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‘Maybe you won’t have to. Not until this is done. I get it now, Voski. I understand.’

‘But—’

‘Just love me, please.’

He frowned, but I pulled his head down and kissed him briefly, then turned to look at her.

It was the strangest feeling. My body slowly growing stronger with every step, while the sense of something deeply wrong also increased. Voski clinging to me, steadying me, lending his strength. And his mother, glaring, snarling, hurling her power. At least, she appeared to be.

She stood, staring intently, her hands twitching occasionally. I felt nothing, but Voski scoffed more than once.

Then I took a step and didn’t need him to steady me. We were only ten feet from her, and she’d begun backing away. I nudged Voski off and he protested, but I shook my head, standing straighter, and pushing him gently away until he gave up and stood at my back when I stopped just feet from her.

I felt his warmth behind me, and took just a moment to crystallize that feeling in my mind.

I stood without fear of what I faced. Yet, he remained. His strength, his intelligence, and most importantly, his love, there at my back.

I smiled. And his mother hesitated.

“Have they figured it out yet?” I asked her quietly.

Her eyes narrowed. “What?”

“That you can’t touch us with that power anymore. That none of them can?”

Lady Ashford drew herself up, raised her chin to stare at me down the length of her nose, her eyes mere slits. “Your power is great,” she said, looking between me and Voski. “But there are other weapons in my arsenal.”

Then she glanced down at my stomach and smiled before meeting eyes with me again.

The anger and outrage roared in Voski and burned through the bond so I wanted to tear her head off. I put a hand back to catch his, and keep him still as I leaned closer to her.

“Who hurt you?” I asked her quietly. “Who made you like this? What was done to you that you take pleasure in the pain of others?”

She rolled her eyes. “Dear gods. The youth these days.” Then she fixed a glittering gaze on me. “If you live long enough, you’ll understand, my dear.” Her body was stiff with either fear or pain. But her tone condescended to me. Just as the nobles always had.

I sighed. “I already understood. You haven’t deceived me. I know what you did. I know how you attained power—and at whose cost.”

“The only person who paid the price for my power was me,” she snarled.

“Poppycock,” I spat. I felt Voski stiffen at my back, but the anger in him was softened for a moment by amusement.

‘Keep going,’ he sent. ‘You’re getting under her skin.’

I matched her posture, raising my chin and looking down my nose at her, before scanning the rest of the clearing, and the dragons, before returning to her. “I wonder how many of these people’s lives would be different—better—today if you weren’t a part of it? I know of at least two. And another whose life would have been saved.”

“Oh?” she murmured.

“Voski—excuse me, Vane lost his father to your manipulations.”

She scoffed. “Vane’s father needed no push from me to betray his son. He enjoyed—”

“That’s not true.”

Voski tensed and I squeezed his hand as all of us turned to look at Cali. She trotted the last few steps to hesitantly stand a few feet away, keeping herself hunched, and her eyes low, only glancing up at us, never holding eye contact as she spoke. But her jaw was set. “Dominus, what she said is not true. Not entirely. I know. I was there. She used me. She forced me. To trap both of you. She was always after the Dominus mark. She wasn’t strong enough to take it from her husband. She needed you to do that. Because she knew she couldn’t get it from the former Dominus. I’m sorry for my part, but… she rewarded me. For the deception.”

Like a serpent striking, Lady Ashford threw hands up, hissing a word I didn’t understand—but I recoiled with a cry when Cali suddenly went up in flames.

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