“Watch your mouth,” I snarled, attempting to restrain myself from pummeling him into the ground. This discussion was going nowhere good with how he kept pushing me with Assyria.

“What happened to you, Rokath? Clearly sinking your cock into the cunt of your mate has made you weak and thrown you off your game.” Xannirin laughed, but it was a dry, jaded sound that scraped at the primal beast inside me.

Red coated my vision as I swung. Xannirin ducked to dodge the blow, but I was prepared for his counter. With my left hand, I uppercut, landing squarely on his jaw. The blow knocked him backward, and the air whooshed from his lungs as he thudded against the ground. I stalked forward and drove my heavy boot into his chest. From my thigh, I unsheathed a dagger and flipped it end over end, not caring which side I caught.

Xannirin coughed, his eyes widening. Lightning cracked again, highlighting his fear in sharp relief.

“Who the fuck do you think this Fates damned war is for?” I repeated my earlier question, pressing more of my weight down. Trust in our alliance had clouded my judgment too long. I needed to hear his true answer to confirm what I already suspected.

“The Demon race–” Xanirin started, but I cut him off with the force of my boot.

“Do not give me that horseshit, Xannirin.” Shadows unfurled from my fingertips, swirling around my arms in a violent frenzy. If he wouldn’t confess, I would make him. He’d always broken when army tactics had been used on us as younglings.

“I am your Kral,” Xannirin snarled, eyeing my magic like he too recalled our fathers’ abuse from this very room. “You will respect that, Rokath.”

“I’m not one of your precious nobles,” I spat. “You do not command me. You do not compel me.”

“Oh, but I do,” he snapped. “And if I say jump, you fucking jump. If I say we’re not having females in the fucking army, then we’re not having females in the fucking army.”

Too late, I noticed the dark tendrils gathered in his hands. With a jerk, he flung them at me, knocking me off balance. In seconds, he was on his feet, dipping into a fighting stance.

“Like you would know anything about winning a battle,” I bit out, sliding my foot back and tensing my muscles in anticipation of the fight.

“So what, I’m supposed to return to Uzhhorod lauding your new strategy after you lost fifty thousand soldiers? Oh, and that strategy now involves allowing females to volunteer for the cause? The noble houses will riot. They were already on edge before you left, and after this, they’ll mutiny. How am I supposed to spin this so I stay on the throne?” With each word, his face turned a deeper shade of red.

“Yes, because that’s all you care about, Xannirin. That’s all you’ve ever cared about.” Darkness expanded as I allowed myself to feel everything I’d smothered for so long. “All of this has always been for you. Your vision for ruling all of Keleti, inspired by your talks with monarchs from other worlds. Saving the Demon race was always the mask for your true ambitions, and you’ve sacrificed nothing to get it.”

A cold, furious expression slid over Xannirin’s face. Obsidian spilled on the floor as his own magic rose to meet mine.

“Stop it, both of you!” Kiira screeched, stepping between us. Without even looking, I flung onyx threads in her direction and pinned her to a plush chair. My entire focus was on my cousin, the Kral, who had sucked everything from me and deigned to tell me that I could not protect my mate.

“I am the Fates-given leader of all the Demons. Not you,” he boomed, ropes of pitch sweeping toward my feet. But he was sloppy from years of disuse, and I was fresh off the battlefield. Wielding my magic like whips, I snapped them away.

“Have you really come to believe all the stories we spun? When did our propaganda become your reality?” I demanded, my voice crackling with more energy than the storm outside. We’d crafted these stories to save the Demons. Not for his fucking ambition alone.

“There was never a question of its truth,” Xannirin snarled, twisting his fingers and enshrouding himself in onyx. “We were simply informing the populace of it. Me, the Fates-given leader. You, the Fates-given hero. Kiira, the Fates-chosen Seer. What else is our magic for if not for me to rule for millennia to come?” His words were smooth as glass, exactly how he talked circles around the nobles to compel their compliance.

Yet they also gave me pause. Because I realized then that the narrative had become part of my story too. But I distinctly remembered its origins, and while his words held a semblance of truth, I was still humble enough to admit I was fallible.

“Before we walked down this path, we decided we were equals. Or have you forgotten in all your years of living in luxury and peace?” I asked, the words bitter. My neck muscles bulged for how hard I forced restraint upon myself. I couldn’t—wouldn’t—let his mastery of cunning and manipulation distract me from the task at hand: fixing what we broke.

“Yet the people listen to me above all others,” he snapped back.

I was getting fucking tired of his delusion. Kiira and I had destroyed ourselves for his ambition, and he couldn’t see that. With a growl, I reminded him exactly how much power I wielded. “I control the fucking army. Do not press me, Xannirin. As much as I loathe the idea of ruling, I could kill you and take your throne within a second of making that decision. After all, look how easily I slaughtered our fathers.”

His teeth flashed, and he threw more magic at me. But I was fucking ready as years of resentment boiled to the surface. Dodging his attack, I leaped, catching him around the middle and sending us careening to the floor. We landed with a heavy thud, my dagger clattering away. I wasted no time in rearing back and cocking my fist. With an animalistic snarl, I slammed it down. At the last second, he whipped his head to the side, and I collided with the hard stone.

The pain didn’t even phase me. I struck again while Kiira screamed at me not to kill him. Xannirin grabbed my arm before I could bloody his lip further and rolled me off him. We squared off, shadows disappearing as we prepared to fight bare-knuckled.

“Assyria has shown me the ways we need to change,” I snapped at him. “That’s why she is essential. Because we were walking the wrong path.”

“Assyria is nothing more than a murderous fallen. She should have been burned for her crimes the moment you discovered them.” Xannirin swung, but I caught his fist and twisted his arm around his back, pinning him to my chest. He struggled for a moment before relenting. Otherwise, I would have had no qualms about tearing up his shoulder.

“Rokath, stop!” Kiira screeched, thrashing against my magic restraints. “Assyria is the best thing to happen to you. You deserve her. You deserve happiness. You are not alone in your grievances with Xannirin!”

Her last statement, more than any other, made me pause. The beast thrashing inside me, begging me to make Xannirin pay for claiming to be able to protect my mate better than me, for saying she should have been killed, still fought for me to continue.

Dragging in a breath, I smacked it like an errant soldier into submission. I tore my attention to my female cousin. “What did you say?”

“I resent Xannirin too,” she repeated, her lower lip trembling. A tear spilled over and clawed down her cheek. Xannirin attempted to shift in front of me, but I tightened my grip on his arm.

Kiira swiped at her eyes. “When I got your letter, or I should say, intercepted it, I felt relief like I’d never known. I felt like I could breathe again. Xannirin wasn’t the one who brought the females here without question. It was me.”

The air fled my lungs as I beheld my cousin. At the time, a hint of suspicion had curled in my gut when the only reply I received was a confirmation of their imminent departure. I’d been relieved, believing they both trusted my decision. Yet as the image of it appeared in my mind again, I realized the note was written in Kiira’s handwriting.