All these years, her father had said he only wanted what was best for her, that he only cared for her sake. And all these years, she had believed him.

When she reached her boat several minutes later, her guards tried to join her. She waved them off. Then she boarded her boat, summoned her tides, and pushed off into the Waterwitched currents that led to the southern water-bridge.

She no longer felt attached to her body. No longer attached to dry land. It was not the officers who would drown—it was her. She was already drowning. Already sinking beneath the waves, watching the sunlight vanish, until soon, there would be nothing left but Noden’s Hagfishes and a final lungful of air.

She’d done it all wrong. She had been too much like her mother, exactly as the High Council had feared. The queen by blood, they had said about her mother, but with madness in her head. They had wanted Vivia to be like Serafin, for whom command had come as easily as breath. They had wanted bluster and confidence and a rage to bend their enemies.

Vivia supposed it only made sense that the Royal Navy and Soil-Bound officers had wanted that too. Even after she had laid out the truth of the city’s infrastructure before them, even after she had spent hours forming a detailed strategy for protecting Lovats and slowing the Raider King—even after that, a single barked command from the King Regent had sent them all snapping into line.

At some point, Vivia did not know when, tears began to fall. Hot, angry tracks that propelled her Tidewitchery faster, faster. Wind crashed against her. She dipped around ships, she swayed around ferries, she veered, she skipped, and she rode waves of her own creation.

It wasn’t fast enough, though. Never fast enough. She could not outsail this shame at her heels nor the rage that she had bungled her rule so badly. It was not a pretend rage either, worn to win her father’s approval, nor even a berserking Nihar rage that her father’s family had always been so proud of.

This was a true, heart-shattering, tide-ripping rage. All directed inward, at the truth now laid bare before her: she was not fit to rule. She would never be the one thing she’d fought so hard to be.

She wondered if this was how her mother had felt before she’d jumped.

There was the spot, just ahead. A strip of unassuming stone on the water-bridge where her mother had finally decided the shadows were too much. That only in death could she understand life, and that Noden’s court would be an easier solution than the weight of dark life spanning before her.

For thirteen years, Vivia had never looked at this spot when she sailed past. She had always fixed her gaze on the barn swallows, dancing and happy and free.

Today, she looked. Today, she slowed her skiff and stared at the gray stone, cloud-dappled and rough, while two swallows swooped past.

All this time, Vivia had feared that if she looked at this place, that if she did not turn the other way, then she would find her own feet moving toward it. That the shadows inside her would win, and the High Council—and everyone else too—would be right: she had too much madness inside her head to ever be Queen.

As a child she had tried to blame Merik for what Jana had done. Somehow, if it was Merik’s fault, then it could not be Vivia’s. And then the same fate could not befall her. The bludgeoning in her chest would not win.

She regretted what she’d said to him, but never had she regretted it more than right now. With the breeze caressing her face, with the water lapping and kind. For she felt no urge to follow her mother off the edge. She felt only the hollow grief she had always worn, and nothing—neither Noden nor time—could take that away.

It had not been Merik’s fault their mother had jumped. Nor had it been Vivia’s own doing. Jana had died because she had seen no other escape, and there had been no one there who knew how to help her.

All these years, Vivia had thought that she needed to be stronger than her mother, that she needed to fight the darkness to wear the crown. But that was wrong; that was her father speaking.

Jana had been strong—stronger than Serafin. Stronger than anyone realized, for she had lived with shadows every day and still ruled, still guided, still loved. Rather than nurture that strength, though, Serafin had nurtured the shadows. He had undermined and manipulated, just as he undermined and manipulated Vivia now.

For hye, Vivia had shadows inside her too, but they were not like Jana’s. These were all her own, as unique as the foxfire arrangements that glowed beneath the city. And twenty-three years of living with them had made Vivia stronger than anyone realized.

Stronger than Serafin realized.

Only two weeks ago, he had promised, Be the queen they need and soon a true crown will follow. But now Vivia saw he’d never meant those words. He had betrayed her. He had gone behind her back and stolen the power she had worked so hard to earn and worked so hard to use with wisdom and compassion.

Yet she did not need a crown to protect Nubrevna from the Raider King. She could be the queen they needed, with or without one. Just as she could be the queen they needed, even if madness thrummed in her veins—or perhaps because madness thrummed in her veins.

No more backstabbing and mind games, no more seeking approval from people who thought her unqualified or unhinged. No more tiptoeing around a room because women oughtn’t to run, to shout, to rule.

And above all: no more regrets.

Vivia was ready to be Queen.

FORTY

Merik awoke in the night to Esme’s voice. She spoke to someone he could not see, and twice, he thought he heard Iseult, where are you? I cannot find you. Iseult?

But it might have been a dream. Waking and nightmare—there was no separating the two. Dancing skeletons and moonlight on a magic pool. Armies of shadow and knives through the heart. They all smeared together on a canvas.

It was the cold that eventually woke Merik. Ice had spindled into his bones while he slept, and each breath felt thin and sharp. Shivering, he opened his eyes.

“Hello, Threadbrother,” crooned a familiar voice. “Happy to see me?”

Merik blinked—then blinked again, until Kullen came into sharp focus before him. He leaned against the wall, arms folded over his wide chest and a foot hooked behind his ankle. His right ear was mangled and half missing, black blood clotted at the edges. Merik felt no satisfaction at his handiwork.

Frost laced the stones around Kullen, swelling and shrinking in time to his breath. Esme was nowhere to be seen. “You don’t look so good,” the Fury said.

Merik didn’t feel so good, but he would not give Kullen the satis faction of hearing that. He just dragged himself into a groggy sitting position and examined the mud coating his boots, the loose spot where his breeches had come untucked.

The old Merik would have fixed that the instant he saw it. Wherever there were wrinkles, he liked to smooth them out. Now, Merik couldn’t be bothered. His best friend was so near in body, but in mind, he was a thousand thousand leagues away.

For weeks, Merik had wondered if scar tissue would ever grow atop his heart. It was bad enough to lose his best friend to cleaving. Then, he’d had to learn his Threadbrother had also become a monster. The Fury.

Now he knew this wound would stay open and raw forever. Merik missed Kullen. He missed his steadiness, constant as the tide to the sea. He missed Kullen’s awkward grin, and the dry, sarcastic jokes he always cracked. Above all, he missed knowing there was at least one person in the world who understood him, and one person he understood in return.

But Merik did not understand the Fury. He did not know who that creature was, how he had claimed Kullen’s mind and body, or how a Threadbond had saved Merik’s life during the Jana’s explosion. Esme’s magic was beyond his ken; the Fury’s magic even more so.

There was one thing Merik did know, though: if a Northman could return from cleaving, then so could he and Kullen. He had to cling to that hope. He had to believe it could be true.

Kullen laughed, a harsh, crowing sound that chased away Merik’s thoughts. “I must admit, Merik, it amuses me to see you this way, after all those people you put in the irons. How many was it, do you think?” He started ticking off fingers, but quickly gave up and shrugged. “The list is too long to even remember. Discipline, you always called it, but tell me true: you enjoyed punishing the fools, didn’t you? You liked watching them writhe.”

Merik’s teeth ground, but he held his tongue. Even as Kullen pushed off the wall and sauntered closer. Even as ice crackled his way and Kullen declared, “I certainly enjoy watching you writhe. Reduced to the same fate you once doled out. How does the old saying go? You know, the one your aunt always used to say.” He twirled a hand in the air. “Whatever you have done will come back to you tenfold, and it will haunt you until you make amends. Because the Fury never forgets, Merik.” Kullen sank to a squat, a single pace away. “I never forget.”