In the dark, early hours of the night, only the wall guards were awake, skittering shadows cast by torchlight. They gave Wroth a wide berth; one fiend was as good as a legion for protection, and no one had wanted to get too close when it became clear my brother was not himself.

Not any longer.

He was perched on the outer parapet like a gargoyle, his thick, snow-white mane and ivory horns a gleaming beacon in the darkness. The fiend didn’t move, staring out into the misty forest, pale eyes slitted.

In days past, Wroth had been the most brash of us, always jovial, always raring to do something. To see him like this, crouched and watchful, was like looking at a stranger wearing his form.

One of his triangular ears swiveled backwards as I deliberately let my claws tap on the wall.

“You needn’t announce yourself,” he said bluntly, in a low voice. “You reek of fucking. I smelled it before you left your tower.”

“Glad to hear your nose still works.”

Wroth’s muzzle wrinkled, showing his teeth in a humorless grin. Vampires had heightened senses; fiends were a step above. Nothing that made a scent was a mystery to us.

I stood next to him, staring down over the wall at the forest. Only the foxes in the brush and the owls moved out there, but that was a good sign. No animals emerged in the presence of wargs.

“Tell me, brother. What happened to you?”

Wroth shook his head, but it wasn’t a denial of my question; looking at him now I could almost see the vampire he had been and the fiend he was now, both a twisted leonine creature and a Nord jarl occupying the same space.

“The Blood Accords. Why did we believe they were a victory for us?” he mused, still gazing into the dark wood. “We celebrated. We’d bought thrones for our people. We were set to annihilate the Forians and live forever as kings, as gods among mortals. What fools we were.”

I kept silent, wanting to deny it, and all too aware of my own dark thoughts in the early hours as I watched Cirri sleep.

“The price did not seem so high to me, then,” Wroth said quietly. “This body, the things I needed to do for it… those don’t disturb me. I enjoy the power.” He extended a massive arm, the torchlight catching his velvet pelt and making it shimmer as he curled his powerful hands into a fist. “I enjoy being the Lord of the Rivers. If you had told me then that a single vain, hateful woman could ruin it all, I would have laughed and laughed. And yet, here we are.”

“She will be dead soon.” I looked down at my clawed hands, braced on the wall. “One day she will be a distant memory.”

Ancestors knew I dwelled on that thought far too much.

“Not soon enough.” Wroth lowered his arm, ears folding back flat against his head. “Like I said… I was a fool. You know the nobles of the Rivers rebelled when I first took Owlhorn.”

I nodded, already aware of this history. Of the four of us, Wroth alone had had to contend with the human nobility attempting to renege on the Blood Accords.

“Kajarin’s uncle led the rebellion against my reign—Lorik lai Orros. A brave man, if a stupid one.” Wroth shrugged carelessly. “My wife had vanished when they tried to storm the keep. When I reclaimed her, she swore her uncle had kidnapped her. And all seemed well afterward. We became friends, my brother. Perhaps she didn’t wish to mate, but she would sleep by my side, touch my hand, or take her meals with me. We spoke into the late hours, many nights. I… was genuinely a fool enough to believe she might come to love me as a husband.”

I swallowed, thinking of how it might be if one day Cirri turned on me… but that couldn’t be. I wouldn’t believe it of her.

“I did everything I could to keep her happy, hoping things would continue as they were. I spared her uncle’s life, though the man’s treason deserved death, and sent him into a rather comfortable exile, as far as exiles go. I gave her everything she asked for. If she wanted diamonds, I sent for the jewelers. If she wanted silk, I sent for the Serissan tailors. If she wanted a damn horse, I had the hostler in the keep within the hour. I thought if she had the things a lady would have, she would be pleased.”

He frowned at the sliver of golden light on the horizon. “I don’t think I did anything wrong. I was faithful to our vows. I never hurt her. I did not even harm her uncle. I never spoke ill of her family, nor did I keep her away from the matters of a lordship’s duties. But after two years, she finally told me… she hated me. That she wished Lorik had killed me, and since he hadn’t, I should have the decency to do it myself. That the sight of me made her sick, and she would make me miserable until her dying day.”

I found that I could say nothing. My throat was locked tight around a roar.

“So.” Wroth’s terrible smile had returned. “In one night, I went from believing Kajarin was at least a friend, a companion, if not truly a wife or lover—to knowing that she’d rather see me dead. That was when I offered to find another wife and release her from me. And she told me no.”

“You offered her freedom?” Even in my darkest moments, even when I realized I would rather die than be responsible for hurting Cirri, I had not considered releasing her. Perhaps I was the selfish one.

“In its entirety,” Wroth said. “I told her she could keep the jewels, the silks, and the horses. I would sever our vows, and she could live as a rich woman for the rest of her days.”

“And she said no,” I repeated, knowing where he was going, but I didn’t want to accept it. What a waste of a life, to be so full of pure spite that one would live in a cage solely to make another miserable.

“No.” He grinned. “She wants to be around me, day and night. If I leave Owlhorn, she follows. If I am home, she is underfoot—except when she’s fucking the stablehands, of course. She told me herself, that for as long as she lives, she will be a cloud of misery hanging over me. That is her sole purpose, her one true desire. My only consolation was to tell her that none of her children would ever inherit Owlhorn.”

The smile dropped abruptly, obscuring his fangs, but the icy gleam in his eye was no less dangerous.

Wroth shook his head, and leaned in conspiratorially. “Sometimes she likes to go several days without bathing, so I have to breathe in the stink of the men she’s rutted with. I have to look at this woman, whom I thought was a friend, and smell their seed rotting in her. And she will sit there in that stench and smile at me.”

As he spoke, his claws scratched deep furrows in the stone wall. “I don’t understand it, Bane. It is something beyond me. I would release her if I could. I would grant her freedom in a heartbeat. But she has finally found the one thing she does want—to drive the knife into my back, and keep twisting it, over and over. I never know what to expect. Some days she drives me to misery. Other days, it’s like it never happened—like it was in the beginning, when it felt like she could truly be my wife.”

“Get rid of her,” I said abruptly. “Before… before Cirri came here, Wyn had solutions. You don’t have to live with her breathing down your neck.”

“Believe me, brother.” Wroth sighed. “I’ve considered other options. I called in Auré to try to talk some sense into her, but Kajarin is… relentless. She knows she is untouchable. We thought the Accords were a boon for us? No. They’re a shield for her. So long as a pureblood woman is a requirement, she could fuck her many lovers right in my lap, and I cannot raise a hand against her.”

He examined his paw-like hand for a moment, as though imagining such a thing.

“I’ve considered whether it’s worth it,” he said softly. “Because this is the third year of living under the suffocating weight of her hatred, and it already feels like an eternity. I don’t know if I can last even another ten. Is it worth being the lord of anything, if I go to sleep every night to the sound of her screaming under another man, and never know if I’ll wake up to poisonous smiles or warm friendship? Some days I think I’m losing my mind.”