His hands roam as he checks for any injury he might have missed. Erasing the evidence of Alexios’ brutality.

“I’ve got you,” he whispers against my hair. “You’re okay. I’m so sorry. I’m so—”

But before he can finish, the cuffs snap closed on Evander’s wrists again. Alexios’ power seizes me around my waist and reels me in until we’re pressed chest to chest.

“You sick fuck,” Evander snarls, lunging against the chains.

“Do you see now, Princess?” Alexios tips my chin up, forcing me to meet his gaze. “This is what happens when a human bonds with a god. He’ll put you back together, and I’ll rip you apart. And we’ll do it over and over and over because he’d rather watch me shatter every bone in your body than lose you. Tell me something. Is that love?”

I look up at him. “You don’t know anything about love.”

His smile is cruel, mirthless. “Oh, I know all about sacrifices for love, Princess. More than you, I think.” He wraps his fingers around my wrist. “Lesson three. When gods play with mortals, we do it because we’re bored. Because we like the sounds you make when we hurt you.”

He wrenches my arm and snaps the bone. A scream slips out of me before I can stop it, my vision blurring as bile scalds my throat.

“There it is.” Satisfaction thrums through his voice. “Scream for me. Beg if you want to make it interesting.”

He shoves me away, and it’s only stubborn will that keeps me standing. I grit my teeth against the pain.

“This game only ends when I lose interest,” he continues, circling me slowly. “Or when you decide the Wolf isn’t worth it. How long would you last if we gave you the choice? If I broke you, and he fixed you, how many times do you think it would take before you begged him to end it? A hundred? A thousand?” He snags my chin between his fingers and whispers, “When every kiss comes with a fist, how long would your love last? Would you start to resent him and count all the ways he’s complicit in your suffering?”

Something snaps inside me—the last thread of restraint.

I draw my last dagger from its sheath at my hip with my uninjured hand, and I let him see every dark, howling thing inside me. Every ugliness and hidden hurt, the broken bits and pieces he carved his claim into. The monstrous parts that can shove aside the agony of my body to make room for cold purpose.

“Four hundred and sixteen,” I tell him.

His brow lifts in a silent question.

“That’s how many times an Oracle shoved a knife into my heart from ages five to twenty-one. How many times I spilled my blood on your altar, crossed into the Void, and told you to get fucked.”

I slash my dagger across his chest. The blade parts fabric and flesh, leaving a thin crimson seam behind. And he lets me, standing there without so much as blinking—as if I’m beneath his notice.

“No one taught me how to be brave,” I hiss, hacking at him again. Graceless. Brutal. “No one asked if I was okay. No one held my hand through the pain or told me to be strong. I did it because my people needed me to. I did it even as you used me up and threw me away like garbage.”

Slash. Slash. Stab.

My blade carves into his skin. I hurl all my strength and impotent fury against him like waves crashing against stone.

And he heals and heals and heals.

“You think I haven’t proven myself?” My voice echoes through the quiet arena. Hundreds of eyes are riveted on me. On us. “I proved it every single day I woke up in a world that wanted to butcher me on the altar. That saw me as someone to carve into.”

I force myself to keep going. If these are the last words I ever say, I’m going to make them count.

“I proved it by walking into your palace with my head high while everyone here waited for me to break. I went to Nyholm and played games with a fucking death god to be with Evander.” An exhale shudders out of me. “I can’t change what my ancestors did. I can’t bring back the people they butchered any more than you can resurrect everyone who died in the war.”

Alexios goes rigid. His face gives nothing away.

“But I’m done paying for the sins of a dead dynasty with my pain.” My eyes fall on Evander, this god I’ve learned to love more than anything. “I just want him. I love him. And that doesn’t change whether I’m breathing or a corpse on the pyre. So you can rip me apart or put me back together, but it won’t make a difference. He’s mine, and I’m his. That’s the only truth that matters.”

I let my dagger hit the sand. My chest heaves with each breath, but I won’t bend or kneel.

“So do your worst, you bastard.”

Alexios smiles, and the bottom drops out of my stomach. Then his hand closes around my throat.

“Then prove it. Give your life for his freedom.”

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57

BRYONY

SO THAT’S THE deal?” I breathe. “I die, and you take him off the leash?”

“That’s right.” Those burning eyes bore into mine. “One final death, and the Wolf gets to rule his territory.”

His grip on my throat isn’t crushing—just firm enough to remind us both of who’s really in control here. He could end me with a thought, a twitch of his fingers.

“Amalthea Devaliant didn’t hesitate when I gave her this choice,” he says. “She just drove the blade home. And that brought peace between realms and the Accords that have held our worlds in balance for centuries. Because she knew the truth.” He leans in, whispering, “To sacrifice is an act of love.”

His wild thunderstorm scent floods my senses. Petrichor and ozone, lightning and rain.

“So what’s it going to be, Princess? Ready to give up everything for him?” He tilts his head with a mocking smile. “Or do you only want him when there’s power in it for you and a Scillarian throne to sit your pretty ass on?”

Evander yanks against his chains. “Bryony—”

“Quiet.”

An invisible force slams into Evander, choking the words into silence.

I don’t look away from Alexios. I stare into those burning depths, and I let him see exactly who I am. What I’m made of. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from a lifetime of prostrating myself at altars and spilling my blood for ancient oaths, it’s how to bear a blade.

How to sacrifice.

“Give me your word,” I say, and my voice doesn’t shake. “Swear he goes free if I do this. On something that matters.”

“On the blood of my sister,” he says without hesitation, releasing me. “The Wolf knows what that means to me. No loopholes, no tricks. Just a simple transaction—your life for his freedom and everything that comes with it.”

I nod, jaw clenched tight. “You have a deal.”

Hundreds of demis watch in silence as I close the distance to where Evander kneels in the sand. Some whispers reach me from the stands. Do their hearts pound faster as they watch me work up the nerve to destroy myself? Are they hungry for it? Or maybe they understand this is the logical conclusion to my story.

The princess who opened her veins to the god-king who drank her dry.

It has a certain poetry, I suppose.

I cup Evander’s face in my palm. Alexios’ power must be gagging him, because his eyes scream the words his tongue can’t seem to shape. They beg me not to do this. Not to leave him. Not to be one more thing he loves that turns to ash.

We want what we want. Even when we know it’ll destroy us.

“I need you to listen to me,” I tell him. “I know that after this is over, you won’t forgive me for a long time, and that’s okay.” I blink back burning tears. “But you can’t”—I fist my hand in his shirt—“spend another three centuries drowning in guilt and rage. You’re a king, Evander. It’s time to act like it and be what your people need. I promised you I’d keep fighting, but I also understand when I have to set down my weapons and kneel. It’s shit, and it’s not fair, but this is about more than us.”