I glanced up at Mishah still writhing on the ground.
The battle raged around us, rebels falling, silver-clad soldiers striking them down.
“You’ve already lost,” he whispered. “The might of an empire can’t stop me.”
The words were eerie, so similar to what the soldiers at the Citadel had said that I blinked at him. This was more than just a fight between the fae, this was what happened when a people were ground to the earth, until they had nothing left to resist, because resistance cost them less than submitting.
If they carried on this way, if the Citadel in Astola carried on, we’d be fractured into nothing.
The gold from King Rusul’s crown glinted through the opening in his shirt. I didn’t have much time, because his hands shot up to my neck, his intention to drain my life clear. I plunged the dagger down at the same moment, jamming it into his sternum.
The smile slid from Reza’s face the moment I brought the blade down.
The dagger pierced the king’s crown, and Reza let out an unholy scream, echoing across the battlefield.
The crown in his sternum crumbled, leaving an empty cavity behind. The remainder of the gold from the crown in his chest melted from him as if he were bleeding.
The Viceroy wrenched Mishah’s knife out of his shoulder and pushed upward, reversing our positions as he threw me to the ground and pinned me underneath him. He pressed his forearm into my throat, cutting off my air, crushing my windpipe. I struggled against him, clawing and bucking to escape, but he was fae and I was human, and my strength was no match.
“You little bitch,” he spat at me. “You’re going to pay for that.”
“I don’t think she is.”
Even though the Viceroy was choking me, and my vision grew dark at the edges, I could hear the confident timbre of Kiyan’s voice.
The pressure on my neck lessened and I gasped, taking a gulping breath.
Kiyan stood there, a vicious smile on his face, his eyes a crackling fire as he watched the Viceroy on top of me.
“Stay out of this, dog.”
“That’s the thing, Reza. I’m not your dog anymore.”
“Just because you—” he stopped, the color draining from his face as he looked around the battlefield. Abruptly he stood, the pressure of his body on mine easing as he got to his feet. I took another deep breath, the dizzying sensation alleviating.
I hadn’t realized that it had grown eerily silent until the Viceroy stood, his face coated in horror.
I sat up, the Viceroy far too distracted to notice.
All around us the battle had stopped.
Every living person in the pass was frozen, like a macabre tableau.
“What...” The word whispered out of me, and I adjusted my spectacles, wondering if I had broken them in the struggle. I looked back and forth between Reza and Kiyan.
Kiyan’s eyes flickered to me, his gaze homed on my throat, where Reza’s hands had just been. His mouth flattened, and a muscle ticked in his jaw when he looked back at the Viceroy.
“It was a mistake to leave me with my power. You should have drained me the first chance you got. Instead, you housed me, had me doing your dirty work—a Prince of River in your palace. I was never your dog, Reza. I was always a wolf. And now I have no limits on my life magic.”
The Viceroy’s eyes went wide as he stared at Kiyan. “A Prince?”
He pressed a hand to his chest, his fingers finding the empty cavity, as if he simply were not used to the vacantness there. For the first time, fear was painted on the Viceroy’s face.
The silence, the unmoving bodies; every peri from either River or Salt was petrified—forced into stillness by Kiyan.
This was Kiyan’s true power.
He held every single thread of life on the battlefield in his hand like it was nothing.
