“That’s more like it,” she snarls. “Come on, Princess. Show me what you’re made of.”

I leap on her with a snarl, and we crash to the ground. Some distant part of me shrieks that she’ll tear me apart. That I should know better than to attack a demigoddess. But the rest of me revels in it. Revels in this chance to fight for my right to exist with something other than a bared throat.

So I punch and kick and claw, fighting dirty. Fighting mean. Messy and desperate and real. Amara gives as good as she gets. Her elbow cracks into my cheek, and her knuckles split my lip, my cheekbone, and the arch of my brow. But I don’t stop. I can’t stop. Because stopping means giving up, and I’ve already bled too much to let it be for nothing.

My fingers find her hair and yank hard. She hisses, retaliating with a knee to my ribs. We roll across the ground, each struggling for dominance, leaving blood and skin in the dirt.

Somehow, I gain the upper hand and wrench her arm up behind her back, shoving her down. We’re both panting and sweaty, chests heaving.

“There it is,” Amara says with a breathless laugh, and there’s a warmth in her voice that sounds like approval. “Fuck, I knew you had bite.”

“You let me win,” I say.

“Obviously.” She turns her head to grin at me. “But you needed to know what winning feels like. Needed to taste it. How else will you learn to crave it?”

I roll to the side, every inch of me screaming in protest. Amara pushes herself up on her elbows, looking more exhilarated than anything else.

“Oh, come on. Don’t look so pissed. That was a damn good showing for your first real fight.”

“You’re insane.”

“Probably.” Amara grabs my hand and drags me to my feet. “But I’m the insane bitch who’s going to keep you alive long enough to entertain the Wolf. You’re welcome.” She jerks her chin toward the tower. “Go get cleaned up, little sister. And if the Wolf has any complaints about the condition of his new toy, tell him he can shove them up his ass.”

Little sister. The words strike like a blade to the chest. For a second, I’m back in Hellevig, in the palace gardens with Theo, giggling over something stupid. It feels like another lifetime, a grainy memory belonging to someone else. Someone softer.

I shake my head hard, locking it away. “Why did you call me that?”

Amara glances up. “What?”

“Little sister. Why did you say that?”

She opens her mouth, then closes it. For the first time since I’ve met her, she looks almost… uncertain. “It’s just something trainers say,” she finally says, but it sounds like a lie. “Don’t read into it.” She studies me, taking in the damage. I’m struggling to breathe through my nose, and my left eye is swelling shut. “Pain is an excellent teacher,” she says softly. “The most efficient, if not the kindest. Those bruises? That blood? You earned them. Wear them with pride.”

My senses are scraped raw, as if she peeled back my skin and exposed the angry mess beneath. Reached right into my chest and wrapped her fingers around all my soft, vulnerable places.

And it’s the most alive I’ve felt in years.

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19

EVANDER

BLACK MOURNING BANNERS drape nearly every building in Hellevig. Wilted rose petals litter the roads, trampled under countless boots, and the pavement is smeared with the wax of a thousand burnt-out vigils. The entire city is grieving the loss of its princess.

I’ve seen my share of grief. Too much, truthfully. In wartime Scillari, when the bodies stacked up faster than we could burn them, our funerals became public events—thousands of vessels floating into the sky, each containing the ash of demis being returned to the stars. You couldn’t escape it.

The “death” of Bryony Devaliant reminds me of those ceremonies—the scents, the shrines on every street. Some deaths leave marks.

I fly unseen above the masses gathered at the palace gates. Hundreds of bodies are packed together, a sea of black fabric and red veils marking a royal passing. It’s a credit to Bryony’s status among her people that they’ve come at all. By now, rumors must have spread that she was an oathbreaker—and traitors don’t get a public mourning. They don’t get grief. But her? They’re screaming for her.

“Where’s the body? Where’s the princess’ body?”

“Murderers!”

“Princess Bryony lives!”

She’s alive, all right. Wearing my shirts, wandering my tower like she owns the place. My personal plague.

I follow the curve of the Araxes River toward my destination. The wealth of Hellevig’s center gives way to seedier districts as you move outward. Silk Street sits at the border between old money and new poverty, where respectable merchants rub shoulders with criminals.

I land at the old tannery, the only lead I have on the bastards peddling demigod flesh. The stench of smoke and leather hangs heavy in the air as I push through the sagging doorway into what’s left of the building’s interior.

It’s been gutted. Shattered beams drip char onto the floor, and glass litters the ground from the blown-out windows. The debris is minimal, which means the building was stripped before they destroyed it.

Silk Street’s a bust, I tell Alexios, bracing for the brutal crush of his presence. They burned it all.

His consciousness slams into mine. Keep looking anyway. I want a lead. Rip that place apart if you have to.

I crouch next to an overturned table, running my fingers over the gouges in the wood. The kind of marks you get from hacking over and over, really putting your back into it. Just the right size for a big Turpori blade made for chopping through bone.

And underneath the scent of fire and charred wood, I sense it. That ancient energy soaked right into the surface—demigod power. The fresh kind. The dying kind.

Bile stings my throat. An image flashes of bodies strapped to this table, naked and split open. They’d have started at the top of the wings, splintering through cartilage and ligament.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

We’ve got a problem, I tell Alexios. These fuckers aren’t just scavenging battlefields anymore. Someone’s been funneling them fresh kills. There were demis held here within the last week. I can smell it.

Shit. The pressure in my head builds with his anger. All right, I’ll have Zephyr ask around to see where any demis have gone missing.

I turn over a broken crate with my boot and do one last sweep of the building. I’ve found all there is to find here. Should we involve the Dark King?

Let’s wait for Zephyr’s report. Severin might want peace as much as we do, but I’d rather eat nails than deal with him. The pain in my skull escalates to white-hot agony. One more thing, if you’re done. Circle Hellevig on your way back, and make sure they see you. The city is getting bold without the princess’ corpse to weep over. Remind them why they should fear you.

Then he’s gone, the link snapping closed. The pain vanishes in an instant.

With a sigh of relief, I conjure my invisibility and slip out into the daylight. As I wing toward the palace gates, new mourners have amassed by the hundreds, choking the main thoroughfare.

Landing on the public-facing balcony, I spread my wings and let my magic fall away. The throng gapes up at me. It takes a few seconds for it to register—for them to understand what they’re seeing. Who they’re seeing.

Then the panic hits.

Gasps and shrieks echo across the square. People recoil in horror, stumbling over each other in their haste to flee.