Page 33

I have to get up at last, the stone floor chilling me to the bone.

Survival wins, the narrow bunk, while unsavory of odor and whatever the previous occupant left behind, at least means a straw mattress between me and the cold.

I don’t know how long I huddle, mind spinning slowly through the information I’ve been given, but I finally sleep, without my consent.

Since I’ve learned to doze in the saddle, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that my body takes over and gives me the rest I so desperately need. But it feels like just another betrayal. If I’m going to die, let me die. But if I’m going to live, escape, fight back.

Let me fight back.

Something rustles, and the torch goes out.

I’m on my feet, closing with the bars, doubt and self-pity banished as I widen my nostrils and inhale.

The window above me shows night again, so I’ve slept through a whole day.

Or it’s almost morning. I’m choosing to believe that.

And the truth my senses are whispering to me.

“Aunt,” I say.

She’s there the next instant, a shadowy form, barely visible in the gloom. I don’t need to see her. I know it’s her. Strong fingers grip the bars, and something rattles, protests with a metallic squeal that has her cursing.

The door creaks open a moment later, and she slips inside, arms out.

“Aunt,” I say, choking. “Vivenne.”

It’s almost too much. I’m about to weep because she’s alive and well and safe, somehow. I hadn’t allowed myself to wonder about her.

But the moment I let myself squeeze her hard enough that my ribs scream back, I inhale.

“Amber,” I hiss in her ear. “Traitor.”

She lets me go, the glint of her eyes just visible in the gloom. How she managed it, I have no idea, and she seems whole, healthy, unhurt. She can tell me her story of escape later. Right now, we have work to do and a betrayer to kill.

Before we ride for Heald and trigger my mother’s plans and burn this fucking shithole to the dirt it rose from.

She doesn’t speak, lips a line, those glittering eyes on me. Why aren’t we leaving? What is she waiting for?

“Aunt?” Something is wrong, more than I knew before, and I will weep, now if she doesn’t speak.

“It would have been easier, Remi,” she says, her words cutting through the dark, cutting through me, a blade through silk, “if you’d just drowned in the bathing pool.”

No.

Please. No .

I sob in the same instant I strike. It’s my only choice.

She shouldn’t have given me the warning.

Because, of course, it was her. No wonder those hands that choked me felt familiar.

She knows she’s risked too much, and I may never know why she decided to speak. But there’s no more talking, not when I lash out and she counters my move with a smooth and effortless one of her own as I pivot sideways out of her reach and drop to the floor.

To sweep her legs out from under her.

As she did to me in the pool, where she tried to drown me .

It’s small in here, tight, but all the more brutal a battleground for the narrow confines of the cell. If she brought a weapon, she doesn’t use it, though she is a weapon, as am I.

There’s no time to think, to assess, strategize, plan, only to act and I do, over and over, the blows flowing from one blurred motion to the next, her shoulder hitting the wall as she grunts from the impact, my hip rebounding from the bunk as she tosses me down.

Over and over we hit each other, too good to miss, but too good to fall to blows.

She taught me everything I know. Everything. I’m unbound, the raw need to inflict the hurt she’s caused on her at war with the memory of the aunt I love, trust, adore, admire.

Loved. Trusted. Adored. Admired. No longer.

Never again.

She’s slower than I am, barely, her age a factor. But she’s more experienced and, despite my training, she’s better. I know it, have sparred with her many times in the past, and realize that she’s held back all this time. For this moment? For the chance to kill me?

Aunt—no, Vivenne—has failed before and, by fire and ash, she will again. Except I’m hurt and she’s fresh, I’m half frozen and she’s limber, her movements swift, practiced, honed by countless years of battle.

She ends it with a blow I don’t see coming, and I’m crashing to the ground, her body weight upon me, fingertips pressed to the hollow of my throat. One thrust and I’m dead.

A thrust she doesn’t take. Hesitation defeats her, her eyes locked on mine, not with malice, but with a profound, heartbreaking sadness I choke on as much as the pressure she leans into but doesn’t complete.

It’s enough. For the second time, Vivenne fails her task to kill me. Only this time, I’m ready when she falters.

Panting, furious, and needing nothing more than to take her with me to face my mother in the next life, I jerk forward, taking the hit she hasn’t completed, and crack her nose with my forehead.

Her fingers slide as I do, off the mark, bruising me but not crushing my throat as intended. She’s half-blind from pain, and I’m on top of her, pinning her face down with my limbs trapping hers before I grasp her tightly wound braid and slam her face into the stone.

Once. Twice. Three times, before she goes completely limp.

I lay there and weep into her hair, sobbing my agony, my loss.

Mother. Now Vivenne.

Atlas.

