I skipped breakfast with the King.
Sweat slides down my chin as I spin mid-air and snap my foot into the punching bag. It groans, exhaling dust. Ignoring it, I hamr my fists with renewed vengeance, until I can no longer feel the voices in my head. Until I can no longer see the blood. Until I can finally breathe without aching to ruin and break sothing.
Ilya. My fist slams into leather.
Oh, I rembered it. A life that didn’t belong to but felt like mine. It makes furious, that soone could take my body for a ride and use as a conduit for her endless hunger for her shit-headed Erasthai.
I’d co to and found myself beneath him, legs spread as wide as they could go, chest arched with my breasts in his face, and if I hadn’t been in pants, she might have stuck his dick right through . Without a single care that she was violating .
I couldn’t even look him in the eye. I hated them both. I hated myself. I can’t even look in a mirror without wondering who’s staring back. Am I ? Or is soone else pulling the reins?
My anger burns farther than Ilya or Lucien. It goes far along towards Thane. He had always known what I was. He never said a single thing to . He never thought to explain that I had more battles to fight than holding a wooden sword and playing guard for Silvermoor. He had acted like he was on my side when he never was.
The thing inside is like a ticking ti bomb and he never told . Everything I’d ever known would be lost, and I would seize to be Valka if I ever let my walls down. I hadn’t even known I had ntal shields in place.
I rembered Ilya’s life. But I didn’t rember mine. Two centuries of my own life completely gone and all I had of it was a dream and a na. Malachy.
The na of a man I had apparently loved. A man who had killed . I must really make bad choices when it cos to n.
Which brings the more embarrassing questions. When did I have my first kiss? I know it’s pretty stupid, but how about we switch places and you find out that everything you knew about yourself didn’t exist? You start to trivialise it before it swallows you whole.
Have I lain with a man before? What did it feel like? Why did I think I’d grown up in House Ironfang? What were those mories? Did Ilya alter them sohow? Why did I call Rhea mother, even if I knew she wasn’t? Why did I believe I was nineteen years old? How could I have forgotten my entire life and rewritten my own mories?
Did Thane do it to ? Did Ilya? Or did I do that to myself?
A frustrated snarl tears from as I punch harder, faster, going through steps in a blur. My whole life, I’d pondered on the word purpose. I believed I’d found sothing close to it when I broke out of the norm and rode out, taking my father’s place.
I thought I’d made that decision myself. I thought it had been mine. My life. My choice.
But every single decision I made brought back here. To Ebonheart. To this castle. To this Selection. And nothing enrages more than the fact that none of this was my choice, really.
I was always going to end up here. Because Ilya’s ho was Lucien. I was always going to find my way back to him, because Ilya had been trying to return ho for centuries.
This wasn’t my life!
Did I stay away from the pretty clothes, hairs and vain things the won at Silvermoor favoured because I wanted to, or was it the design that had been set out for ? Did I find it all dull because I always knew I wasn’t built for small n and small minds? That I was made for the most powerful being that walked the earth? That a destiny to walk by his side had been imprinted on without anyone so much as thinking, "Oh, darling Valka, do you want to be stuck wanting a thousand year old prick for the rest of your life that doesn’t even belong to you by the way?"
This was Thandric’s manipulation at play. Guardian? The Goddess sent him to guide ?! Either he’s a liar, or he arranged everything for his own ends. Gods help if I lay my hands on that fucker. I will kill a god.
And how was I to explain? That the only reason I felt hot around him was because I was... technically his dead Erasthai?
I can almost imagine how that conversation would go. Lucien is so damned testy on the subject, he’d probably make do on his promise and finally boil alive.
Lyra.
A hot, electric sting blooms across my knuckles but my mind doesn’t register it.
A hand lands on my shoulder and my body acts faster than my mind can. It moves, on pure instinct, swivelling eerily fast. Pent up anger and panic bleed together and for a mont, all I feel is... hate. And that unholy fire that isn’t mine. The kind of fire that sweeps everything along it’s path and ruins in.
I don’t realize what I have done, until the man hits the ground with a pained grunt and a loud ’pop’ that snaps out of it. And I realize who I have pinned.
Leander lies at my feet, his arm bent unnaturally, shoulder wrenched from its socket.
I stumble back, horrified. "Leander! Oh gods, I--" I reach forward to help him up, but he flinches. Pain flashes across his features as he rises and manages a bow, keeping a respectable distance from .
"Forgive , Lady Nythorn," he says. "I have overstepped, putting a hand on what belongs to the King."
The apology dies on my tongue.
