“He’s alive, so far as I know. He sent a raven warning us of the attack. It arrived only a little while ago.”

Olet snorted and shook his head. “A little too late.”

I grunted my agreement. “He did request our presence at the front again. The Angels are splitting their forces, and he is following. According to that fucking fanatic, they’re spreading along the wall because one of their Seers told them there was to be a bloody battle there.”

Olet shifted from foot to foot. “We haven’t had nearly enough time. Especially not with the females.”

I blew out a long breath. “I know.”

“I think they demonstrated that they can hold their own,” Assyria added. She swayed on her feet. Dark circles lined her eyes, and I wanted to get her to bed immediately. Flattening my palm on her lower back, I offered her support.

“What were our losses?” I asked Olet, my stomach tightening. The aftermath of every battle came with conversations that were tough to chew.

Olet rubbed the back of his neck. “Too many. A few thousand.”

The muscles in my neck bulged with how hard I gritted my teeth. “Fuck.”

His arm dropped to his side, and a heavy sigh followed. “Many more were wounded. Most should be able to travel within a few days though.”

I looked up at the ceiling as if the Fates had written all the future paths there. “Start preparing everyone to leave. We’ll move out in three days. We can spare no more.”

“Aye, I’ll see to it immediately,” Olet affirmed. Like Assyria, he looked exhausted.

“Walk with us. We need to find Hadvezér Rapp and discuss more of our plans,” I told Olet, striding toward the stairs that led up from the dungeon. I’d check on our prisoner later, see if the Vezető yanked any more information out of him.

He followed, matching my quick clip. The remainder of his post-action report he relayed by the time we reached the landing. There, we went our separate ways.

“I’ll escort you to our tower, but then I need to go to my office,” I told Assyria. Because before I could speak with the rest of the officers, I needed to write to Xannirin. This would be the test of his commitment to our new plans.

“Okay,” she sighed, too tired to protest. “You’ll come back soon right?”

“I promise.” When we reached the door leading to the spiral stairs, I opened it for my mate. “You did so well today. You and the females. I think the rest of the army will see that quickly too.”

She offered me a soft smile. “I hope so.” Then, she disappeared up the spiral. The sentries stationed on either side still had blood on their armor and cuts drying on their faces. In an uncharacteristic moment, I thanked them for their duty.

Each stared at me as if I’d grown a second head. Sighing, I left them behind, the trek passing in a blur as I mentally drafted the message I would write my cousin.

We needed additional aid, and quickly. The Angel’s advance, spreading like a rot through the realm, left no room for mercy.

Not for them. Not for Xannirin.

We thought we were preparing soldiers for war here; we were already inside it.

No longer was this a game of strategy. This was divine prophecy, holy vengeance, and sacrificial fire.

Yet the walls of our carefully constructed temple were cracking.

To protect Assyria, to protect the Demons, I’d rip apart the nobility, drag their power into service, and flood the front with bodies.

Not all of us would survive what came next. A great sacrifice awaited us somewhere in the future.

And I would not let Assyria fall. But something deep inside me whispered that the Angels weren’t the only ones spreading ruin.

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***

Bloody footprints marred the marble halls of Gyor Palace as the future Kral rushed along them. Overhead, the barest sliver of a moon stalked him through the windows like a judgmental God, weighing his actions and deeming his worthiness. For this night would irrevocably alter the course of his life—and the lives of millions around the world.

Pools of ruby thickened as he closed the remaining distance to the royal wing. The place he’d been birthed, where he’d spent his youngest years, and where now, his fate awaited him. A tumultuous storm of excitement and dread rushed his steps along. He had to know what had happened. If their plan had succeeded. If his cousin still lived.

At the choke point of the hall, a dozen Kral’s Guard lay scattered, bent, and broken on the ground. Easing toward them, he studied their forms. Their lifeless eyes stared at nothing. Hope soared in the male’s chest.

As nimbly as he could, he leaped over the puddle, not wanting to stain his shoes.

The door to the Kral’s chambers was cracked, yet no sounds came from within. On tiptoes, the future Kral approached, his heart hammering in his chest. Flattening his palm against the wood, he pressed. It swung inward on silent hinges.

The scene it revealed to him left him rooted in place.

The back of a tattooed head greeted him, broad shoulders heaving beneath fitted metal armor. He didn’t tremble, didn’t weep. Merely stood like the eye of a storm, rage and fury twisting around him. At his cousin’s side, a longsword dripped garnet onto the ground. His other hand, though, boasted a spiked glove, bits of gore decorating the tips of it.

Bile rose in the male’s throat, and he pressed his lips together to seal it inside him.

Because that wasn’t the worst of the scene.

Beyond his cousin, three more bodies lay crumpled—if they could still be called that. Heads removed from their place atop necks. Fingers twisted at unnatural angles. Bones fractured out of the skin that should have held them inside. The scene was carnage beyond anything he’d witnessed during his time at the military academy with his cousin.

Yet one corpse bore the signs of a special type of cruelty—his cousin’s father. Missing an eye entirely, jaw hanging open, spine permanently torqued, he wondered at what point his uncle had finally died. The sheer brutality of his murder sent an icy chill through his veins. He knew his cousin had a temper. Fates, he knew that he was the most lethal killer in all of Keleti, if not all of Ravasz.

But this, this was beyond excessive. This went beyond vengeance.

For the first time, he feared his cousin. Feared his prowess. Feared his anger.

Despite his rising nausea, he seared the scene into his memory. The blood. The gore. The twisted bodies. The heaving of his cousin’s chest. The blade with the skull in the pommel, reflecting his terror back to him through rivulets of ruby.

Because deep down, he knew that Rokath had far more power than he did—than he ever would. His future was a glass throne. One misstep, one moment of angering his cousin, and it would shatter beneath him.

Tentatively, he stepped deeper into the room, regarding his cousin with more than a hint of wariness. Only then did Rokath tilt his head over his shoulder and acknowledge his presence. Burgundy eyes burned with hatred still, even after their tormentors lay dead at his feet. The darkness in them sent a shiver down his spine.

Yes, his cousin was someone to fear. His cousin was a potential threat. The moonlight caught on a fractured mirror, reflecting back to him an undeniable truth: his own blood was merely waiting to be spilled.

He swallowed hard and met his cousin’s gaze. Then, in his deep, gravelly tone, Rokath spoke the words he’d been dying to hear for decades.

“Congratulations, Xannirin,” he rasped, his voice like gravel. “You’re now the Kral of all the Demons.”

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Part Four