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This was never even about her.

My father has always been the center of every upheaval in my life.

He sent her. He made her.

He designed her.

To be my first love.

To be my first weakness and the thing that would break me when I tried to escape him.

I feel the slow, sickening slide of realization crawl through my chest, too sharp and too fucking late.

This was never Aereth’s betrayal.

This was his.

35

NAIRA

Ishould let him die. Let the enemies take him.

Let them drag him back to his father in chains, let them carve his name into a fucking tombstone, let them be the ones to put an end to the monster I could never kill myself.

It would be easier.

Easier than watching her place her hand on his chest, easier than hearing the soft venom in her voice, easier than knowing that I was never his, never the only, never meant to fucking matter.

I should let him bleed for his mistakes.

But instead—I move.

No one gets to hurt him but me.

The High Council’s guards don’t see me at first.

I am still in the shadows, still unseen, still watching like some lurking beast in the dark.

They think they have won.

Think they have already taken him.

That is their first fucking mistake.

I step out from behind the trees, my dagger already moving.

The first blade slides into a throat, clean, quick, easy.

The body drops.

The second falls before he can even draw breath.

I do not fight with grace.

I do not fight with honor.

I fight to end them.