My teeth ground together as I stepped into the wreckage, kicking aside debris while I approached the statue.
Forgive me. I never should’ve ordered Nienna’s dragons to burn the city. Would the soldiers have returned without it? I knew my people. If I put their families in peril and gave them the choice between saving them or standing against me—I knew which they would choose.
But that didn’t make it right.
My eyes smarted, itching from the heat-slicked air as I stopped before the statue. Smoke clawed down my throat, but I held my breath and lifted the broken beam from the figure.
Ash crowned his head, caught in the carved lines of his face. My heart twisted at the sight. Symbols of justice, honesty, righteousness left sullied and gray.
I brushed away what I could, then kicked clear a place to kneel. My armor was gone, replaced by my mantle. The King of Radaan sought guidance from his god, and so I knelt amid the ruin I had delivered to my city.
The cracked stone beneath my knees still held heat, searing through the fabric of my trousers. My head bowed, spine straight, hands resting on my thighs.
Elohios, guide me. Forgive me for my actions.
Memories broke loose: riding beside Nienna, shouting for her to set the stables and stores ablaze; my body pressed between her legs, lust curdling into something twisted and foul; Kai’lon’s voice ringing in my ears, his words echoing what my people thought of me, of her; his sudden lunge, my spear moving without thought, his head striking the floor.
The scream of his daughter.
Bile scorched my throat as my stomach clenched. I widowed a woman, orphaned a child. Worse, I killed him in the most horrific way possible—before their eyes. That moment would follow them for the rest of their lives.
Sarai would wake to Mai’s cries in the dead of night, soothing her girl while drowning in her own grief. Fallione would try to saddle her with Lon as we moved east. No mother could survive that.
Hatred wrapped chains around my heart, crushing tight. It didn’t matter who was to blame anymore.
Protect my people when I cannot, I prayed.I am only a man. A flawed tool.Doubt lingered, ever-present. Was I doing whatRadaan truly needed? Yet surrendering her to Tallon would destroy her. The Velli would come and take, take, take. They craved power, and Tallon, in his foolishness, would hand it to them.
Please, I beg of you, grant me wisdom. Let me see the right path. Give me the strength to walk it.I held no illusions about ease. I made mistakes and would suffer for it, but this burden exceeded what I could carry alone.
Facing an enemy was simple. Choosing who lived and died on a battlefield came easier when we fought for the same cause. But turning against my own people, because I had wronged them and Tallon twisted that wound to his advantage?
I was caught between a rock and a plow. The weight of my mantle and my heart threatened to crush me between them.
Soft footsteps approached, but there was only one person Greaves would allow this close to me now. I didn’t rise. Instead, I offered my thanks, honoring Elohios for his blessing, and begging that he answer when I called again.
No breeze stirred. No ray of sun warmed my back. There was no sign of his reply.
I urged my well-worn mask into place—all worries and fear tucked away. Ash clung to my legs as I rose, but I didn’t dare brush it off, risking my mantle slipping loose. I glanced at the swollen sky, dark clouds swallowing smoke like a gluttonous sow.
With a long, steadying exhale, I faced Nienna.
Memory and emotion pressed hard against the bars of my mind. Breath faltered in my chest as I looked at her.
She had taken it upon herself to see Sarai and Mai settled and cared for. There was no shortage of tasks for a queen; she had vanished shortly after Kai’s beheading.
She stood amid the ruined street in a white dress, blood arcing crimson from chest to hip. Grime marred the hem from her longtrek. Overcast light dulled her flaxen hair, ash drifting down to catch in her braided crown. Only her mantle still gleamed. Even her face lay empty of feeling, blank as she studied me.
She deserved more than a broken king.
“Kallias.” Her voice carried the sweetness of a siren’s call, luring me closer.
Greaves leaned against a crumbling wall behind her, the street otherwise deserted, my prayers granted privacy.
I crossed the remains of the temple toward her. Soot blackened my hands from tending the statue, and I kept them to myself, though a smear of dirt sullied her forehead where she had wiped away sweat.
“I left you at the estate.”
I ached to touch her, to hold her, to convince us both that this had meaning; that our love justified the world burning.
