CHAPTER SEVENTY ISI
CHAPTER SEVENTY
ISI
King Cyril charged with his sword raised, his face twisted with rage, grief, and a hatred so pure it had consumed everything else he might’ve been.
I drew my blades and met him.
Steel rang against steel. His first strike came with the weight of every execution he’d ordered, every child he’d condemned, and every lie he’d told himself to justify the blood on his hands.
I parried and spun away, using footwork Thorne had drilled into me until it became instinct. He pursued me, his blade seeking my throat. My heart. Any opening that would let him end what I’d become.
“You were supposed to be my perfect daughter,” he snarled, his next strike nearly breaking through my guard.
“Perfect daughters don’t survive in your world. They just die quietly.” I deflected his blade and countered, forcing him back a step. “You refused to see who I truly was.”
I could tell Trew was desperate to intervene but holding himself back. This wasn’t his fight. We both knew it.
The king pressed forward with a series of strikes that would’ve overwhelmed me years ago. But I’d continued to train with Trew, had survived the Rite, and I’d faced down Skathes, assassins, and my fear of what I might become.
And I had magic. My own. Pherin’s. And a taste of Trew’s.
I met every strike and turned his momentum against him, using his anger to make him careless.
Pherin flew at him with a shriek.
He struck out at her, but she darted to the side.
Gavelle smacked into the side of my father’s head, protecting his mate. King Cyril bellowed and hit the cinderhawk with a fist. The bird spiraled toward a cluster of boulders. Gavelle hit with a sickening crack and slumped to the ground, unmoving.
Pherin snarled in my mind. Bite head. Now!
Mine, I growled. Back away.
Her head snapped toward me and for a moment, I thought she wouldn’t listen.
He’s mine, I repeated. I will end this. I swear.
Shrieking, she flew toward Gavelle, who wasn’t moving.
The king sneered at the birds. “Even your unnatural creatures are weak—”
My sword was at his throat before he finished the sentence.
“Make one move,” I said with death clear in my voice. “And I’ll open your windpipe.”
He went still, his eyes meeting mine. The daughter he’d tried to mold into submission had become something he couldn’t control.
“Surrender,” I said. “Order your army to stand down. We can end this without more death.”
He laughed, the sound as bitter as a crack of his hand across my face. “Mercy, from you?”
“I’m offering you what you never gave anyone else, a choice.”
“There is no choice.” He reeled away and spat at my feet. “You’re an abomination. Better to die than live in a world where creatures like you wield power.”
His hand moved toward his belt and the whip he’d used on my back. He cracked it through the air.
“I taught you obedience once,” he said, stalking back toward me. “Fifty lashes should do it this time.”
I caught the whip mid-swing, the leather biting into my palm. Pain lanced up my arm, but I didn’t let go. Instead, I yanked hard, using his own momentum to pull him off-balance.
He stumbled forward, snarling, and jerked the whip backward. The leather tore from my grip, leaving a bloody line across my hand.
Cyril backed toward his warhorse, which had retreated during our fight. The destrier’s ears were pinned to his neck, his eyes rolling white. He grabbed the reins and hauled himself into the saddle.
He drew another blade from his belt as he wheeled the horse toward me. Rage contorted his face as he spurred the horse forward, the animal screaming in protest as spurs dug into his sides.
I stood my ground. Behind me, I felt Trew move to intercept, but I raised my hand.
Addie’s sharp intake of breath from a distance showed she’d backed away, giving me space.
The warhorse’s hooves pounded closer. Five paces. Three. He foamed at the mouth, the wild whites of his eyes spiraling.
Pherin roared and raced toward the horse in firecat form.
The warhorse balked, rearing back, its forelegs thrashing at air. The king yanked on the reins, sawing on the bit, trying to force it back down. But the creature had reached its breaking point. It twisted mid-rear, throwing its weight sideways.
They both fell, crashing on the ground, my father landing beneath the horse.
His head struck a rock with a snap that echoed across the silent battlefield. The whip fell from his hand, landing in the dirt beside him as the horse rose to its feet and stood, its reins dangling, its lungs blowing.
No one moved.
I walked forward slowly, sheathing my blade, and knelt beside Cyril’s body, pressing fingers to his throat even though I already knew what I’d find.
His eyes stared at nothing, still holding his terrible conviction that he’d been right, that magic was evil and that his daughters deserved death.
I reached down and closed his eyes.
This was the last mercy I would ever give him.
The whip lay coiled beside his body like a snake. I picked it up, feeling the weight of it, remembering how it had felt cutting into my back.
“The mask breaks today, and I will never wear it again,” I told him, the army watching, and myself.
I flung the whip away. It landed in the dirt, and I turned my back on it, on him, and on everything he’d tried to make me become.
Trew strode over to meet me, staring down at me with sympathy and fury in his eyes. Through our bond, I felt his relief and pride.
Addie rushed over to stare down at the king’s body without a tear in her eyes. I found exhaustion there, and grief so complicated it had no name.
She came to me and pulled me into her arms.
“He made his choice,” she whispered against my throat. “Just like we made ours.”
I nodded, letting myself lean on her before we both straightened and turned to face the army.
The ranking officer approached, stopping several paces away. He looked at the king’s body, then at me, then at the warhorse standing calmly to the side.
