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T eryn didn’t know what to feel. His first reaction upon hearing Mareleau agree not to marry him had been relief. It hadn’t been the biggest surprise, considering her previous attempts to court other suitors. But when she’d spoken of her love for Larylis, he’d been…shocked. Ashamed. Embarrassed.

He realized now that she hadn’t spurned their engagement all this time because his kingdom was poor, nor because of his father’s scandal. She’d done it because she was in love with someone else, and Teryn had stood directly between them. For the first time, he saw himself the way she must have seen him all along. An unwelcome interloper.

Did his brother see him the same way? The thought made his chest feel tight.

“You aren’t serious, Mareleau.” Queen Helena’s voice teetered between disbelief and hysteria. Teryn hadn’t noticed her enter behind his brother, but now she swiftly closed the study doors, eyes darting quickly around the room as if to assess who’d heard Mareleau’s scathing admission.

“She isn’t.” Verdian’s voice was almost a growl. His face was so flushed it was almost purple. “This is just another one of her games. Another childish attempt to flee an engagement.”

“I think we’ve heard enough,” Bethaeny said, taking Teryn’s arm to pull him away. His feet were rooted to the spot.

“It’s not a game,” Mareleau said. Her words were for her father, but her eyes remained pinned on Larylis. She’d gone pale since his arrival, and her composure seemed shaken. “I’m pregnant with Larylis’ child. It’s a truth we no longer have to hide.”

“No.” Larylis’ voice broke on the word. “We never…” He turned toward Teryn. “We didn’t…”

Teryn studied him, searching for layers of truth behind his pleading eyes, between the words he wouldn’t say.

Larylis had once admitted to having kissed Mareleau, but according to him, it hadn’t meant anything. The disdain Larylis had demonstrated for the princess over the last three years had only served as evidence to support the claim.

But Teryn could still recall the pained look on Larylis’ face during the poetry competition. During every conversation where Mareleau had come up. It was the same expression Larylis wore now.

The look of a man whose love was equal only to his agony. Both of which he tried to hide.

How had Teryn not recognized this before?

Was it because he’d never been in love?

If so…why did he recognize it now?

His mind went to Cora, but he couldn’t think of her without recalling how he’d failed her. Betrayed her. He’d chosen duty over friendship. Lies over truth. He’d tried to fix his mistake but only when it was too late.

He would never be too late again.

Not for anyone.

Larylis took a deep breath and gathered his composure. “It isn’t what you think, Teryn. I promise you, we never?—”

“You don’t get to speak, bastard,” Verdian roared.

Mareleau rounded on her father. “Don’t you dare talk to him like that!”

“You shouldn’t talk at all.”

“No, she should talk,” Helena said, forcing calm into her voice. “Let her take it back. She knows better than this. Such a false statement would ruin her.”

Mareleau lifted her chin with defiance. “I won’t take it back.”

Verdian opened his mouth, but Helena rushed to him and put a hand on his arm. “Let us not say a word more. Our daughter needs some time to contemplate?—”

“There’s nothing to contemplate. I am with child. Larylis is the father.”

“Nonsense,” Helena barked, her composure shattering into fury. “Your moon cycle?—”

“My moon cycle is late. Ask my maids about my laundry. They will confirm it. Larylis and I conceived the night of the Heart’s Hunt.”

Larylis stepped forward. “Mareleau, stop. Please.”

Helena shook her head, setting loose a graying brown curl from her towering updo. “That’s not possible. I made sure to keep the two of you separate.”

Mareleau shrugged. “You think I don’t know how to navigate the servants’ passages?”

Verdian’s lips peeled back from his teeth. “You’ve ruined yourself!”

Mareleau didn’t respond to her father’s statement. “If you’d like proof of further indiscretions, just ask Lurel. She left me and Larylis alone in the drawing room adjacent to the library after the war meeting. I threatened her to keep it a secret.”

“Seven gods, Mareleau,” Larylis said as he ran a hand over his face. His shoulders drooped with fatigue. Or was it remorse?

Teryn realized he still hadn’t moved. Still hadn’t spoken. His blood stirred with a sensation he’d grown accustomed to over the past weeks. A desperation to not be idle. To fill every possible silence with a flutter of activity. To work, to strive, to fix.

This…he could fix this too. Before it was too late.

Teryn cleared his throat. It took a few attempts to find his voice. “Do you love her, Larylis?”

His brother opened and closed his mouth, eyes darting between Mareleau and Teryn. “We didn’t…”

He repeated his question, tone firm. “Do you love her? The truth.”

Larylis’ throat bobbed. “Yes.”

Teryn nodded. “Then you should marry her.”

“You don’t get to make that choice,” Verdian said. “She’s my daughter and she will not marry that?—”

Teryn cut him off before he could say the word bastard again. “Why? My brother has been named an Alante. He’s a prince. You were willing to see him wed the Princess of Khero. Why should he not marry the Princess of Selay?”

“The Princess of Khero isn’t my daughter. Aveline’s kingdom has no other contenders for the throne. Prince Larylis will suit fine for our purposes there. Here…” Verdian shook his head. “He does not have the respect required to allow my daughter to keep my throne after my death. Unlike you, he can offer her nothing else. He cannot merge our two kingdoms, nor can he make her a queen.”

