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Around the garden, Corayne and her allies scrambled, drawing together.

Erida cared little for them, her focus on Taristan—and his eyes. She willed his eyes to be like her own. Gone the fathomless black, replaced by swirling lines of red and gold.

Andry Trelland watched her from a distance, his jaw falling open.

“What have you done to yourself, Erida?” Andry murmured.

“What I must,” she answered, before grabbing for Taristan with both hands.

It was the truth. This was the cost of freedom. From commanders, councilors, from usurpers and jailer husbands. From every man who would betray her, trick her, trap her, until she was just another old woman leaning on a cane, whispering in corners, all her life behind her, and only regret ahead.

Taristan caught her by the wrist, holding her up as much as he held her back.

“Look what your god did to her,” Corayne called out across the roses. “Look at what he demands.”

Erida felt the demon scream up inside her, so fierce her body lurched. She snarled against it, lunging for Corayne, only for Taristan to reel her in.

“It is done,” he said again, echoing the words of his dead wizard.

To her horror, Erida watched as Taristan cast the sword aside, letting it drop at their feet. The Spindle pulsed again, calling out to the sword.Calling out to me.

His palm was cold against her cheek, sickly so. No longer a balm but a block of ice, too painful to stand. Erida tried to turn out of his grip, only to meet his abyss-black eyes. Her own eyes seared, her tears like acid.

“I will not let you burn, Erida,” Taristan growled, forcing her to hold his gaze.

Her body bucked in his grasp, a puppet jumping on someone else’s string. “You promised me,” she rasped. “You promised me the realm entire.”

“You are realm enough for me,” he answered.

Part of her wanted to relent. To fall into Taristan’s arms, to let go.

But the map of the world swam before her eyes, the edges of it carved into her. She knew Galland’s borders like the lines of her own face, like the feel of the throne, like the weight of the crown. They were born into her, borntoher. Just like her fate.

His hands still pressed against fevered skin, at her cheeks and her wrist.

“Balance,” he hissed to her, his own eyes a battlefield for control. “Balance.”

Erida swam in her own head, through hot and cold, light and dark. Her voice sounded weak, distant, her thoughts struggling to form. As before, something wove around Taristan’s grip on her, working its way along their bodies. This time, it did not pull them closer. But it wormed between, pushing them apart.

Her breath rattled, the voices in her head blurring and blending.

Until only one remained. And the world went shockingly clear.

This is the cost.

Something changed in her voice, a lacing of power she did not possess before.

“There is no balance between mortal and god,” she said coldly. “If you will not be a king of ashes, then I will be its queen.”

She did not know where the strength came from, but her wrist twisted, breaking his grasp as she lunged to the ground. Her wounded hand closed around the hilt of the Spindleblade, the leather still warm, the jewels flashing red and purple. Pain lanced up her arm, but she held on as tightly as she could, the ground moving beneath her, the Spindle like a beacon.

And then the blade moved too, the edge of it still wet with Corayne’s blood.

The blood of Old Cor.

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