“No traitor, merely a House intent on doing what is right for Solaria.”
“Yes, by letting Daijal invade.”
“There will be no invasion while my House holds the throne.”
“You don’t hold it,” Vanya said.
Artyom’s gaze snapped back to Vanya. “We will after tonight.”
Vanya spared a glance for the Blades ranged through the room, pistols and a wand in hand, indicating at least one was a magician. Behind them, the bookcase had been swung open on hidden hinges, revealing the iron door behind it. That, too, was open, and the slim figure who stepped out from the space beyond made Vanya’s rage burn hotter. He throttled it down, staring at Alida and the fear on her face and knowing it was all an act. That perhaps it always had been.
“Your Imperial Majesty,” Alida said in a voice that trembled as if she were worried. As if she hadn’t been the one to orchestrate this situation. “Thepraetorialegionnaires had gathered stragglers on the way here. I didn’t know what Artyom had planned when he joined us.”
Vanya stared at her, the lie she spun pretty enough that he might have believed it before Soren had found out the truth. He’d believed so many of them over the years, after all. “Just like you didn’t know what would happen when you handed the key to the crypt over to Blades.”
Alida jerked back as if she’d been slapped, eyes going wide. For a moment, she looked scared and uncertain, but it all disappeared beneath a calculating sort of hate that left no room for anything else. She gestured at the Blades, lips curling. “Handle it.”
The room erupted in chaos and starfire all at once.
Thepraetorialegionnaires held their fire out of fear of harming Raiah, and it cost many their lives. One took a bullet in the back when he grabbed hold of Cybele and Yadvir andshovedthem out of the room. The two wouldn’t have anywhere to run, not with revenants on the loose, and Vanya knew he’d have to ensure the enemy never left this room alive.
That incandescent rage that had simmered beneath his skin since learning of Alida’s betrayal exploded forth as a barely contained inferno. The nearest Blades combusted in flames, white-hot fire consuming them. The heat made Artyom stagger back as the dying Daijalans screamed for only seconds before starfire stole the oxygen from their lungs.
A shadow flickered amidst the brightness of starfire, and Vanya resolutely didn’t look at it. He kept all his attention on his daughter being held in Artyom’s arms. The pistol Artyom held was still perilously close to his daughter’s sleeping—most likely drugged—form, and Vanyaknewhe couldn’t risk harming Artyom if it would hurt Raiah.
It was why the bastard held her, after all, as if he had the right to keep her.
“Come any closer and you’ll lose what you love most,” Artyom snarled.
“If that happens, there is nothing in this world that will stop me from destroying your House and razing yourvasilyetto the ground,” Vanya promised.
His fingers curled around more starfire, the flames licking up his arms, reaching for the ceiling, the heat of it comforting in a way when nothing else was in that moment. Vanya stepped forward, jerking free of Javier’s grip, the hexagonal shield glimmering in front of him. Starfire erupted around the remaining Blades, eating through flesh and bone with a ferocity that wouldn’t be out of place in a prairie wildfire. Vanya sucked hot air through his teeth, never looking away from Raiah and the wild-eyed expression on Artyom’s face.
“Stop!” Artyom yelled, a panicked edge to his voice, the pistol still too damncloseto Raiah. “Stop or Iwillkill your daughter, just like you killed my niece.”
Vanya stilled, the flailing, burning bodies of Blades staggering around the room the only movement around him. Vanya put out all but the smallest tongue of starfire, which he sent to the ceiling to give them light enough to see by since the lanterns had been destroyed by starfire. He ignored the way the savagely burned Blades collapsed to the floor, death minutes, if not seconds, away.
“Nicca died in childbirth. I didn’tmurderher.”
Artyom bared his teeth, standing amidst the ashes of his treachery, and Vanya knew he had to be careful because there was nothing keeping Artyom from pulling that trigger. “Have your guard drop his shield.”
“No” was Javier’s instantaneous response.
“Do it,” Vanya ordered, never taking his eyes off Artyom.
“Your Imperial Majesty—”
Vanya wondered if it might be the last time Javier ever used that title with him. “You have your orders, Captain. Obey them and leave.”
It was, perhaps, a death sentence if Vanya hadn’t known there was a shadow in the room. But if Artyom won this standoff and Vanya died, the Imperial throne would go to Raiah, and through her, the House of Kimathi. In which case, Javier and all the rest of thepraetorialegionnaires would protectthembecause they held the Imperial throne.
The glittering hexagonal shapes faded slowly, Javier’s distrust showing in his hesitation to quickly act. When the shield was fully gone, the tension in the room ratcheted up so thick Vanya felt it as a weight against his skin.
Vanya kept his eyes on Artyom, but his words were for Alida. “Why?”
“Because I had a family once, and you don’t deserve to have what your mother stole from all of those in Rixham. What she stole fromme,” Alida spat.
Out of the corners of his eyes, he saw her arm move, the barrel of a gun glinting beneath starfire. Javier shouted and Vanya was shoved aside, the crack of a bullet loud in the room. Javier grunted, and Vanya staggered under the captain’s sudden deadweight, reaching out blindly to catch him. When he chanced a glance down, blood was flowing from a bullet wound in Javier’s shoulder, Vanya’s fingers slick with it.