Teryn’s stomach sank. As much as he hated to admit it, Verdian was right. Mareleau was Verdian’s heir. His only child. He wanted his daughter made queen at any cost. Kept safe at any cost. And Larylis…well, he may have been given the Alante name, but he was still only a prince.

“It humbles me greatly to say this,” Verdian uttered through his teeth, “but you're her only hope now. Should you find it in your heart to take my daughter as your bride and bury this scandal?—”

“How dare you suggest such a thing.” Mareleau’s voice quaked as tears gathered in her eyes. “I love Larylis. I'm pregnant with his child.”

Verdian’s voice took on an empty quality. “If Teryn agrees to marry you, no one need know of your shame. Otherwise, you are ruined. You will neither be queen nor my heir.”

“If I’m so ruined, why not just let me marry the man I love? Disinherit me. Make one of my uncles your heir. Do whatever you must, just?—”

“I will not reward you for what you’ve done!” Verdian’s voice boomed from wall to wall.

Another silence fell, and in its wake Teryn felt that familiar itch return. To move. To act. To fix. He opened and closed his fists as he worked up the courage to do what must be done.

Finally, with a trembling sigh, he said, “I abdicate my claim to the throne.”

Larylis Alante never imagined how awful it would feel to have his deepest desires come true. When he’d dreamed of earning the Alante name, he’d always imagined it would come about through perseverance, through gaining the respect of Queen Bethaeny, through his own merit. Not seconds before his father’s death—a fate that was delivered by his own words.

When he’d dreamed of being with Mareleau, he’d never imagined it would come through deception and lies. Never imagined the woman he loved would twist their forbidden ardor into a tale of some treacherous liaison. Never imagined he’d be offered a crown in exchange for their perceived indiscretions.

He’d never— ever —dreamed of being king.

The thought of being given a throne he didn’t deserve made his shoulders feel as if they bore leaden weights. There was only one reply he could give to Teryn’s outrageous statement.

“No.”

The word was shared with everyone else in the room, save Teryn and Mareleau. Verdian, Helena, and Bethaeny all looked at Teryn as if he’d gone mad. Teryn, meanwhile, stood taller, prouder, as if he’d already shrugged off the burden of their father’s crown. Was that why Larylis suddenly felt so heavy?

“I won’t take it,” Larylis said, as if his refusal could shift the weight back where it belonged. He caught Mareleau’s injured expression from the corner of his eye, but he couldn't bear to look at her. Not because he was angry. He certainly was angry, but he was more concerned that—should he meet her eyes, should he remember the desire in them when they’d shared their last kiss, should he recall the sweetness of her lips—he might be tempted to play along with her lie.

“It seems the boy has some modicum of sense after all,” Verdian muttered.

“What I said stands.” Teryn’s voice was stern. “I abdicate, and that is final. I will gather Menah’s council to make it official, but I have made my choice.” In that moment, he reminded Larylis so much of their father, he thought his heart might shatter in two. Teryn held Verdian’s stare with the same conviction Arlous had demonstrated when he’d first referred to Larylis as an Alante.

It was too much.

His throat closed up, seared by blood, by battle, by the words that had condemned their father to die.

We refuse to surrender .

“This will not stand,” Verdian said. “You are King of Menah?—”

“I’ve yet to be crowned,” Teryn said. “Larylis will be in my stead.”

“No.” Larylis ground the word through his teeth.

Mareleau took a step toward him, her expression begging him to be silent.

“No,” he said to her as well.

Teryn rounded on him. “I’m trying to fix this.”

“There’s nothing to fix.” His lungs felt too tight. He could almost smell the blood on the battlefield, could almost hear the clang of steel. Red filled his vision. His next words came out in a rush. “I will not be rewarded for killing him.”

He felt empty in the wake of his confession. It was the first time he’d spoken the truth out loud. That he’d killed King Arlous.

Teryn’s expression flashed with pain, but it quickly hardened. When he spoke, his voice was cold. “You don’t get to carry that burden on your own, brother. Father traded his life for mine.”

“But I’m the one who refused to surrender.” He hated the way his voice trembled. Hated how small he felt in that room, despite being one of the tallest there.

Teryn’s tone softened the merest fraction. “You did what I wouldn’t have had the strength to do. You made the choice only a king would make. That’s why Father put you in charge of that decision. That is why you will take my place.”

Larylis shook his head. “You don’t understand what you’re giving up. What you think Mareleau and I have done?—”

“It doesn’t matter. Take the crown. I will not be swayed otherwise. If you won’t take it as your right, then take it as your punishment.”

His punishment.

There was something about that concept that silenced any further argument. There was a rightness about it. A cruel justice.

Perhaps it was what he deserved. To bear the crown of the man he killed. To win the hand of his beloved not through love but lies.

It would hurt so much more to accept than to refuse. It would hurt more to be king than to watch Teryn make all the impossible decisions from now on. It would hurt more to start a marriage based on deception than simply loving Mareleau from afar.

It was that pain, that aching punishment that drove him to finally say, “I accept.”