My grandmother.
Gran.
I had to swallow my gasp.
The woman who’d raised me after my parents were killed. Who’d taught me magic. Who’d tried to save me by forcing me to deny the fire in my soul. She was here. Being dragged through a demon’s throne room like a prize, her thin frame shaking, her white hair matted with blood and dirt, but her eyes?—
They were a perfect match to mine.
Steel. Absolute steel despite the terror and pain. Giving me strength even now, even like this, the way she’d always done.
There was no hiding the whimper that slipped from my throat.
Syneca Talmyrien, don’t you move, her expression said.Don’t give yourself away.
Because if I moved, if I reacted, I’d reveal myself as part of her bloodline. Would ruin everything she protected. Would make myself the target instead of Vitoria.
Vitoria was letting him believe it. Was standing there silently, letting Tiberius thinkshewas the Phoenix, and this woman was her kin. She let him offer my grandmother as tribute, and I didn’t know why. Didn’t understand what game she was playing except that it was keeping the attention off me.
For now.
For now.
The words echoed in my head, spiraling into panic I couldn’t control.
Calder was imprisoned. Vitoria had betrayed us—no, worse, she’d never been on our side, three years of friendship had been a lie from the start. Gran was alive but probably about to be executed like she was nothing, like she hadn’t spent her whole life protecting me, hiding me, loving me when no one else would.
And I couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t scream. Couldn’t tear this place apart the way every instinct demanded because the moment I showed my power, they’d kill me too.
Everything had gone to shit so fast. One minute we were entering a city that no one believed in, the next the world was ending, and I couldn’t breathe past the weight crushing my chest, couldn’t think past the ringing in my ears.
Hands gripped my arms. Firm. Steady.
Wickett.
He didn’t say anything. Didn’t try to tell me it would be okay or offer empty comfort. Just held my arms like he knew he was the only thing keeping me tethered to the ground instead of flying apart into a thousand pieces.
Maybe he was.
Maybe without that touch, without that anchor, I would have broken completely. Would have launched myself at the demon prince or Tiberius or Vitoria or all of them at once, consequences be damned. But he held on. And somehow that was enough to keep me standing when everything else was falling apart.
The demon prince moved toward Tiberius, and the temperature in the room dropped.
“You’ve forgotten your place, Magistrate.” He’d somehow taken an icier tone than before. “Forgotten that I am not some politician you can negotiate with. Not some peer you can bargain with as equals.”
“I delivered the charidryn. Like you asked.”
“You delivered nothing.” The demon prince’s hand shot out, gripping Tiberius’s throat. “You are a dying man grasping at salvation that was never yours to claim.”
“Please.” Tiberius choked, reaching for runes as he shoved at the demon. “The agreement?—”
“There is no agreement.”
In a single motion that looked more like a dance than destruction, the prince released Tiberius, drew a blade from his belt and slit the Magistrate’s throat. Blood sprayed across Gran’sface, her white hair, the stone floor. Tiberius’s body crumpled, lifeless before it hit the ground.
I spun toward Wickett, horror flooding through me. He’d just watched his father die, murdered in front of hundreds of witnesses, and despite everything Tiberius had done, that was still his father.
But I wasn’t ready. Not for the realization of what that death meant.
