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CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

D AMIEN WAS EXPECTING MY VISIT ; he pulled me into his dream the moment the elixir put me to sleep. I appeared sitting in a chair in the grandest inn in Volcar. It had been one of Damien’s favorite haunts when he was a young prince. I didn’t want to think about any of the activities he had gotten up to in this very room.

“Why are we here?” I seethed, looking at the falling snow outside of the wide wall of windows.

Damien lifted his chin so his breath fogged the chilled glass. “A good leader always watches over his men on the eve of battle.”

I crossed my legs and leaned back in the chair. “You’re not really here.”

Damien turned to the table behind him and poured himself a cup of wine. He poured a second goblet, filling it and pushing it to my side of the table. I didn’t touch it.

He itched the scar above his magic eye. “I’m here in spirit.”

“But not in person.” I tucked my hands behind my head. “Meaning by your measure, you are not a good leader.”

Damien shot me an annoyed look. “You have come to make your plea?”

“You wouldn’t grant my plea even if it was to your benefit.” I leaned forward on my knees as he sipped from his goblet. “Why attack Volcar and leave your city unguarded?”

Damien huffed a laugh. “My city is very well guarded, I assure you.” He tucked a hand behind his back, looking up at the smoking mountain. “But Volcar is crawling with vermin.”

“Even you can see that attacking Volcar is not the strategic play.”

Damien raised the brow over his black eye. “Isn’t it?” He turned to me. “I have a full armada and ten thousand soldiers ready to invade every home, nook, and cranny. They will find every Halfling within a league of Volcar.” He sipped his wine. “And they’re paid too handsomely to leave any for you to turn against me.”

“Turn against you?” I scoffed. “I can spot one of your ploys, Damien. You can’t bait us into battling you in Volcar so you can observe what gifts my Halflings have been given.”

His lip twitched, but the rest of his face remained entirely resolved. “You won’t leave an entire city to burn in smoke and ash. You aren’t ruthless enough to make that call.” Damien’s tone was a mix of disappointed judgment.

I gritted my teeth. “Don’t tempt me, Damien. We both know I have the strength to fight you in Volcar tomorrow and Koratha the next.”

“Perhaps,” he conceded. “But will Gerarda make it there? That worthless Shield? Would they survive? What if one of your comrades is struck down mid-battle?” Damien licked his lips. His last question wasn’t just coy banter, but a threat. He knew what we had found along Nikolai’s wrist.

He smirked into his wineglass and sat down.

“They will not fall.” I lifted my chin. I wouldn’t let them.

Damien’s grin turned wicked. “And what about Gwyn? What if I order one of my beasts to cut her through the belly for all of you to watch?”

“She will fight alongside me until I take your last breath.”

Damien giggled. “Is that what you’ve been fighting for? My head on a spike?” He paced across the room to fill his cup with more wine. “Not very original, Keera.”

His eyes lingered on my arm as he sipped, and I knew that he could see the name written there because I was allowing it. He could finally see some part of the truth.

But not all of it.

“Is that why you switched sides?” He jutted his chin at my forearm. “The guilt of what you did finally broke you? One taste of my brother’s half-breed lips, and you swap allegiances to fight against your king?”

I blinked in disbelief. Damien was not so self-assured to not see the truth. But as I studied him, it was obvious that Brenna’s name was the only one he could see. Feron’s ring continued to mask the rest.

I huffed a laugh. “You think that is when I switched sides?” Now it was me pacing around the room, carving a large circle around him so Damien had no choice but to be pinned to the chair. “I was never a loyal servant. Not to your father and certainly not to you.”

His jade eye glinted with curiosity. He licked his lips as he looked at me in a new light. “You mean to tell me that you killed your roommate, your dearest friend, your lover , to falsify your loyalties?” Damien broke into a sarcastic grin. “I’ve never thought so well of you, Keera. Masterfully devious.”

I returned his grin. “It was. But I can’t take credit—it wasn’t my idea.”

Damien’s mouth fell to a straight line as he realized this was not a jest.

“Brenna was the one who figured it out,” I continued. “The night before the Trial.” A twinge of satisfaction pulled across my chest as Damien scowled. “She knew that you thought we were too strong as a pair, that you would convince your father of it. She knew you well enough to devise just how vile you would be.”

Damien waved his goblet across his mouth but didn’t drink. “And yet she is the one who is dead.”

I stopped pacing. “Because she decided to be.”

His breath caught.

“You think I made that decision easily? That I chose myself in that moment instead of her?” I snorted. “She had made the decision before either of us had stepped into that room. She had swallowed a poison and stained her lips just enough for me to see.” I lifted my chin. “She was dead before you ever tied her to that chair.”

“That can’t be true,” Damien sputtered.

“But it is. I made the only move I could—I pierced that dagger through her chest before you could discover the truth. So that I could live to carry out our promise.”

“Your promise?”

“To end the Crown.”

Damien scoffed but it was airy and feeble. “A child’s dream.”

“Yes, a child’s promise turned into a vow the night you gave me that dagger.” I lifted my chin. “The night you gave me my scars.”

Damien’s black eye flashed with amber at the memory of cutting my back. I let him linger on the joy of it before I revealed the last part of that story.

“But I made a promise to myself that night too.” I grabbed the mage pen from my pocket, magically conjuring it into the dream. “I took the blade you cut me with and carved Brenna’s name into my arm so I would never forget the vow I made. So I would never stop fighting for our freedom.” I cut the smooth skin of my arm with the pen just as I had all those year ago, my blood dripping onto the floor in a thick pool that Damien couldn’t look away from.

“A fight that spanned thirty years before the battles began?” Damien snorted, finally meeting my gaze. “How much preparation did you need?”

“One Halfling cannot topple what your father built on her own. I needed to learn that lesson. But the resistance never faltered.” I slipped the ring from my finger and reveled in Damien’s gasp. “I never stopped carving names, you see. Every time I was forced to slaughter a family or kill an innocent at the Crown’s behest, I marked their name into my flesh. Reminder after reminder, year after year, of the lives you would answer for when that reckoning came.”

Damien’s eyes widened as he saw me—truly—for the first time. I wore only a simple leather vest with an open back that showed every scar along my torso. The ones he had carved and the ones I had.

I allowed him to see me completely, the decades of treachery carved into my skin.

Finally.

“You traitorous snake,” Damien spat.

I smacked his goblet from his hand. “Attack as many cities as you wish. But I’ve been preparing for this fight for a long time. I will not lose.”

Damien tried to stand but I shoved him back into his chair. It creaked as I leaned over him, lurking like death over a sickbed ready to claim him. I toyed with the dagger at my belt, a quick escape from this nightmare, but there was one question I couldn’t keep myself from asking.

“How does it feel to know that you were bested so long ago?”

“You have not beat me yet.” Damien’s breath fell hot on my neck as he scowled.

I shook my head. “Not me. Brenna.”

“I would hardly call her death a victory,” Damien grumbled.

“And that is precisely why she beat you.” I placed my hand on the back of his chair. “Because she made a play that you never would. That you’re incapable of. She was willing to die to make sure her successor had a chance of winning.”

“A true master does not prepare for a successor.”

“A master doesn’t, but a leader does.”

Damien’s lip recoiled. “Yet Elverath is my kingdom, not Brenna’s. This land is mine.”

I shook my head. “Land does not belong to the person who claims it, but the one who is willing to die for it.” I shoved a knife into his chest, enjoying the way the air wheezed out of the cavity even though it caused him no pain. “And you shall die for nothing.”