Page 128 of Merciless Is My Crown

Cosimo winced, realizing he’d been tricked. “Dying for a cause isn’t a solution. Not if there’s another way.”

“Maybe we should all die,” I said quietly. “Maybe gods shouldn’t exist at the expense of all other living things in this world.” Tavion stroked his hand down my back, a show of support, a calm, reassuring touch that soothed my raw nerves into resolve.

“The king isn’t our real enemy,” Tavion pointed out. “This won’t be over until the Oracle and Corvus are gone.” His hand rested on the small of my back, warm and steady. “If the only way to do that is to die in the process, I say it’s worth it.” I drank in that fierce, quiet smile. “I’m all in, wife. I already told you that.”

Zor and Raz nodded, and that’s all that mattered to me.

They were with me, no matter what the consequences. Even if this ended with all of us dying again, we’d take those two monsters with us this time and end this for good.

“Maybe you’re right,” Cosimo said baldly. “But you aren’t killing the Oracle tomorrow, you’re getting rid of Serpens. How reliable is your inside contact?”

My gaze slid to Torin, and she nodded faintly. “They have their reasons for wanting the king dead, but nothing’s ever guaranteed.”

“Fair enough.” The astrologer pushed heavily to his feet and took the seer’s hand. “I want to go look at the sky for a few hours if you don’t mind. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the stars.”

51

TRISTAN

I’d never believed in fate.

Never believed the godsdamned universe had some grand plan for me or for anyone else.

Any faith I had in this world was ripped from me the day the king took my family, my innocence, my future and crushed everything to dust beneath his booted heel.

But lately…I wondered if all these years…I’d been wrong.

It was hard not to believe in destiny when I looked at Anaria. So full of hopes and dreams and promise. So unafraid of the future. Our princess—because somewhere along the line she’d become mine—was a clever, sure knife, forged to cleave this world apart. To separate the light from the darkness then cast everything that was evil and corrupt into the Pit.

I leaned back against the old crumbling fountain, covered in moss and lichens, the water that had ones flowed so prettily gone for centuries. But this was where my mother used to read to us, and even after all these years, the courtyard was the only spot at Windhaven that brought me peace.

Sometimes I wondered what this place would have been like if there was no Shadow King.

Filled with family, including my aging parents if they’d been blessed with the unusually long lives of our kind. Children. Grandchildren racing through the gardens and woods like hooligans. Flying, perhaps, from tree to tree as they found their wings.

Now there was only consuming silence.

But for the first time, this silence wasn’t a death knell. Not a countdown until I took my last breath or that bastard came back to finish the job for good.

No, now the silence seemed more of a deep inhalation, as if the world was waiting for what came next.

Filled not with dread but anticipation.

Tomorrow…anything could happen tomorrow. It could bring the dawn of a new world, or my last day on this one. Odd to think that way, given I’d lived for so long, but this plan of Anaria’s was dangerous, and…and it would have been nice for someone to know who I really was if things went badly.

But I’d kept my secrets for so long, I didn’t know how to put my deepest scars into words. How to explain the pure evil that was Serpens Centaria. But, I decided, if I did tell anyone my secrets, I would tell Anaria.

My pulse settled into a steady beat at the idea, at the thought of finally untethering myself from six hundred years of survivor’s guilt and hatred for the king who took everything away, and almost like when her soft, warm body was curled so protectively around me, I felt safer.

I sank back into the shadows as voices—low and secretive and rushed—floated through the darkness, feet brushing lightly over the drifted leaves covering the walkways. The seer and the astrologer appeared, out for a midnight stroll.

“That was a mistake,” Torin said, her voice like ragged paper. “You don’t know this girl like I do. She’ll never give up now. She’s too stubborn. She’ll go to the end of the earth to find how to kill Corvus and Gelvira. You should have told her you couldn’t read the language.”

“I couldn’t lie to her, Tor. Not about that.”

“Well, you should have.”

They emerged in front of me, the moonlight picking out the silver strands in Torin’s white hair, her eyes glowing. The astrologer…was like no astrologer I’d ever seen.

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