Only then do I feel the silence. The weight of stares pressing from every side. Courtiers and guards, the n training in the yard, all of them watching . Their gazes are sharp, wary, the mory of the Selection fresh in their gaze. The mory of killing a woman with barely five spoken words, and the mory of the King pulling my plastered body off the rocks, holding to his chest and snarling for a physician. And if the n were as much of gossips as the n back in Silvermoor were, then what happened between Lucien and I must have made the rounds around the castle.
Before now, I hadn’t considered how it must have looked.
Like I was favoured by the King. Like I was screwing him. Like I belonged to him.
When I don’t speak, stewing in more and more frustration, Leander’s gaze snaps to the leather bag behind before eting mine again. "The King has summoned you to his chambers."
My fists clench. Couldn’t I have an entire day of successfully avoiding him? Perhaps, this is where he punishes for slapping him and spitting in his face by skipping breakfast and dinner yesterday with the rest of the ’surviving’ heiresses of the Royal Houses.
But last I checked, he didn’t notice. Not with all the talk of won coming in and out of his chambers in troves, attesting to his wondrous thods of pleasure in bed.
Why did I even care?
I turn back to the bag. "Later."
Gasps echo in the air at my supposed insolence. Currently, I don’t even have coins to buy myself enough fucks to give.
"I must insist," Leander presses. "It is urgent."
I raise my fist, cocking it in a pre-emptive strike. "Clearly not enough. He knows where I am if he wishes to find ."
My next blow explodes into the leather, leaving a huge, steaming hole in the bag. I click my tongue in annoyance. The guard by the door, a timid looking wolf who couldn’t have been older than seventeen rushes over to replace it. With the sixteenth bag.
If I couldn’t punch who I really wanted to, I could at least, take it out on the bags.
Nearly five minutes after Leander leaves to convey my ssage to Lucien, I feel a vicious tug in my chest, along with a voice dark as night, scraping along my ntal walls.
*"You never learn, do you?"*
I’m beginning to think that is Lucien’s favourite line. Trying to shove him out of my head only results in his claws digging deeper, the tug in my chest, my very blood growing more painful by the second.
*"One minute, Valka. I am not in the mood for your antics."*
I try ignoring him. I really do, but as the ti fra elapses, my chest constricts tighter and tighter, until I can no longer breathe. Until my fingers rise to my neck, clawing at it to get air in. My feet move of their own volition, the whip of his command taking control of , and I head for the dark wing of the castle, oblivious to the people around .
It doesn’t stop until I reach those magnificent doors and stumble right through. Until I drop to the feet of the man I am beginning to hate the most of all.
Lucien sits in his receiving chamber, his back straightened against a huge chair. An audience of sixteen encircle him.
He is dressed formally, in a regalia of black and silver, a different, more imposing crown resting on his head, for once, not askew. A sole ring rests on his elegant hand, a dark red ruby that seems to switch colours the longer you stare at it.
His left ear has a piercing I’d never noticed, and from the tip hangs a golden earring that encompasses more than half of his ear. Everything contrasts against his skin and makes his eyes pop brighter. He looks like he’s been cut from sothing impossible, sothing intimidating.
And when I finally et his gaze, there is nothing in them. No amusent. No rage. Just a swelling, bottomless emptiness that makes my skin crawl.
He tilts his head towards the guards standing in the corner. "Hold her."
I frown, eyes darting about in confusion as rough hands hoist up.
Margot rises to her feet, eyes flaring. I had ignored the woman’s visits and calls since I awoke. It’s pretty much the first ti I’m seeing her again since the arena. "Your Majesty," she says, voice hitched high. "This is--"
Lucien holds up a single finger, silencing her. Then, he tilts his head towards the maid. I recognise her almost imdiately. Alfie. Two words fall from his cruel mouth.
"Strike her."
There is no flourish. No theatrics. The words land like a verdict and I have barely processed them before pain explodes in my right cheek, snapping my head left.
My lip splits by the force of it, blood pooling in my mouth. Ears ringing, I turn my gaze to Lucien, eyes flared with anger.
He rests his chin on his fist, watching with cold eyes. "Again."
The second sets my skin on fire, making my eyes water. My teeth grind and I struggle against the arms holding up.
"Harder," he murmurs, voice cold and bored.
Alfie’s lips wobble, but her fists clench. Her fist collides with my nose, snapping my head back. And almost imdiately, another fist rams into my stomach, ceasing the air from my lungs.
Again. And again. And again. Each strike a clear ssage to know my place. An open humiliation.
