Chapter 113
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTEEN
I iro slipped around his throne, avoiding several of my strikes, though I only had half of his attention.
Korhonan had now joined the fray, mostly in an effort to stop the fighting. When the other dukes saw him intercede, their expressions were a mixture of confusion and offense.
But it was, predictably, Iiro who reacted the strongest.
His lips parted in shock, his blue eyes churning with betrayal as he watched his brother use his sword to protect one of the Unclanned from a Wolf soldier. He took in the scene like a man whose entire world had shifted out of his control, and I couldn’t deny the savage satisfaction I took in watching it unfold.
I may not be able to kill him, but at least I could watch him realize that everything he loved was burning on a pyre he had lit himself.
As though he could sense the ruthless pleasure I was taking in his pain, he spun to face me. Keeping a sword aimed at me in his right hand, he reached down to draw another from one of his fallen guards with his left.
I adjusted my grip on the hilt of my sabers, my feet eagerly compelling me forward. For too long, I had looked forward to this moment. While every instinct in my body craved to add his blood to my hands, his name to the long list of lives I’d taken, I wasn’t so blinded by that bloodlust to remember we had something even better in store for him.
“Tell me, Iiro,” I said, going on the offensive with a strike he quickly parried. “Did you know who my stepmother was?”
He sneered, blocking another hit before spinning around to the other side of his throne. “It wasn’t hard to guess.”
My scars burned at his admission, phantom lashes raining down from her whip all over again.
“Then why help her?” I asked, lunging forward again.
I wasn’t sure why it mattered after all these years, but I found myself asking anyway, told myself it was my way of distracting him.
He side-stepped out of my reach, a cruel smile twisting his mouth.
“With your father’s mind already going, I assumed she might prove useful one day.” He managed to shrug and attack at the same time, a lightning-fast movement of his sword that reminded me of the many duels he had won before he stopped going in the ring. “Which I was right about.”
And of course, he hadn’t cared about the collateral damage, not when he was laying careful, long-term plans for his rule.
“By getting my father to sign off on your monarchy, then later killing him?” I asked.
He didn’t answer, but his silence was confirmation enough. Bolstered by a new wave of ire, I attacked with relentless speed. There was no more room for conversation amidst a blur of strikes and parries.
Iiro might have been a masterful swordsman at one point, but that was a long time ago. Since taking the throne, he had gotten even lazier. Sloppier. And distracted by the loss of his brother’s loyalty.
In the end, that was his undoing.
He faltered under the nonstop slew of hits I was delivering his way, overstepping in his dodge, and I used the momentum to send him flying to the ground.
With both of my blades at his throat, he had no choice but to drop his weapons. I kicked them far from his reach.
Lifting my eyes to survey the battle, I immediately spotted my wife, fighting like I had never seen before. Her sabers whipped through the air, slicing through her enemies with unmatched speed and precision.
She was death itself, dealing swift judgment with each of her blows as she made her way across the room.
I forced myself to look away from her, noting that Yuriy had dragged Kirill to the edge of the room. Though another lifeless body caught my eye. Blood pooled from Andrei’s torso as he lay sprawled out on the floor.
A muscle feathered in my jaw as I met Iiro’s gaze once again. Lowering my sword to his throat, I pressed the tip of the blade into his skin, enough to draw a single drop of blood.
I wasn’t going to kill him, but he didn’t know that. Still, he only glared at me, refusing to show fear, even on the brink of death.
I could almost have respected him, if I didn’t so deeply despise him.
Looking back out at the crowd, I raised my voice loud enough to break through the clashing steel and cries of pain.
“Enough!” I yelled. “We have the king.”
No one else needed to die today. Ever so slowly, the sounds of battle died down as the soldiers' attention fell to me and the former king at my feet.
Iiro lay silent as a stone, staring mutely ahead while I spoke to the crowd.
“The fight is over,” I said in a more moderate tone. “Hand over your weapons now, and you will suffer no further repercussions.”
The soldiers all looked around suspiciously before dropping their swords at the feet of the Unclanned.
Backing away, I allowed Iiro to stand, though I didn’t lower my blades.
I opened my mouth to continue speaking when motion caught my attention yet again. Arès gave a brief, curt nod to one of his soldiers, just as the man hurled a throwing knife.
“No!” I ordered, but it was too late.
The blade sailed toward Iiro, toward the part of his chest where his heart would have been, if he had one. It was everything I had wanted for years, to see this man bleed out in front of me.
But I had made a promise to Korhonan that his brother would live. I had sworn it. I refused to be no better than the man I was currently dethroning—and maybe I couldn’t quite bring myself to take away the last family that Theodore had, when he had risked so much to help us.
Even with Rowan and her army, we would have lost without him.
That was the only excuse I had for what I did next.
I leapt in front of the bastard, just in time for a sharp, stabbing pain to bite into my chest. I fell to the floor, unable to bear the weight of it. Pain was nothing new to me, but this held a new level of intensity.
It radiated from my chest, through my shoulder and back, spreading out like tendrils of fire that seared me from the inside out.
I distantly registered vibrant green eyes and an ominous crack of thunder before the world went black.