“Save that for our real enemies. For now, be the force for change you want to be,” she said, conviction threading her tone. The ferocity of it bolstered mine.

“I love you, Assyria. I’m not only doing this for you, but also because it is the right thing to do. You’ve shown me the true path.” And with that, I rolled my shoulders back and shoved my way inside.

Much like my own chambers, the Kral’s rooms were luxuriously appointed, with an expansive sitting area, thick desk, and views of the surrounding area. Currently, though, they only displayed the thick, dark clouds rolling in off the sea.

Kiira and Xannirin were seated on either side of a round table, both with a drink in hand. In front of the soldiers, none of the officers consumed alcohol since we led by example. But there was always liquor and wine around, especially when the Kral was in residence.

“Rokath,” Kiira greeted me warmly. She’d always been the peacekeeper between the three of us, but today she looked like a loaded crossbow. Her veil was gone, and her burgundy eyes hinted at restraint as they glinted in the candlelight. Long, lacquered nails curled around the bulbous end of a wine glass. The dark circles that had claimed the space under her eyes had all but vanished since I’d left Uzhhorod months prior, but the thinness that had worried me remained.

Xannirin, on the other hand, grunted and tossed back the last of what looked like a healthy measure of scale. Kiira sliced a look in his direction as she rose. I kissed her on either cheek before settling into a chair between them.

Another memory pushed to the front of my mind. Yet in that one, I was coated in the blood of the Angels from the Battle of Kraskiv, and Xannirin and Kiira’s attitudes were very much opposite.

“Did you force Rapp to see the healer again before you left him?” I asked her, since she’d accompanied him back to his temporary accommodation after our dinner.

“He fought me for a moment, then complained the entire time,” Kiira sighed, swirling the purple wine around in the glass. “Complained about how you babied him the entire trip too.”

Rain pelted the windows, the rhythmic patter an ominous backdrop to our conversation.

I snorted and pulled the bottle of scale toward me. Xannirin slid me a thick crystal glass without a word. My gaze lingered on him for a moment longer as I poured. “He did have a punctured lung.”

“And how exactly did that happen?” Xannirin finally snapped. He offered me ostensible anger now that we had no audience to judge him. I speared him with a hateful glare. For my entire life, Xannirin and I had been like brothers, and yet with the way he looked at me from across the table, I felt like anything but.

And how he’d treated my mate upon arriving? Fuck, even before that?

Unacceptable.

I pressed my drink to my lips and tipped it back. The alcohol burned my throat all the way to my belly. The pain was a welcome distraction from my thinning self-control.

“Do you want me to start at the end or at the beginning?” I wasn’t going to refuse them an explanation, not when it might smother whatever was sparking between us.

“Start at the beginning, please. I want to understand how all of this unfolded,” Kiira requested, her tone soft. She reached for my hand and gave it a squeeze. “Your letter didn’t say much, and I want more detail, especially as it concerns Assyria.”

Thunder rumbled, momentarily stealing my attention. Past the window, three black birds swept, their caws slicing the air.

Shaking off the feeling of being watched, I recounted the events of the past few months. The rumors that had swept through the camp at Assyria’s presence. How she’d tried to run from me and been bitten by a cobra. How hard I’d fought the bond’s insistence to be near her. How I’d cared for her injury, taught her to scout, and begun showing her how to fight. How Rapp and I had split up to pin the Angels on all sides and force them to retreat. How I’d been winning handily, battle after battle, for weeks, until we reached a difficult piece of terrain.

Neither interrupted me as I recounted it all. Yet I slowed to a crawl when I finally came to the point in my story where I had to admit exactly why I’d lost all those soldiers. I hadn’t put it in my letter, simply that the Angels had beaten us badly, and that was why we needed to change the army rules to allow females to fight too.

The scale seared me again as I drank the last of it. I set the glass down with a heavy thud. Let the words land with the same force. “The Angels took Assyria.”

Kiira gasped, hand flying to her chest. Xannirin’s mouth flattened, and his fingers tightened over his drink. “How did they know about her?”

“I’ll get to that in a minute.”

Lightning flashed, illuminating the dark corners of the room. A moment later, thunder crashed. I waited until it ceased before continuing.

“They offered to parlay with us, so long as we met them on the salt flat unarmed. So we went, both armies facing off. I figured they would want my life for hers, which I could have easily gotten out of.” Rage rose like a tidal wave inside me as I recalled how they’d hurt Assyria. “As it turned out, the Padisa who ambushed my battalion a decade ago was one of the superior officers leading that section of the Angel army.”

“The one whose face you carved up?” Xannirin clarified. He was as well-versed as I was with that particular incident and that particular insect.

I nodded. “Instead of my life for hers, he wanted all my soldier’s lives for hers.”

More thunder boomed, shaking the room. But not nearly as hard as the muscles in Xannirin’s neck.

“What the fuck, Rokath?” Xannirin snarled, his lips curling back from his teeth. His pointed canines flashed. “Fifty thousand males? Just like that? After we had to conscript and risk the people turning on us?”

Xannirin surged upright and hurled his glass against the wall, shattering it. The tinkle of the shards hitting the floor filled the space between his angered breaths. He planted his hands on the table, attempting to tower over me and intimidate me like I’d seen him do so many times to the nobles who wouldn’t fall in line.

He didn’t scare me.

I stood, slowly, showing him that as much as he thought us equals, my power was greater than his. The tension in the room was thick enough to carve with a blade.

“She is my mate,” I growled, my tone laced with violence. The tips of my fingers dug into the table as I attempted to rein in the fury filling my veins.

“You didn’t even want her,” he sneered, rings flashing in the light as he fisted his hands.

His words stung like a well-timed slap. He was right and I hated myself for it. How many times had I wished I could turn back the clock and accept what the Fates had so generously given me?

Xannirin wouldn’t knock me off the path of this conversation so easily. I volleyed back with equal animosity, if not more, for how he continued to disrespect Assyria. “Well now I do. Now, I fucking love her, Xannirin. I couldn’t give her up for anything. Nor should I have to. The Fates wove us together for a reason.”

I’d scarcely finished speaking when Xannirin tossed his threat onto the table. “If that’s how you feel, she’ll be returning to Uzhhorod with us, where we can keep her safe since clearly you cannot. And I cannot have you sacrificing more males for your own selfish desires.”

My self control shattered. “Selfish desires? My selfish desires? Who do you think all of this is fucking for?” I took a menacing step around the table. The strike of my boot against the ground was louder than the storm outside.

Xannirin stood his ground and didn’t relent in his contempt. “If your focus is on her, you won’t win. You said so yourself before you left. It’s because of her that we’re losing. Again.”