Page 67 of The Cost of Blood and Bonds

“Harder is relative,” he says. “What matters is that we won’t have too many newly awakened.”

The rage resurfaces, the same as it always does, deep and patient.

“But this is Rye’s year to enter the trials.”

He studies me for a beat, then turns back to the desk.

“He’ll adapt.”

That’s it, no hesitation, no acknowledgment of what that means. The rage sharpens, and for a moment, I imagine my hand at his throat.

I swallow the feeling down where it belongs. Not yet.

“This year isn’t about glory,” he continues. “It’s about control.”

Rye is just another variable in his equation. He lets that settle, then moves on.

“The Davrik alliance needs to be formalized before spring. Belinda is accomplished, and her family controls half the grain trade. You will give the engagement serious consideration.”

I nod, my jaw tight.

“The northern villages are already struggling,” I say carefully. “The Davriks keep raising prices despite that.”

“And what would you have me do, Hayesland?” he asks, feigning curiosity. “Seize the Davriks’ grain stores?”

“The people outnumber⁠—”

“The people have no magic,” he snaps, cutting me off. Then he draws a slow breath in through his nose, reining himself back. “I am protecting the people from what the nobles would do if I lost their loyalty.”

“You think Lord Davrik hoards grain now?” he continues. “Imagine him unbound.”

Here it is, his same self-serving logic dressed up as sacrifice.

“The rebellion is growing,” I try

“They’re just peasants and idealists who mistake power for cruelty,” he snaps. “They don’t see the alternatives I hold at bay. I have kept this realm stable for longer than anyone remembers. Through threats they cannot fathom.”

He calls it stability, but it wasn’t to protect anyone. He sealed us behind the fog wall centuries ago, during peace, not war. It went up to serve him. Captivity, nothing more.

“The trials showed you our history,” he continues. “You saw what existed before. The wars between the realms, the chaos, the destruction that comes when power is unchecked, and when borders aren’t maintained.”

“I did.”

“Then you understand why stability requires sacrifice. The prophecy only confirms it.” He studies my face.

“Two born together,” I say carefully. “Twins who could⁠—”

“Destroy everything,” he cuts me off. “Every border I’ve built, undone by an accident of birth.”

The border he built that benefits him the most. The throne he claimed from the queen he drove from her own kingdom, with his first son he never talks about.

His hand goes to his pocket and takes out the pearl and turns it slowly between his fingers. His gaze falls to the portrait on the bookcase next to the dried sea holly. For a moment, he’s somewhere else entirely. Then his fist closes around the pearl, and he’s back.

“I do not enjoy the hunts,” he says. “But a king does what must be done. The twins we can’t find trouble me less than the ones who vanish entirely. Someone is moving them. Through the wall, if Voss’s intelligence is correct.”

He kills children for his need for control and calls it duty. The anger surges again, hotter this time, and harder to push down. I’ve seen what he does to people who push back, no one is spared, not even me. Every time it costs more, pieces of myself I don’t know how to put back.

“You’ll understand when you wear the crown,” he says. “Right now, you still believe there’s a version of this where no one suffers. But there isn’t.”