Page 69 of The Endless War

Bermin nocked the arrow, drawing the bow’s string. “I don’t intend to give her that chance. I will reveal the depths of Zarrah’s depravity and treason to all of Valcotta. The Empress will have no choice but to recognize me as her heir, and at the head of her armies, I will be the one to burn Maridrina to ash. When the time comes, I will be the Emperor of Valcotta, and all will bend the knee to me.” Bermin took aim. “All I need do is kill the Veliant king.”

“Like an honorless coward.” Keris grinned up at him despite the terror threatening to drown him. “What a legacy, Your Highness. To be remembered for hiding at a safe distance to shoot a man bound at the wrists and on his knees.”

Bermin didn’t answer.

“Come down here,” Keris crooned. “Unless you’re afraid to fight me, man to man?”

“You think me a fool to be so baited?”

Yes,Keris thought. And though he knew that the death that would come to him would be far more painful than an arrow to the heart, he said, “I challenge you, Bermin Anaphora.”

A smart man would have loosed the arrow and been done with it, but Keris had legions of brothers who thought exactly like Bermin, and he knew that pride would ever trump wisdom.

“You aren’t worth a fight, but I will saw off your head myself. Let your rotting eyes serve as more proof.” Bermin cast aside his bow. “Get me a rope.”

Keris’s nerve wavered, because he’d seen his father saw men’s heads off. Had listened to them scream, then choke on their own blood until he reached their spinal cord. It was slow and miserable, and Keris was fairly certain that the victims were still able to see when his father finally held up their severed heads.

You can do this,he told himself.They’ll be over the channel by now. Will be making their way to the coast, where Lara’s ship is nearby. Just buy them a bit more time.

Sweat dripped down his spine, his breath coming in rapid pants as the soldiers secured a rope and tossed it over the edge.

This was it. There were no more words to help him escape what was to come.

Heart in his throat, Keris watched as the Valcottan prince climbed down a rope, jumping the last bit to land with a splash in the water. Swimming easily to the beach, he waded out of the channel, clothes clinging to his massive form as he drew his sword. In the shadow of the cliff, Keris could now see the other man’s face clearly in the torchlight, feral delight gleaming in his dark eyes.

Bermin was going to enjoy this.

“The arrow would have been more pleasant,” Bermin said, stopping before him. “Your desire to live a few minutes more will cost you dearly.”

“It would cost me more to die swiftly.”

The Prince spat into the water. “You will be only the first to fall to my blade, Veliant. Soon all of Maridrina will bleed.”

Motion on the cliff caught his eye, and Keris smiled because, of course, she hadn’t listened. He’d been an idiot to believe that she would. “If that was your goal, you shouldn’t have killed Kian and his men.”

“And why is that?” Bermin asked, resting his sword blade against Keris’s neck.

A wild laugh escaped Keris’s lips as screams filtered down from the cliff tops, but it was a clarion voice from behind him that answered. “Because they might have fought for you, cousin. Whereas now, you must fight me alone.”

BERMIN’S EYES LATCHEDon Zarrah as she walked down the beach toward him, the clash of weapons and screams of the injured as battle raged on the cliff tops seeming distant with her cousin’s sword pressed to Keris’s neck.

“You honorless bitch,” her cousin hissed. “You attack your own people. Does your treason know no bounds?”

Zarrah made a face and swung her spear in her hand, limbering her tense muscles. “Pot calling the kettle black, cousin. You made a deal with these Valcottans”—she gestured to the fallen corpses—“and then slaughtered them.”

“They were convicts.”

“If they weren’t worth giving your word to, you should not have done so.” She lifted her chin. “You’re the honorless one, Bermin. Proven again by the fact you’d kill a bound man on his knees.”

Bermin’s face twisted with disgust. “He’s the King of Maridrina, Zarrah. Valcotta’s mortal enemy. The same blood as the man who murderedyourmother and my aunt, never mind the countless other Valcottans the Veliants have slaughtered. You swore an oath to fight tothe death in the Endless War, but you slaughter Valcotta’s soldiers to save yourlover.”

“I swore an oath to defend Valcotta against her enemies,” she corrected. “To protect our people and raise Valcotta up high, which isexactlywhat I’m doing. As long as the Endless War rages on, Valcotta suffers needlessly, and there is no sacrifice I won’t make to stop it in its tracks.”

“Liar,” her cousin said with a smirk. “My mother might be insane, but she was right to say that this one”—he tapped the edge of his blade against Keris’s neck—“has a hold on you that will never cease until he’s dead. You are his plaything, his puppet, and if you ever sat on the throne, he’d rule Valcotta from between your thighs.”

Zarrah clenched her teeth, refusing to allow him to goad her.

“Are you that good?” Bermin asked Keris. “Or is she just so desperate for love that she’ll take it where she can get it?”

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