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“What have you done?”

CHAPTER42BERIC

The king seemed shocked by my demand. “Overslept, apparently.”

“Did you order her to kill Cali?” I asked, my voice breaking, and I could barely hold in the desire to use my sword without questioning him first.

“Who?”

“What do you mean, who? That woman sitting in Kat’s office, calling herself queen.”

He frowned at me, scratching his scalp without urgency, until finally his brows raised. “Right, Calliope’s cousin. Pretty thing. Incredibly dim-witted.”

“Did you give the order?” I pressed, on the verge of killing him regardless of his response.

“We did not.” The king finally spotted my bloody sword and grinned, a wicked curl to his lips. “Ah, we see. Who did you kill in her honor?”

A sob broke from me. I gripped my sword, letting myself cry freely. “How could you let this happen?”

The king looked confused by my response. “Perhaps it’s a fitting punishment, seeing as she killed her queen.”

“What are you talking about?” I snapped, no longer concerned with upholding any sort of respectful nature. “You killed Kat.”

“Because of you,” he growled, his words making me freeze. “We altered our plan because of you. We wanted the cousin, she wanted to be our wife—someone had to die to make that happen. And it was going to be our knight, but when we discovered you loved her, we let you keep her. We did that out of affection for you.”

This was exactly why I worked so hard in guiding the king’s decisions. Because, my God … there was no logic in his explanation whatsoever. The more I thought of it, the angrier I became. No law stated how many wives the king might have. He could simply have an additional one, if he liked. Or not married her at all—instead he killed one of the most important people in England just to take a woman to bed.

Cali didn’t have to die for this. No one did.

Cali. My love. The only thing on this earth that mattered, taken from me over nonsense.

“So you see,” he said, shrugging as if this was all a trivial misunderstanding, “if anything, Calliope is the reason Kat is dead. Perhaps you’re better off without her.”

I barely heard the end of his sentence, I charged at him so quickly. The king dodged away from my sword, snatching one of his own weapons from the wall. He blocked my next attack, but his sword wasn’t built like mine—his shocked anger as the blade broke in half would’ve been satisfying, if I could ever hope to be satisfied. I couldn’t. Not when Cali was dead.

I attacked again, cutting through the bed’s canopy as he dodged away.

“We understand how you feel,” he said, holding up his hands as if in surrender. “Losing Vi was like suffering a deep cut. But we promise you, it heals, given time—”

“How dare you utter that vile woman’s name in reference to Cali,” I growled, storming forward.

The king stepped back to open the gap between us again. “We like you, boy, but if you try anything rash, we’ll make you regret it.”

“Vi never loved you,” I bit out, and he winced at my words. “She hated you. While you basked in your delusions, that she was a mother to me and a lover to you, she was plotting against you. But you know that already, don’t you, because you killed her. She discovered your true secret, and you killed her for it.”

The king’s eyes were wide, a mix of realization and fear. “Put the sword down, Beric.”

I paused, weighing my options. I could kill him, with or without my sword. With would be a bit unsportsmanlike, as he was weaponless, but what did that matter anymore? Rules, order, respect for an ancient, murderous king … what did any of it mean with Cali gone from me forever?

Still, I had a fierce thirst for the king’s death that only beating it out of him would quench.

So, I laid my sword on the ruined bed.

“I know your secret, too, you know.” I stepped closer, undeterred, unbothered, no self-preservation left in me. “All I have to do to free the country from your tyranny is kill you.”

“At the cost of your life?”

I let out a bitter laugh. “As long as I take you with me.”