The words lay heavy on my tongue, the knowledge that I could make it all go away by uttering one word. *Stop.* But I didn’t trust that it would end there. That I wouldn’t kill soone and leave my ntal shields wide open for Ilya to possess .
I choke the word down and take each blow. Until angry tears fill my eyes, until my legs shake on their own and when I fall to my knees, it isn’t because I want to. It is because my legs won’t carry .
Lucien tilts his head to his Council. "I suppose this demonstration is proof enough that she poses no threat. And I do have her subdued."
Lord Ashwynd leans forward in his seat. "This will not bring my daughter back from the dead. She should be executed for sorcery."
Lucien arches a brow, finally amused. "Sorcery? Shall we begin to call every gift we possess sorcery?"
"She *talked* my daughter to her death!"
"Your daughter killed. I suppose the boots stop to fit when it becos yours to wear." He levels his Council with a displeased stare. "You all knew what was at stake when you demanded the Selection. Nine won slaughtered to feed your gluttony for power. And Lyra? She did nothing but spare another’s life. A deed far more honourable than anything your precious spawns managed."
The Lord seethes. "You take her side because she is your whore. Everyone knows it."
I spit the blood from my mouth, disgust roiling in my gut, but before I can say anything that might dig deeper into the hole I’m already in, Lucien responds with a pleased smile edged with danger. "She’s a beautiful, cruel thing, isn’t she? I’m considering it, you know. Making her just that, even if she doesn’t erge winner of the Selection."
My head snaps up at that, my lips pulling back from my teeth in a feral snarl that he absolutely doesn’t acknowledge. Because he is too busy goading his Council and making them uncomfortable with the insinuation laying heavy in the air that we will, in fact, be fucking.
I couldn’t have kept the revulsion off my face, even if I tried.
Lyssandra sits forward. "I agree with Cairn. She is too much of a threat to let loose. For the rest of the contenders. For every one in Ebonheart. Even you, sire."
The temperature drops in the chamber, the only indication that Lucien has lost his temper. I comnd the woman for pushing forward still, even with his ominous aura suddenly hanging over us all.
"She cannot participate anymore. Having soone like her so close to the powerhouse of our Kingdom will not end well. If she can speak a royal to her own demise, then she is a threat we cannot afford. If you wish to keep her, Sire, then silence her and breed her for whatever use she may yet serve."
Margot shoots to her feet. "She killed one girl. In defense. Yet I hear no such outrage for Lilith, who butchered six heirs. You fear her power and would have our girl slain for it, and still you champion Lilith to sit at the King’s side? Have a care, Lyssandra. You may think your alliance with House Blackspire holds, but we all know if your daughter hadn’t fled like a coward, she’d be another pile of ash waiting to be collected."
Lyssandra’s cheeks pinken with anger. Or embarrassnt? I can’t tell. "And you are any different from I am? Abandoning your child one second and picking her up again when she deems a useful enough access to the throne!"
"Enough!" Lucien’s voice rings out in the chamber.
Silence falls and I find my gaze scouring along the seats of the most powerful n in the Kingdom. My gaze lands on the eerie lady of House Solmire, ever dressed in white and staring listlessly at nothing. As if feeling the weight of my stare, she turns her head to .
And smiles, nodding slightly.
I don’t understand what that ans and I look away sharply.
"You are bold, indeed, to presu to instruct on the fate of my prisoner. Bold enough to call an urgent Council in the middle of the kingdom’s approaching crisis to bicker over the fate of one inconsequential woman? Your priorities are--shall we say--misplaced."
He leans forward, eyes like winter steel. "Be gone from my chambers. Now."
I’ll never get over how Lucien chooses to dismiss his Council. I didn’t understand how much control he could have over a group of people that hated him that much to send them running at his beck and call.
On the way out, Lord Ashwynd turns at the last second, baring his teeth at Lucien. "I do not stand for this."
And then, he spits where I kneel.
It happens so fast, I barely see it.
One second, Lucien blinks pretty light lashes, staring at Cairn Ashwynd with a blank expression. In the next, he no longer sits on the throne.
I barely have a second to tilt before I see him materialize in front of Ashwynd faster than a lightning strike and he smiles darkly. "Only I get to debase my prisoner. Only ."
His hand clamps over the man’s face. I watch in absolute horror as he drives Ashwynd’s skull against the floor with a wet crack that shatters the marble.
And Ashwynd might have healed, if there was anything left of his head to heal.
Blood splatters across my cheeks and a lethal silence falls in the hall.
Lucien lifts his gaze, eyes drowned in absolute black. And then he laughs cheerily, like his hands are not drenched in blood. "Alas. An open seat at my Council, for those who dare."
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