Page 188 of Vicious Is My Throne

He dropped to his knees and lifted the bottom of my shirt, pressing his lips to my hip, shaking hands gripping me tightly like he couldn’t bear to let me go. “Yours is the same. A mark, but no trace of black.”

His green eyes shone as he gazed up at me. “They’re gone. Every trace of the twins is wiped away. Soon, they’ll be gone forever.” He shuddered against me, his shoulders shaking. “I thought…Gods, Anaria, I never thought we’d end up here. Alive.”

That’s when the truth finally hit me.

We’d survived.

I couldn’t stop the tears as I fell to my knees, dragging him against me, hope rising like a tide. “We’ll have that future after all, Tavion. All of it. Everything we’ve ever dreamed of.”

“It doesn’t seem possible,” he whispered against my throat. “That we get something at the end. I never…” His voice broke and I gripped him tighter. “I never thought I deserved this, you know.”

His beautiful face, always so full of brash arrogance, was filled with quiet pain.

“After all the bad I’ve done.” He pressed tighter into my shoulder, and I felt his tears soak into my shirt. “Especially to you, Anaria. I don’t deserve to be happy. I don’t deserve your forgiveness, I never have.”

“You’re wrong. You deserve it all.” I pulled back and threaded my fingers through his hair, my heart breaking as I searched his eyes and found nothing but grief staring back at me. “We’ll find the happiness we deserve. Somewhere beyond all these regrets, it’s there. Waiting for us. Healing will take time.”

“And we have all the time in the world now.” Raz lounged in the doorway, eyes trailing over me, cataloging everything—the tears, Tavion’s shaking shoulders.

“You’re not supposed to be out of bed.” Raz’s mouth tightened as he swung his furious gaze over to Tavion. “She’s not supposed to be out of bed.”

“Fuck off arsehole. I had to show her.” Tavion rose, bringing me with him, warm, fragrant air blowing through the window behind us. “What she’s done.”

“What we’ve done,” I corrected, still feeling like none of this was real.

“No,” Raz said softly, his eyes shining. “What you did. You’re the one who never gave up. You’re the one who convinced us, time and time again, to believe in your mad plans.”

“Well. First of all, my plans aren’t mad, they are brilliant.” My lips curled up. “And secondly, you are a bunch of stubborn arseholes sometimes.”

I brushed my fingers over Tavion’s cheek, wiping away the tears. “But you’re my stubborn arseholes, so I can live with that.”

78

ANARIA

Ifound Torin hunched over a table in the War Room, surrounded by a mountain of paperwork, looking like she wanted to shuck everything out the window.

“You should watch your posture. That has to be hard on those old, brittle bones.”

The seer tried to hide her smile, but wasn’t quite fast enough. “Glad to see you’re done lounging around like a slug. Nice work on restoring the magic. Coz and Zeph haven’t stopped yapping about your magnificence.”

“That’s because I am magnificent.” I lowered my voice. “But thank you for holding things together here. These past weeks couldn’t have been easy.”

“The city’s been quiet these past days, but no telling how long this will last. Even Southwell is under control, though no one has emerged to replace Trubahn—which is both a blessing and a curse, according to Coz. I think he might take on the role himself, and if he does, gods help us all.” She rolled her shoulders with a distinct crack.

I swallowed around the hard lump in my throat. Rebuilding this kingdom would be fraught with challenges, but I had something I didn’t before. People who believed in me.

A family who would stand by me, no matter what.

“Wipe that dreamy look off your face,” Torin muttered, hands on her hips. “It’s time for you to sit on that throne. Blackcastle needs a powerful ruler, so these people know the city is in expert hands and they are safe. And beyond that, this realm needs their queen.”

New Valarian, we’d decided to name our kingdom.

A nod to the past and a look toward the future.

I raised my eyebrows. “I save the entire world and can’t even take a few days off? If I’d known you were putting me straight to work, I would have stayed in bed another day. Or ten.”

But Torin wasn’t smiling. “Anaria, you can’t avoid this. There are those who want you to fail. Even now, some royals are conspiring against you. We have to move fast, prove how strong you are before the dissenters gain traction.”

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