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VEYKA

The human stopped well before he reached the foot of the dais. He sank into a bow so low his forehead touched the floor. He thought he understood his place here, his powerlessness. He thought he could survive the ruthlessness of our kind if only he prostrated himself before us.

How very wrong he was.

“How did you get here?” My voice sounded foreign, like it came from someone else entirely.

The man lifted his head a few inches off the floor, his eyes rising to me. “I have come to beg sanctuary, Your Majesty. The human realm—”

“How did you get here?” I asked again. I was not shaking any longer.

He slowly lifted his hands and chest from the floor, coming back to rest on his heels.

“I passed through the rift—”

“Which one?” I demanded. Arran tried to grab my hand. I shoved it away, descending the stairs in a flourish of pomegranate silk.

Fear flashed in the man’s eyes.

He had no idea what fear was. Or pain. But he would once I was done with him.

“The… the mountain…” he stuttered.

“You are in violation of the treaty between our realms. By rights, I should have your head,” I said.

“B… but… I come in peace,” he said.

“Peace? What do humans know of peace? You take and you kill and you maim.” I was towering over him now. I felt Arran behind me, heard his footsteps on the stairs of the dais.

“I have done nothing,” the man begged.

“Nothing?”

Rage took over.

For everything that had been taken from me, every pain I had endured for the last year and beyond. Finally, one of the treacherous humans was within my grasp. Finally, I was in control. I would make him pay.

I drew a dagger from my waist. Arthur had given them to me; it seemed fitting.

“Veyka.” Arran caught my wrist, holding it back. I hadn’t even managed to get it up to my shoulder.

“Let me go,” I cried, wrenching my arm away, twisting my entire body.

“This human comes in peace,” Arran said, circling me, trying to put his body between my blades and the quivering human.

Our argument on the dais had been private, this one would play out before the entire court.

“They have done nothing but wreak death upon this land, upon me,” I snarled, drawing the other dagger. There were so many ways to kill, to torture, with two blades.

I’d start at his ears. Cut free the two most obviously human characteristics. Then his nose. He’d be screaming by then, but his blood would blend into the deep color of my skirts. He was sobbing already. Begging. So many words.

As if words could compensate for what had been stolen from me.

“Move, Arran,” I said, laying out a plan of attack in my head. I could see the graceful spins and arcs it would take to get past Arran long enough to sink my blades into that tender human flesh. “Move out of my way, or I will make you bleed as well.”

“I am not afraid of your blades, Veyka.”

I flashed that wicked smile he’d teased me about in the training courtyard. “You may not be. But he is.”