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“They’re still alive, aren’t they?” King Serpentine shifted his stare to me. “I know Clara has lived a very long eighteen hundred years. She’s older than you. Even older than me.” His look was full of disgust, like I was maggots in rotting flesh. “Your mother’s soul may be the very reason her flesh is so soft.” He turned back to Cobra. “Did you think of that? That this woman is only here because your mother is dead.”
Cobra continued to grip the reins of his horse. Upright and stiff, he stared, but he had nothing to say.
“We’ve destroyed the source of our immortality to atone for what our government has decided on our behalf. We’re mortals now, and once the souls no longer fuel our bodies, we’ll grow weak and become human. Then we’ll age…and we’ll die. That’s the most I can give you in repentance.”
His eyes shifted back to me. “And that’s not enough.”
“It has to be enough,” Cobra said. “Because there’s nothing else that can be done.”
“These monsters have attacked us for a millennium—”
“King Elrohir has been slain, as well as the generals who followed him. Anyone associated with that line has since been put to death. You need to let it go, Father. If Kingsnake, Viper, and I can pardon their sins—so can you. We fought in all of those wars as well. We’ve lost vampires we cared for as much as you have. If you want to destroy the Ethereal, then you’ll have to destroy me too, because I will fight with them against you.”
King Serpentine had nothing to say to that.
I heard the sound of many horses and knew that Kingsnake had arrived with his army. They took up ranks with their former enemies and stood with us against our assailant. It loosened the stitch in my chest because I wouldn’t lose any more of my people today.
A pair of horses approached us from behind. Kingsnake appeared beside me on Cobra’s right while Viper moved to the opposite side.
Now I felt like I didn’t belong in this conversation at all.
King Serpentine stared at his sons, looking at each one individually.
I imagined they all stared back at him with the same kind of stare.
Cobra spoke again. “You’ll have to kill all three of us first if you want Evanguard that bad.”
King Serpentine ignored his words and stared at me. His face showed no emotion, just the way his sons’ did, but I knew there was lava running from the backs of his eyes. He held me accountable for every sin—even though I was the one who’d stopped the travesties.
“I’m truly sorry for what my kind has done,” I said. “There’s nothing more I can give you than the promise of eternal peace and the destruction of the obelisk. Cobra is right. Killing us won’t change anything.”
“Doesn’t mean you deserve to live,” King Serpentine said. “I’ve been called a monster countless times, but I’ve never taken someone’s afterlife, only their blood. If I were you, I would take a dagger to my own heart and end it.”
“Father,” Cobra said.
“For the last time,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “I did not commit these crimes. Nor did the people who stand behind me. At the first chance, I righted our sins and destroyed the obelisk. If someone else were in the same position, I’m not sure they would have done the same. You may not like me, and that’s okay, but you must admit that I didn’t give in to temptation when someone else would have.”
King Serpentine looked at Cobra again, as if he knew something I didn’t catch. “Now this makes sense. You’re fucking her.”
Cobra said nothing.
I remembered what he’d told me about the Originals, that they could feel minds. King Serpentine must have felt whatever was in his son’s head at that moment.
“No, I’m not fucking her.” Cobra chose to deny it. “I love her.”
I kept my eyes straight ahead, but a lightning strike surged through my body. My world shook at the declaration, the way he confessed it, not only to his father, but his two brothers as well, something he hadn’t even shared with me.
“I will protect her with my life,” Cobra continued. “And I will protect her people like they are my own. I wish to part as allies rather than fight as enemies on this field, but I will unsheathe my blade and draw blood against you if you leave me no other choice.”
“So you choose her over me,” King Serpentine quipped. “Over your own family.”
“No,” Cobra said. “I choose right over wrong.”
A stare-down ensued.
Kingsnake spoke next. “While you’ve been obsessing over the Ethereal, the werewolves have taken the kingdoms. The Werewolf King sits upon the throne, turning the humans into his subjects.”
King Serpentine shifted his gaze to his other son.
