The female’s shoulders were tense beneath her white armor. Silver hair knotted high on her head disguised nothing as she skirted Vaeron, bumping into other soldiers rather than arcing closer to him.

Interesting.

Ishim made a show of unfurling the paper, drawing my attention back to him. He turned it about and glanced between the two bone chairs.

A laugh—more forced than genuine—barked out of him. I wished he’d get on with whatever the fuck he was trying to pull.

“Oh this is good. Divine, even.” His attention returned to me as he let the paper snap shut. He handed it to Vaeron, who tucked it into his breastplate without a second glance, like he had no need to read the script his sister’s menagerie had written. “You see, Halálhívó, our Seers have predicted this moment exactly. This meeting. The second chair made of the bones of our people. You animals are so predictable.”

“So?” I drawled, sinking onto my throne and gripping the skulls at the front. Even in death, his female assisted me in rattling him.

His ice blue eyes flashed with righteous anger before he smoothed his expression again. A deranged grin rose as he crossed his arms. “So, that means the rest of what the Goddess showed her will also come true.”

Unease curdled in my veins, but I forced myself to focus on maintaining my cool, derisive demeanor. My hold on the skulls tightened until I feared they’d crack beneath my palm. “Whatever you think, Ishim. We know how your predictions have gone in the past.”

He lifted a single brow. “Quite well, if I remember all the times we ambushed you correctly.”

I gritted my teeth to contain the words that wanted to bite out. Counting to ten, I willed myself to calm before addressing the Angel’s leader again. “What do you want, Ishim? Other than to retrieve those who you deem traitors?”

I motioned for the males guarding the door to the tower to open it. All the Angels’ attention slipped there as Assyria—impersonating the Myrza—emerged, dragging the tongueless Padisa with her. A dark hood covered her head, and bronze shackled her wrists.

When they stopped between us, Assyria yanked it off, revealing the bruised and broken Angel officer. A gag wedged between her lips, and blood dripped from the corners of her mouth.

Ishim paled. The male he’d sent to Fured to kill our more powerful stood before him, wearing leather Demon armor. Holding one of his own hostage.

“So what do you have to exchange for her?” I prompted. His eyes cut back to me, albeit with much struggle.

“Someone you’d love to carve up again,” he purred like a cat pleased with the mouse it had caught for its master. Then, he shouted over his shoulder, “Bring him.”

Moments later, Zaph, escorted by two others, flew over the wall. His hands, bound in chains much like the Padisa, prevented him from using his magic. The males threw him at my feet, and Zaph looked up at me with even more hate than Ishim.

I laughed—a cold, cruel, violent sound that shattered the serene expressions on the Angel’s faces. “So you finally see how useless he is too?”

Assyria slid into my mind a moment later. “Are you going to trade for him?”

We hadn’t planned on taking any offer, given how much of everything we were faking. The only real person we could trade was the Padisa, who hadn’t really betrayed or converted, despite our attempts to do so. Ishim might still want her regardless.

I nudged the parasite with the toe of my boot to cover my attention diverting to my mental conversation with my mate. “What do you think we should do?”

“If they’ll take the Padisa, then yes. I’m more than ready to claim our vengeance and add his bones to your throne.”

“As am I. Let’s see what other cards Ishim thinks he has to play.” I resisted the urge to smile at her feral, dark tone.

Izzenna, playing the part of Assyria, snorted and shook her head, sneering at the male curled at our feet. Wisely, she covered her face like she was attempting to disguise her laughter as his attention drifted her way.

Ishim’s expression darkened. “Sacrifices must be made for the greater good.”

Three caws sliced the air. My eyes drifted upward, catching the black feathers of the crows before they dipped around a guard tower.

Fuck.

“And that is?” I pressed, worry knotting my gut. The Fates were watching this moment. Testing us. Testing me. One step down the wrong path, and Kiira’s prophecy could change yet again.

I needed to know what Ishim had planned. Needed him to fucking say it rather than forcing me to guess. My strategic mind could have crafted a dozen possibilities, but feigning ignorance had served me in gathering intelligence in the past.

“Extermination of your race. The time has come to slaughter you all, once and for all. Our most powerful Seer,” he gestured to a female standing a few paces behind Vaeron, “has been blessed by the Goddess with the exact way in which it will happen. It starts with you handing over the traitors.”

The Seer’s lips quirked with knowing.

“Why would you tell me that?” I cocked my head to the side, studying him. “If that is truly how our end begins, why would I give them to you?”

“Do you actually believe me?” Ishim taunted, his sinister grin growing.

I didn’t, not for a second.

“So I have placed an option at your feet, Halálhívó. One that you know will affect whether you win or lose. But you don’t know the truth, and you won’t know if you chose correctly until you are about to meet the Reaper, the pretend Goddess who your filth thinks takes your soul onto the next world.”

Hot tension clawed across my neck and shoulders. A clever game, yet one I was determined not to lose. Not when there was so much at stake.

“Take the Padisa, then, if you care about her so much,” I ground out.

Assyria threw her forward with the same roughness they’d offered Zaph. He attempted to sit upright, offering his Zahal a look of indignation, but failed. Grem shuffled forward, lips curling back from his teeth mere inches from the inept male’s face.

“I want the others,” Ishim snapped, widening his stance and trying to take up more room like he was the one in charge here.

Assyria chuckled and shook her head. “I’m not going with you.”

“Nor am I,” Araquiel pronounced. I angled my head over my shoulder to look at her, impressed that she’d spoken up without being called to do so.

Wisely, Banand kept his attention firmly forward. But if anyone was paying close enough attention, they’d see what I did—the way his muscles were coiled tight, his hand hovering mere inches from her body like he’d pull her out of harm’s way before throwing himself into it to save her.

“Shivk,” Ishim spat the word for traitor in Angelic at both of them. Continuing in their language, he pressed, “Why do you turn your backs on the Goddess? On the Koron who elevated you? On your noble houses?”

“Because I will live,” Araquiel shot back. Their fresh coupling had unleashed her fire, for which I was grateful.

“And the Halálhívó is merciful to those who aid him,” Assyria added. “It’s why I’ve been entering our camps and trying to convince the others to join us. It’s why so many have.”

“Finhya,” he swore, his gaze narrowed. “You never would have given up so easily. The male I knew would have killed himself to honor the Goddess rather than change sides.”

Whispers abounded between the Angels as Assyria and Ishim spit venom at each other.

Before the animosity we’d brewed shattered with one wrong word from Assyria’s mouth, I rose from my throne, drawing everyone’s attention. “If we could return to the matter at hand,” I intoned in the common tongue. “Will you take the Padisa alone? Because I will not force them to go with you, knowing they’d be going to their deaths. Not when they’ve changed their allegiance. They’re too valuable for me to willingly relinquish.”