“You’re no king,” I hiss. “And neither was your imposter father.”
He lets out a chuckle of amusement. “Ah. So you’ve figured it out.”
“Did you know who I was the entire time?” I demand.
“Of course, I knew,” he says, his smile lingering.
Something in my chest dies when he says it. I expected the answer, but it still cuts deep.
“What, you were hoping that it was just acoincidencethat the current crown prince and the heir to the original royal line happened to meet in a market one day and end up in a relationship?” He shrugs. “There are no such things as coincidences.”
Fuck.Fuck.
“Whispers said Queen Chiara kept her baby alive. My ancestors decided it hardly mattered, since no one remembered her, anyway. But I had a plan for the Sturmfrost royal,” he says, his smile turning sharp.
He strains from the mattress to press his own neck against the blade. There’s something wild in his eyes.
“I hunted you down. I sought you out. I made you mine.”
It takes all of my self-control not to slice his throat right now. Instead, I say, “You fuckingmonster. Ilovedyou! And the whole time you were just… using me.”
The icy edge to his eyes softens. “You wound me, Meryn. I wasn’tjustusing you. I love you. Everything I’ve done, it’s for your own good. Forourgood, and the good of the kingdom.”
And the fucked up thing is, I think he believes what he’s saying. This may be the only genuine thing he’s ever told me.
My grip tightens on the blade. Magic whips through me like a hurricane, tearing up my roots and leaving me adrift. Unmoored, I can’t stop the thought again.It would be so easy.I could kill him right here. Just a twitch of my wrist, and he’d stare up at me with the life draining from his body, knowing his prey had turned predator.
But I’m not done with him yet. “My mother?”
“You have to know, I didn’t feel good about that. But if you were going to be my queen, her powers needed to pass to you. It was her time.”
Powers. That must be the responding magic I feel when I hold this blade. The sensation coursing through me when I wore the crown.
The Sturmfrost royals have magic—magic that has been suppressed for centuries.
Kill him, kill him, kill him,my heart beats.KILL HIM.
“I needed you, though,” Killian’s saying. “So I let you..li…”
Something strange starts to happen.
Killian’s pupils start to expand and contract alarmingly rapidly. His mouth drops open, and his irises roll backward until I can only see the whites of his eyes behind trembling lashes. Then, in an instant, his gaze snaps back to me. The voice that comes from him isn’t Killian’s.
“Killian got greedy,” he says, voice echoing hauntingly. The sound of it is all wrong. It crackles with age, with overuse. The desiccated sound of it doesn’t match Killian’s youthful face.
I recoil, horrified. It feels like spiders are crawling all over my body. I press the sword firmly to his throat, disoriented and confused.
“Who are you?” I demand.
His grin stretches unnaturally wide, teeth bared. I watch as his canines elongate into fangs and draw blood from his own lips. “Alistair Brightbane.”
Brightbane.
The Siphon who killed Queen Chiara.How?!
“Bring Killian back,” I growl, leaning over him. The same thing happens. A trembling of his pupils. A seizure of his body.
His eyes roll back down, and he lets out an appreciative hum. “Yes, my beloved?”