“Your Highness.” He inclined his head in respect. “King Cyril’s death was his own doing. We all saw it.”
Agreement rippled through the ranks. Some soldiers gripped their weapons tighter, but others lowered them to their sides.
An older soldier, missing half an ear, stepped forward. “My daughter died on the Day of Mercy. She could make plants grow.” His voice cracked. “That was her crime. Plants that could grow food to feed us. She was barely twenty years old.”
A younger soldier removed her helm, revealing a face I recognized from the castle guard. “You saved my mother five years ago. I thought you weak for doing it.” She looked at Pherin, at the healing land spreading around us, and at Addie standing beside her drake. “I was wrong.”
I took in the faces around me. I’d seen many of them at executions, standing guard to make sure innocent people died.
“I won’t ask you to forgive me for the Days of Mercy,” I said, my voice carrying in the still air. “I stood on that platform. I wore that hideous mask. I was complicit in what happened to our friends, family, and neighbors.”
Trew’s hand found mine, squeezing.
“But I’m asking you to stop it now,” I said.
“My sister is alive, and so are those who may hold a touch of magic. There don’t have to be any more deaths.
” I gestured to the Syllavar army who’d crested the hill behind us and waited for the word to retreat or attack.
“They are not your enemies. They never were. Your enemy was the man who taught you to fear instead of understand. Who built his power on the bodies of innocent people whose only crime was being born different.”
I looked at the king’s body one last time.
“He died trying to destroy something he didn’t understand. I’m asking you not to make the same choice.”
The ranking officer glanced back at his troops. Several had already lowered their weapons. Others watched the land around them with green pushing through gray and flowers blooming where a wasteland had festered for sixteen years.
He turned back to me. “The king ordered us to destroy Syllavar, to wipe out everyone who wielded magic.” He glanced at the horse, at Pherin, and at the earth. “But the king is dead, and I say his war died with him.” He raised his voice to address his soldiers: “Stand down. We’re going home.”
Not everyone moved right away. Some hesitated, looking at the others.
Slowly, in ones and twos and then in groups, soldiers began turning back, beginning the long march to the center of Caldrith.
A few remained, their faces hard with the same conviction that had consumed the man I’d once called father. But we outnumbered them now, and they knew it.
The ranking officer knelt in front of me, placing his fist over his heart. “Your Highness, we await your orders.”
Others followed his example, enough to show that something had shifted.
Perhaps mercy could be stronger than fear.
“Return to Caldrith,” I said. “Tell them what you witnessed here. Tell them Amarissa and Adelaine live and they say that the Day of Mercy ends now.” I paused, letting the words settle. “Tell them we’ll find a way to bring peace to our land. Killing people for who they are is forbidden.”
The officer nodded and rose. He gestured to his troops, and they began the long walk home.
I swayed on my feet, my adrenaline finally crashing. Trew caught me before I could fall, his arms going around my waist.
“You were never going to be him,” he said against my hair. “Not for a single day of your life.”
Finally, I knew he was right.
Trew released me but knelt in front of me to the gasps of those who remained.
“You don’t need me to fight your battles.” His golden eyes held mine. “But I’m asking you to let me stand beside you anyway. Not as your protector, but as your partner. Your equal. Your chosen.”
Behind us, Syllavar soldiers knelt as well in respect and solidarity.
I pulled him to his feet, framing his face with my hands. “I didn’t choose you because I needed you. I chose you because I wanted you. Every infuriating, overprotective, impossibly stubborn part of you.”
His lips curled up on one side. “Then we’re well-matched, minxpip.”
I kissed him, putting everything into my touch, solidifying the future we’d carved out of blood and fire and impossible choices.
Gavelle’s chirp broke us apart. He limped toward us, one wing dragging, and I dropped to my knees to gather him into my arms.
“You’re hurt,” I said. “We’ll help you.”
Pherin’s distress came through our bond.
Trew knelt beside me. “Let me see his wing.”
We examined Gavelle’s injury. The bone wasn’t broken, but the muscle must be badly bruised.
“He’ll recover,” I said, more to reassure myself than Trew.
“He will.” He met my eyes. “We all will.”
I looked at my sister standing with Fenmark, their hands linked. Our people ready to fight to the death to protect us all. And the land healing around us, green spreading like a promise that even the deepest corruption could be cleansed.
“What happens now?” Addie asked.
I stood, Gavelle cradled carefully in my arms, and squinted in Caldrith’s direction. Then toward Syllavar and a future that wasn’t written yet.
“Now,” I said, “we go home to both kingdoms.”
“Both kingdoms?”
“I’m abdicating Caldrith to you, sister. And Fenmark if you choose him as your king.”
“Me?” she squeaked.
I gave her a quick hug. “You’ll make an amazing queen. Teach them that there’s another way.”
“I will.”
King Cyril’s body lay where he’d fallen, a reminder of what happened when fear turned to hatred, when power became more important than compassion.
He didn’t define us anymore.
We did, and we’d chosen differently.
Trew’s hand found the small of my back. My king who’d knelt before me. The man who’d let me fight my own battles yet refused to let me face them alone.
I leaned into him and felt him lean back.
And that was all I needed.