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Thane tilted his chin down. Seeing Synick after so much time brought up strange feelings. This was the god who mentored him and Hel with cruelty and malice, but he was also one of the things that had forged a strong bond between him and his cousin.

“She poisoned you with her lies. Females and their wiles, you can’t trust them. Especially a primordial goddess. She will take everything from you with the promise of pleasure.”

“Stop talking.”

“You understand my animosity with her, do you not? She took my life, War. Sent me to the underrealm. It is only fair?—”

“You killed her sister first. Don’t act like you’re innocent.”

Katana sat a few yards off, tucked under a tree, with her arms hooked around her knees. Hopefully she couldn’t hear Synick. Her face was paler than before, those lavender eyes almost hollow.

The others gathered on the broken stones, taking seats while they waited for Valeen to compose herself. It was as if they shared an unspoken knowing that she was the one to decide what would happen next.

“There is no, ‘innocent or not innocent’, there is only power and who has it,” Synick retorted.

“Well by that logic, currently we have the power.” Thane shook his head at the messed-up worldview his former mentor had. Whether he knew it or not, Hel had picked up on some of his worse traits.

“Just listen to me. Valeen is not going to win. You can’t win by choosing her side. Is she humping you both? Is that what’s got you so hooked?”

Thane pulled his sword from the sheath on his back and bashed Synick on the head with it. His body went limp with unconsciousness.

With crossed arms, Piper raised her brows at him. “Frustrated?”

“I couldn’t take the sound of his voice any longer.”

Leif tapped his boots and lowered his voice, “I’ve never seen her like that.”

“She’s just realized she lost her home, Leif, and all the people in it,” Piper said, softly. “There is no one left.”

“It was lost long ago,” Thane said. “She shouldn’t have gotten her hopes up.”

“I wouldn’t say that to her if I were you,’’ Leif drawled. “Might lose your balls.”

After the tension earlier, Leif was probably right. It was not a good time to antagonize her. In all the years Thane had known her, hehadseen her break down worse. After she discovered what she thought was Hel’s betrayal. He hadn’t known her when she lost Katana, but he imagined it took her down a dark road.

“Thane, can we talk?” Piper stood, crossing her arms.

He gestured for Leif to take over watching Synick and followed Piper away from the others. When they were out of earshot he turned to his second-in-command. “What’s going on?”

“You can’t look at her like she’s yours.” Piper rested her hand on her dagger handle, an old habit they all had.

“Katana?” He’d been watching her, wondering what he could do to make her feel better. He knew what trauma looked like in a person and she was riddled with it.

“Are you daft? Valeen, obviously. She’s not Layala anymore. I know you spent all your life as Thane wanting her and thinking she was supposed to be yours but that person with Hel is not her. Which only makes sense given in her mind, she’s thousands of years old.”

Although he didn’t feel the same way as Piper, he understood why she thought that Layala and Valeen weren’t one and the same. “I’m sure if you just talk to her, you’ll see it’s still her. You’ve been avoiding her since she got back from Ryvengaard.”

“You said yourself she was a different person,” Piper murmured. “It’s why you pushed her away.” She’d let him taste her wrath the day Layala and Hel left to Ryvengaard. He’d never seen her so upset. She’d sobbed as if she lost her, too. He supposed in a way, she did. She screamed at him for letting her leave without being able to say goodbye to her friend. She didn’t know if she’d ever see her again. “And don’t try to turn this conversation back on me. She chosethe Black Mage.”

“I’m acutely aware she chose him over me, Piper. No one is more aware of that than me.”

“Are you? Because right now, you’re staring at her like there is still a chance.”

“No, I’m not.” His tone turned sharper.

“It’s your fault she’s with him anyway. You told her to leave.”

Thane frowned, the crack in his chest he’d ignored for months began to split and throb. “I had to. She needed to know all of who she is. I was holding her back.”