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“If you need to hit me, Ata, then hit me—take all your pain out on me. But I am not going to fight you,” Cin said, her voice almost a whisper.

I could hear the love and sadness she felt for me seeping through her anger and the sound made every ounce of rage detonate inside my veins.

I did not want her love.

I did not want her fucking pity.

I lunged, tackling her to the ground and pinning her under my knees as my fist slammed into her again and again.

“Fight back!” I screamed as my fist connected with her nose. She did not make a sound, did not try to free herself from my beating.

From the corner of my blurring vision, I saw Landers rush toward me, but Wren stopped him, pulling him back, keeping him away.

“I can take it,” she whispered as I landed another blow to her left cheek.

I didn’t know when I’d started crying, but as I sucked in a sob through clenched teeth I finally let the pain and anger that had been building inside me for months come pouring out as I pushed myself off of her.

“It’s your fault he’s fucking dead!” The words were a wail as I yelled them toward her on the floor.

I thought I would feel lighter, thought that saying it would somehow cleanse the venom in my blood. But my heart only pushed against its iron cage as I watched the words pierce her soul. Guilt flooded my body as I watched the sheer agony that filled her face. She pushed to her knees, spitting blood onto the white marble and looked up at me with crimson, tear-stained cheeks.

“You don’t think I know that?” Cin screamed, sobs rolling from her lungs between every word as she clutched her chest. “You don’t think I carry the weight of that every single day? That I still get to breathe and he doesn’t? That the memory of him dying in my arms because he tried to save me doesn’t haunt every second of my existence?” Her voice fell quiet—tired and defeated. “If I could go back and trade my life for his I would, in a second.But I can’t, Ata. And if that means that you have to blame me,hate meto survive, then so be it. I have already lost you both, but at least you will still be alive.”

I stood there, frozen, as Cin’s words sank into my flesh—seeped into the very marrow of my soul. The anger that had consumed me moments before dissipated, replaced by a hollowness that threatened to swallow me whole.

Tears flowed from my eyes as I watched Cin struggle to her feet, her body trembling with the effort. Landers rushed to her side and she threw a hand up to stop him as she pushed herspine straight. I couldn’t bring myself to look at her, look at the damage I had caused—the blood I had drawn.

“I love you, Ata, with my entire being, and I will always pour love into you for Ardan—I refuse to break that promise to him. But only you can choose to receive it.” She wiped a tear from her cheek, flinching as her fingers traced the skin I had split.

“If you no longer want to be part of this family, I will accept that. If you no longer want a place in this court, that is your choice. But it is a choice, Ataliia, and it’s time for you to make it.”

Shame crashed through my body as I watched her turn away from me with slow, pained movements and walk from the marble throne room.

The space fell silent as everyone’s eyes turned to me, and a heavy, lethal energy filled the room.

“Leave us.” The command was a snarl leaving Landers’s lips and my eyes widened as they flashed to Pri and Andrues, silently begging them not to leave me alone with him.

“Now,” Landers demanded, his eyes never leaving mine and burning with unmistakable rage.

My breathing became erratic as I watched the room empty, watched my friends leaving me like a lamb to the slaughter.

“Are you going to kill me too,Lord of Death?” I said, forcing my voice not to tremble as my eyes darted between him and Nox’s corpse.

“Ishouldkill you. I should rip you limb from limb and dump your body in Ammord to rot into the ground of the vile place that created you,” Landers said from across the space between us, his voice hauntingly calm.

I could feel magic saturating the hall, pulsating through the air that flowed from him as I watched him take a step forward.

“Then do it,” I hissed. “You would be doing both of us a favor.”

“No, Ataliia.” He took another step toward me.

I swallowed the lump forming in my throat. He was too calm for what I had just done.

“Why?” The question sounded more like a plea than anything as it flung itself from my mouth. I could feel tears begin to pool again in the corners of my sockets, burning into my eyes as I forced them not to fall.

“Becausedeathwould be a reward that you do not deserve.” He took a final step toward me, leaving only a small space between us. “So, I will leave your life intact. I will leave you to live in the hell you have created for yourself. Let you live with the knowledge that you just laid hands on the woman that traded her life to free yours. The woman that, despite every cruelty you have shown her, has never faltered in her love for you—has pushed her own pain to the side to hold space for yours.”

“I never asked her to do that,” I bit back.