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I watched him. He held his sword loosely, his stance easy. My only chance was to use his confidence against him. “Your parents wanted my grandmother and parents dead so you could rule. And you would have happily allowed such a thing?”

“They had ignored the threat Regner presented for decades,” he hissed, swinging his sword. His arms were thick slabs of muscle, and his taller height would give him more reach. If it came down to pure strength, I was dead.

I was fast, but I was betting he was too. He had decades of training on me. I knew how to fight dirty, but he likely did too.

And if I let myself continue this line of thinking, he would take my head before I got close to killing him.

He was cool. Calm. He watched me with relaxed certainty. I had to shake him up. Unnerve him.

“So, Regner was the threat, and your parents decided to allow him to invade. That sounds like some clever thinking right there.”

He lunged at me, swinging the sword. I whirled away, but the lunge had been a chance for him to study my footwork. And he’d watched closely.

Zathrian sneered at me. “Do you know what happened when my parents realized I wouldn’t be king? That your mother could become pregnant after all? My father almost killed me.”

My breath caught. Did this mean I had another, older sibling?

Zathrian leaped at me, swinging his sword again and again. Across the arena, I heard Lorian let out a low grunt. But I couldn’t afford to glance his way.

“Don’t worry, cousin, this fight for the throne remains between us. That baby died before taking its first breath.”

Something in my chest wrenched, but I shoved the emotion down to address later.

“How could your father have possibly thought it was your fault?” The question was partly to unnerve him, but another part of me simply didn’t understand it.

“He wasn’t like your father. Your father would have loved you if you were completely powerless. Mine wanted to rule our kingdom through me.”

“I’m sorry.”

I…was. It must have been awful, growing up like that. It didn’t justify any of Zathrian’s choices, didn’t give him the right to ally with Regner and attempt to take my crown. But maybe, if not for his father, Zathrian would have been a better man.

His laugh was hollow, and he gave me an incredulous look. “You’re sorry? Just when I finally began to get the elders to listen to me, they learned you were alive.I’d spent my entire life honing my magic and planning for how I would save our people from Regner, and the moment they learned you existed, none of it mattered.”

He attacked again. His sword slammed into mine, the force of it making my arm ache. I couldn’t continue to meet his strikes with my own sword. But I needed a better tactic. He was too strong.

“Do you think I wanted this?” I snapped. “I wanted to give the crown to you the moment I learned it was mine. I never wanted to be queen. All I wanted was family. Even if the elders hadn’t chosen you, I would have supported you. I would have abdicated the moment our people were safe.”

His mouth dropped open, and for a moment, he looked truly stunned. I let out a hoarse, bitter laugh. “But you never came to me. Instead, you killed the man we sent, let Eadric work with Regner to kidnap me, and made sure he killed my friend. And then…then you killed Lorian. Even if I could forgive everything else, I could never forgive that.” Rage curdled in my gut as memories assaulted me. Zathrian, standing on that ship, holding up that fucking mirror. Lorian, shattered to pieces, along with my ability to reason.

Zathrian’s expression hardened. “Then let’s finish this, cousin.”

He struck fast and hard, his sword slashing in a wide arc. But I’d been expecting that. Galon had, after all, prepared me for such attacks over and over, until my response was rote. I leaned backward, the sword whistling above my head. And then I dived low, slashing out at his thigh.

He bellowed a curse. My blade gleamed red with his blood.

“You want to know what I think? I think you’re a coward. A weak-minded brat who could have had family but chose power instead. It didn’t have to end this way. But it will. And Demos and Telean and I will never think of you again.”

Zathrian snarled at me. He struck fast, bringing his sword down on my left. I had no choice but to meet it with my own blade.

But he was strong. So, so strong.

And I dropped my sword.

Fuck.

Zathrian’s eyes lit with triumph. “Do you know what I’m going to do to your brother? I’m going to make your death look peaceful compared to his.”

I laughed at him. The sound was difficult to force out with my lungs frozen, my heart galloping in my chest. “We both know Demos will kill you. All the guards in the world won’t stop my brother from taking your head.”