“We are not murderers,” she said, and Aeduan found himself nodding. Found his fingers flexing and readying for a fight.

One they would lose, but one worth fighting all the same.

“Whose side are you on?” The lead monk lifted his bloodied sword at Lizl. “You are clearly monks like us. You wear the cloak and the opal and you”—he aimed his sword at Aeduan—“I know. So stand down. Obey your Abbot’s orders. Or admit you are insurgents and face the holy punishment.”

Aeduan’s eyes met Lizl’s. Hatred burned, and he knew it well. It pulsed inside his weakened veins. It wanted justice, it wanted vengeance, and it wanted blood. He so rarely let this darkness surface. He so rarely looked it in the eye and said, Yes, today you can come out.

This would mark the fourth time.

He would kill them all.

“Now!” barked the lead monk, sword curving high, and in a concerted charge, the Carawens moved.

But Lizl moved too. In a blur of speed, she slung something at Aeduan. He caught it, looped it over his neck, and the instant the Painstone touched flesh, the night sharpened around him. Blood-scents crashed against his magic, and with them came the power to control.

Lizl charged. Aeduan charged. The fight began.

With a single, fluid strike, Lizl killed the first monk. Her sword pierced his throat. In, out. Blood splattered Aeduan as he dove for the loaded crossbow. With his muscles fueled by fresh, painless power, he was unstoppably fast. He grabbed, he aimed, he shot.

Down went a second monk. A third lunged at Lizl, a fourth at Aeduan. He sidestepped, circling behind. A kick to the knee brought the monk to her knees. Then he grabbed her head and spun. Her neck snapped. He claimed her sword.

The next five deaths smeared together. Intestines and screams and blood to crush all senses. No emotions, only death. Until Aeduan found himself facing Lizl—and she faced the remaining four.

The lead monk wore a veneer of rage at the center. His head swung side to side, over and over as he growled, “You should not have done this. You should not have done this.”

Muscles fueled by magic, Aeduan vaulted at the nearest two monks. His blade sliced down, then up on a diagonal and across. Wide, circular movements that would have been too slow were he not a Bloodwitch.

But he was a Bloodwitch, and the two monks fell a heartbeat later, ribbons of red streaking the air where they collapsed.

Aeduan rounded toward the remaining monks—except it was only the leader now, for Lizl had hacked apart the other.

“You should not have done this,” he repeated. “You should not have done this.”

Aeduan thrust. The monk parried, a clash of steel. Again, again, Aeduan attacked, and each time the monk defended. A good fighter—Aeduan remembered that from Ve?aza City.

But good fighters did not always make good men.

Three more swipes, three more parries, and at last Aeduan caught the monk on his wrist. A spin, a yank, and he cut the man’s hand from his arm. Sword and hand hit the earth.

Aeduan reared back his blade, ready to stab the man through the heart.

Lizl beat him to it. In a graceful arc that carved through flesh and muscle and spine, she cut off the man’s head.

It flew several feet through the air before thumping to the soil.

Then the man’s knees crumpled beneath him, blood gushing, and his headless remains toppled over. One more body to add to the mass grave. One more death to feed the night.

THIRTY-NINE

Why did you lie to me?

I did not.

You said you sent 5,000 soldiers and sailors to your northern borders. My scouts report over 10,000 are on the way.

I did not send those forces.

Someone did.

And I can guess who.

* * *

“Who did this?” Vivia sent her gaze around the room. Fourteen officers from the Royal Navy and Soil-Bound stared stonily back. At her command, they had gathered at a long table in a fortified room at the Sentries of Noden.

No one had spoken since she had walked in. So she asked her question again: “Who did this? Troops do not move without orders, and I want to know who gave them.”

A soil-bound general at the table’s opposite end was the first to speak up. “We all did,” she said. “Exactly as we were instructed to do.” She withdrew a crumpled letter from her forest green coat and slid it across the table.

The iris blue wax had been torn, but even ten paces away, there was no mistaking the royal seal. Vivia extended a hand, lips pressed thin while she waited for the officers to hand the letter down to her.

When at last it reached her, she tore it open. And as expected, her father’s handwriting glared up at her. It was a detailed missive, listing all the specifics he had described to her.

And it was dated a week ago.

“I did not give you these orders. I, who still maintain the role of Admiral.” She dropped the page to the table. No slamming, no gales of temper. She was the bear in the forest who did not need to roar; whose sheer size and strength cowed lesser animals. “So explain to me why any of you obeyed.”

“The King Regent,” a new general began.

“Is no longer in power,” Vivia finished. “He is no longer Regent, and he has not been Admiral in several months. So tell me why”—she snatched up the paper again and rattled it at them—“did none of you come to me when my father began planning? Why did none of you think to inform me of the messages coming from the watchtowers?” Even as she asked this, Vivia knew what the answer would be.

They had not informed her because they had not wanted to.

The armed forces of Nubrevna had followed Serafin Nihar for years. Decades, even. Through war time and truce time, through battle and siege. What was Vivia compared to that?

I am Queen.

“Fix this.” Another shake of the letter. “And fix it fast. Call the troops back, mobilize them to defend Lovats, and pray that we are not too late.”

None of the officers reacted to this command. No Hye, sir! or crisp salutes. No apologies or explanations for why they had so easily, so willingly changed course. In fact, every officer at the table acted as if she had not spoken at all.

In that moment, Vivia realized it was worse than she’d ever feared. She had been so focused on protecting the city—she had been so intent on doing what she felt was right, on what she knew the infrastructure of the Lovats plateau would demand—that she hadn’t seen this coming. Now, she had a full mutiny on her hands, and her own father had lit the first match.

Share the glory, share the blame.

Her confirmation came a heartbeat later, when a Second Admiral, black hair streaked with gray, said, “The vizers came to us an hour ago.” No expression. No inflection. “Vizer Quihar, Eltar, and Quintay. They informed us that your crown has been withdrawn and the King Regent rules once more.”

“Ah.” It was all Vivia could say. The only sound or breath she could muster. The world had fallen apart around her and now the Hagfishes were dragging her to Hell.

It mattered none that she had stolen an arsenal of Marstoki weapons for her troops. It mattered none that she had captained a ship of her own and earned the loyalty and love of her crew. It mattered none that she had found the under-city and filled it, and it mattered none that she had been born to her title and the underground lake had chosen her.

When Serafin Nihar, former King Regent and former Admiral to the Navy and Soil-Bound, had beckoned, these soldiers and three vizers had answered that call.

“So,” she said quietly. “You will not call back our forces to defend Lovats?”

Three officers shook their heads. Two said, “No, Your Highness,” and the remaining nine simply regarded her with bored eyes.

“All right then.” She pushed away from the table. “Just know that when the city of Lovats falls to the Raider King, it will be your guilt to bear—and the Fury never forgets.”

No one stopped her and no one saluted when she left the room. If her threat—a promise, really—bothered the officers, none gave any indication. But Vivia knew she had spoken the truth.

Her father might be experienced on the field, he might understand wartime tactics in a way that Vivia would willingly admit she did not. But he did not know her city. He did not know the people crowded into the streets. He had never walked the Skulks or served the hungry at Pin’s Keep. He had never ridden the waves of the Cisterns, or explored the under-city.

He was a transplant from Nihar who had married into power. Who stole speeches and titles and glory that were not his, and the right to rule did not live inside his veins.

Yet despite all that, it had taken only a few words to three vizers and a few words to the armed forces. Between one ring of the chimes and the next, all of Vivia’s power—all of her plans and careful protections—had been yanked out from beneath her.

She should have seen it coming.

She hadn’t, though. Not in the least.