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I give them no chance to respond.
As I raise my left hand, bands of translucent darkness erupt around them, like crumpled leaves from ages ago, reduced to little more than dust. They clutch at their throats, their bodies. Gasp for air as their skin wrinkles and thins. Turns gray. Edges toward ashen.
As expected, Zeccar’s voice cuts through the whirlwind in my head.
“No,please!”
I freeze, arm still outstretched. My magic halts with me, spinning dust suspended in midair. The women gulp for their next breaths, their lungs too shriveled to allow them a full inhale. All of them too weak to move, to fight back, to do anything but flounder like shored fish.
Part of me revels in it. The rest hungers for more, to watch them turn to bones at my feet.
I focus on the general I once trusted with my life. My fingers tremble with restrained magic. My voice mirrors it. “You wanted me dead too, is that it? End the line, take the throne for yourself?”
“Want you dead?” Zeccar blinks several times and shakes his head, holding out both palms as he inches closer. “Kirran, you were the greatest military asset I’ve ever seen.”
Ice splinters my spine. The ballroom tilts around us. Years of battle. Using my magic, transforming me into a killer. A monster. Stained if not cursed.
“You just wanted me.” The instant I say it, everything cold in mereignites. “You ripped her from me so you could use me as a weapon?”
Panic writhes in his eyes, and a shiver goes through his body. “We needed you to win —”
I flex my right hand. Zeccar’s head jerks back, and he grasps his throat as dust encircles him. He crashes to his knees mere paces from his family.
“K-Kirran, please.” His voice cracks, no more than a breath. “Have…mercy…”
“You made memerciless!”
The room shakes under my roar. Ragged breaths tear out of my chest. I grit my teeth. All of me strains to finish the job. Finish it like I have so many other times.
Avenge Alia. Avenge myself.
My gaze slides from the dying enemies to my arms. The deep red branches will forever mark me as a murderer, a monster. The stains will take the remainder of my life to fade. If they fade at all.
But my words ring hollow. Zeccar encouraged me but didn’t force me to become anything. I made myself merciless. At his urging, maybe. But it was still my choice.
It’s still my choice now.
I look at Alia. She stares back, her hand over her mouth, pained eyes glittering. The eyes of my best friend. The eyes that offer me a different life than what I know.
These people took her from me once. We can’t go back to that time of innocence. Can’t change how the last seven years have unfolded. But we agreed to let ourselves start over.
Ifwecan start over, then maybe so canI.
Whether I remain crown prince, become king, or step down entirely, one thing can be true.
I don’t have to be this anymore.
With a growled curse, I let my arms drop. The traitors collapse, faces to the ground as they gulp in air. Frozen dust still encircles them, poised for my next command. Murmurs rise throughout the ballroom, but I don’t move. Neither do the condemned people before me. They just stare up at me, wheezing and waiting.
And like she can read the desperation in my stance, Alia steps toward me.
“Kirran.” Her hand moves over mine. Gentle, inviting. Like the first rays of sunlight on a spring day, after the bitterness of winter has begun to loosen its grip.
I can’t take my eyes off the traitors. Can’t fully unleash my magic or the instinct to extinguish those who dared raise a hand against her.
But she doesn’t let go of me. Instead, she tightens her grip.
“Kirran.” With careful movements, as if familiar with wild animals, she steps in front of me. Between me and them.
