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Galon angled his head, clearly waiting for me to continue.

“Lorian implied he wasn’t responsible for the slaughter.”

He just shrugged one shoulder. “Because he wasn’t.”

I narrowed my eyes at his flippancy. “Why didn’t he tell me earlier?”

Galon leveled me with a hard stare. “You were certainly eager to believe the truth.”

“All I’ve heard my whole life is how the Bloodthirsty Prince destroyed Crawyth. Demos was there, Galon.”

Galon gave me an impatient yet amused look that was as good as a pat on the head. “Your brother was a child. Find a witness who can state without a shadow of a doubt that they saw the so-called Bloodthirsty Prince destroying the city. Because I swear to you, he didn’t do it.”

I thought of Demos as he’d been in my memory of that night. Furious and traumatized and so, so young. “What happened, then?”

“That is not for me to tell you. I love that boy like a son,” he said, and I almost smiled at the thought of Lorian as a boy. “And yet, I’m not blind to his faults. His temper is as bad as yours. Only, when he rages, people die. But of all the accusations you can level at Lorian—and I’m sure there are many—you can’t accuse him of indiscriminate murder. Ask yourself what reason Lorian would have had to attack Crawyth. And then ask yourself if, after everything you’ve seen from him, after everything you’ve learned, it seems like something he would do.”

“Then why didn’t he defend himself when I accused him that night?”

“Would you have listened? You’d just learned we were fae. You’re more open-minded than most humans or hybrids, but you’d just seen him grow taller, seen his ears change, and seen him wield that power. Can you honestly say you would have listened if he told you he didn’t kill your parents?”

“He lied to me about who he was.” And yet, I knew deep in my bones he hadn’t been lying when he’d told me he didn’t attack Crawyth.

“He had to. That doesn’t mean everything between you was a lie.” Galon shook his head. “You make me feel ancient. Why is it that the young like to take one piece of information and use it to change everything else their instincts tell them to be true?”

I couldn’t answer that. He shook his head at me. “I suggest you talk to him, Prisca.”

* * *

The hybrid’s screams were giving me a headache. I wished more than anything that someone would put him out of his misery just so I could soak in some silence.

Sabium’s guard leaned down, and I shifted my gaze to the courtiers gathered in the throne room, forced to watch the torture.

No, not just forced to watch.

Forced to cheer. Torejoice.

One woman had swooned and was currently being held up by several ashen-faced friends near the back of the crowd.

It was clear Sabium was giving up any pretense of being the levelheaded ruler he had pretended to be for so long. And yet, according to my spies, there weren’t yet any whispers questioning Sabium’s sanity.

None of the courtiers had fled, all of them confident they would not be targeted.

It was almost amusing. Those who believed they were safe because they stood with the tyrant were only fooling themselves. In the game of power, everyone was a pawn, and no one was exempt from sacrifice.

My ladies were shadows of themselves. Sabium continued to insist we all watch his little torture sessions, and he had refused to allow me to excuse them from the throne room. It was just another way for him to prove I had no true power here.

My hands fisted in my lap—the only indication of my fury. I was loyal to few. And any loyalty I did have would only go so far. Still, those women had been at my side for years. I owed them any scrap of protection I could provide.

If the circumstances were different, I would have enjoyed watching Sabium unravel.

The choices he’d made over his long life had ensured both the hybrids and the fae would not rest until he was dead. There was no way for him to back down. His only option was to continue his attempts to eradicate them and to steal their power to use it against them.

The loss of the amulet had shaken him to his core.

Even as he refused to admit it.

“He knows something,” Sabium hissed. “All of them are working against me.”