerlessness. She might as well have been bowing to him. A simple grin played upon his lips.
Hands grabbed her arms again, dragging her away from Amalie, and though she fought hard, it was no use.
Cold, salt-ridden air filled her nostrils as Vaasa was hauled onto the waiting ship.
CHAPTER
3
They loaded Vaasa onto the Asteryan vessel, nothing like the fortified transfer boats built for the sole purpose of towing prisoners to and from. This was decorative, elegant—meant for show. She sat in an enclosed glass cabin, windows wrapped around the entirety of their space and revealing the oncoming city. A boat like this was never meant for long journeys; it was one her father had commissioned, only ever used to sail around the Iron Bay. Waves rocked them as they crossed the water in silence. Vaasa pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders, silently grateful for the warmth. Ozik sat at a bolted-down wooden table, hands intertwined atop it. Vaasa watchedhim from where she stood, her back pressed against the single wooden wall.
They were entirely alone.
“Why am I alive?” she asked plainly, her voice barely loud enough to carry across the cabin. Away from Vlacik and the other prying ears, Vaasa wondered if she would finally get something real from Ozik. He was brilliant in front of a crowd, entirely convincing of whatever story he wanted to spin.
Ozik cocked his head, his brows threading together. “You are the last remaining Kozár, Vaasalisa. By law, you are to be our empress.”
Disbelief wove through her nerves. For six weeks, she had been in that cell, certain that if Ozik wanted her dead, he’d have killed her already. She never would’ve guessed this was the reason. “You murdered my father for his throne and his wife, and now you want to placemeupon it?”
Ozik crossed his arms and leaned back, resting against the bench. “I killed your father because he was a vindictive fool who took fifteen years to realize his wife was in love with someone else. He could conquer a continent but he couldn’t smell the things right under his nose, and that is what happens when someone fails to mind the four walls of their home.”
Fifteen years.Ozik had been having an affair with Vaasa’s mother for fifteen years? “I thought you made a bargain with my mother to—”
“I said we made atrade. You must begin listening closely to words; they matter. I did not need to be convinced to kill your father. But your mother and I had a thousand bargains, Vaasalisa. And she broke one. I hope you do not make the same mistake.”
“Did you need her magic the way you need mine?” Vaasa asked bluntly.