Heald.

I wish I was dead.

“Why?” It’s a guttural grunt more than a word and I speak it less for an answer and more just to get it out of me.

“Remi.” She’s awake, but doesn’t fight when I stiffen, ready to shatter her skull on the stone if I must. “Daughter of my heart… I love you. But I couldn’t let you.” She coughs softly. “Ruin everything.”

Blind rage wants to twist her head on her neck and end it. “Mother,” I whisper. “You betrayed her.” Not who I thought she was at all. “Is Amber dead?”

“Yes,” she says, voice dull and tired. “When they took you captive and let me know, she knew. They let me kill her. Quickly, mercifully. I swear it. I meant the same for you.”

“How thoughtful.” I slap the back of her head. As I remember what she said. How she met Mother on the road, had a task of her own to perform.

She was here, in the Citadel. The assassin who failed to kill me.

I really need to kill her, now. This talk will turn on me in more ways than one, and she can’t be trusted not to gather her strength to attack me again. I might not be so lucky next time. But this is Aunt, my blood.

What the fuck .

“You should never have been born,” she whispers, her voice barely audible.

I misjudged her ability to rally. She’s fading, there’s no faking it.

She’s fighting off unconsciousness, yes, but losing.

I bend closer, ready to end her if need be, tormenting myself with her confession.

“Your mother, Remalla, your mother.” She huffs a breath like she’s struggling for air.

I ease up my knee on her spine, what little good it does her.

“No one is meant to wield that kind of power. Especially not your mother.”

“It’s just a throne,” I snarl at her.

She coughs a string of short bursts, and I realize too late that she’s laughing. “You have no idea, child,” she says, “the power you carry inside you. That all drakonkin do, but you most of all. The power the Overking stole to bend this land to his will.”

I blink into the gloom. “Magic,” I say. “You’re talking about fairy tales and legends.”

Vivenne sighs, sagging further. She mutters something I don’t catch, and I slap the back of her head the second time to rouse her.

She splutters, shudders, groans. It’s only then that I see the pool of darkness shining beneath her as it spreads outward, faint light of what has to be the first blush of dawn reflecting from it.

She’s bleeding badly, and I didn’t notice. There will be no fight from her any longer.

“You’re working with Hallick,” I say. This is tied to whatever Zenthris stole. I’m putting puzzle pieces together that should never have connected in a wild and coincidental mass that can only be driven by something bigger.

Like fate. Like magic.

“He promised me Heald would be safe,” she says.

“Your mother’s grasping, her ambition, was well and good when she was distracted by her skirmishes and the battles she picked with our neighbors.

But when you were born, Remalla, I knew whose daughter you were.

And what your mother planned. A drakonkin on the Overqueen throne would free the magic of the dragons.

And reverse all that we paid for in blood.

” She goes very quiet and still, and I have to feel for a pulse as she speaks again.

“The blood of Heald. The fate of our people is in your hands.” She moans.

“I should have killed you when you were a babe. I am as weak as Jhanette always claimed me to be. But I thought I could mold you, control you. Prevent what I have clearly failed to prevent. And for that, I am sorry.”

“What was stolen, Vivenne?” I prod her. “Don’t you dare die until you tell me everything.”

“A key,” she says, “to a secret that will do what you on the throne would accomplish. A way into the magic of the dragons that should never have been allowed to remain.” Her fingers scrabble on the ground, startling me, but I think it’s a spasm because they fall still again.

“Your precious Overprince knows more than you think,” she says.

“Everyone lies to you, Remi. Especially the ones you love. Remember that, if you keep with you nothing else of me.”

I don’t know what to say. I believe her, though. She has no reason to lie despite her fresh warning. As I’m debating, I feel her stiffen just a little, twitch.

She exhales a long, quiet breath and falls still.

I’ve been around death my entire existence. I know when someone is faking their passing to protect themselves. And I also know when a soul has left the body and moved on to whatever is next.

She’s gone, and I weep over her despite her. Despite her betrayal.

“I hope Mother finds you,” I say as I kiss her cheek and rise, leaving her facedown on the stone, avoiding her blood pool as I back away toward the door.

I’m reminded it’s still open. Freedom waits through the gap she left when she unlocked it to get to me.

To try for the second time to kill me. I wipe at my face with both hands, trying to ground myself.

There’s so much to think through, so much grief to process.

There will be time for that, it seems, if I’m careful.

But it will all have to wait until I escape.

I’m easing through to the hallway when I hear someone ahead. They’re sneaking, or trying to. A faint thud and a soft swear identify my new visitor, as much as the faint light on his golden hair.

He’s come to the wrong dungeon and betrayed his last princess.

The predator takes over, and I pounce.