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“You cannot negotiate with madness,” I whispered. Whatever happened, it ended here. It had to. There was no going back, no surrendering. War had discarded their less-than-perfect children, giving Razak the weapons to beat them with. This was their own doing. I’d give the order to march through those lines, and if nobody followed, I’d do it alone.
“May the endless winds be at our backs,” Draven said softly.
I lifted my face to the rain and sent a silent wish to Lark to stay strong. I was coming for him. “We wait for the purple banner.”
* * *
Later,with our campfires burning along the river’s edge, we got word of a purple banner fluttering from the abandoned checkpoint’s wire barricade. I, alongside Draven and Ogden, mounted up and rode out to meet the three waiting figures.
Lark stood beside his brother.
I dismounted my horse and tried to sort everything I’d seen riding to meet them. Lark had his will intact, which was good, but that was the only good thing about any of this. Razak’s crown was still embedded in Razak’s head, and in front of him, he clutched a young boy. But not justanyboy.
A glance at Draven confirmed it. He stared at that boy with eyes so wide, there was no use in hiding his love.
Draven stomped forward. “You vicious weasel—”
Razak lashed out with a hand, and Draven crumpled to his knees.
“Don’t!” I took a step, then caught Razak’s warning gaze and froze. The remnants of his bitterly cold power rattled around inside me, like broken glass. I had no wish to feel his grasp on me again. “Razak, stop!”
Draven writhed, teeth gritted against the onslaught of having his essence torn from him.
“Stop!” Ogden boomed. “Or we march on your city!”
“We come with peace in mind!” Noemi’s cry cut through them all. “Those were the terms!”
Lark yanked the boy from his brother’s arms, applied a blade to the child’s throat, and smiled.
Everyone froze. Razak glanced sideways at his brother.
Lark’s smile was as sharp as the dagger he held. A dribble of blood ran down the boy's neck.
Razak dropped his hand and Draven slumped forward, gasping and choking, freed of Razak’s grasp for now.
Razak’s smile for his brother spoke of familial pride, and by Dallin, they were so alike in their dashing purple and black attire. If it weren’t for the crown, there would be little to tell them apart. Lark’s eyes shared his brother’s touch of madness.
This had to be part of Lark’s plan, because if it was anything else, then he was already lost, and none of this mattered. I stared, trying to make him look at me, make him see what he’d done to me, tous. Make him see how he’d hurt me, and how I loved him, loved him so much that I’d forgive him anything, even this. But he stared instead at Draven while keeping the young boy pinned to his legs.
“My, my, what an audience,” Lark said, his voice as smooth and soft as oil. “It appears, brother, we have them concerned.”
Ogden took it upon himself to step forward. “Prince Razak—”
“King,” Razak interrupted, lifting his chin. “Do you not see my fucking crown?” He laughed. “Oh look, none of you are crowned, none of you are my equal. You are so far below me, you’re all ants, scurrying around my feet.”
“KingRazak,” Ogden said, making it sound as though he’d had to wring the word out of his bones. “Surrender and we’ll leave your city and your citizens intact. Defy us, and we will destroy everything in our path. War never loses.”
Razak blinked. “Is that so?” He sighed. “How disappointing. I had hoped you’d at least prove entertaining.” His gaze scoured us all and came to rest on me. “My dear Prince of Love.”
“King,” I said. “I’d like my crown back.”
Razak’s eyebrows lifted. “Sayplease?”
“Fuck you.”
He laughed and clapped his hands together. “Yes, now you are always so brilliantly entertaining. Isn’t he, Zayan.”
“He is,” Lark purred.
