Page 223 of Mother of Death and Dawn

I smiled. “Not much longer. Unless you give him what he wants.”

“He wants to destroy my country. I won’t let him have that.”

“You act as if it isn’t deserved.”

A sharp, bitter laugh. “Deserved. You want to start throwing those stones, Reshaye?”

“My name is not—”

“You’re the same. I watched your king order the doors locked in the Zorokov estate and slaughter those people.”

“Slavers. They did not deserve to live, even by human standards.”

“What about the Farliones? Did they deserve to live?” She lurched forward, yanking against her restraints. “You killed the only people that ever mattered to me. Children. What had they done? If you had wanted to kill us, the ones who had sinned, fine. I can understand that. But you— what you did—”

The memory rocked through me—the sheer, overwhelming scale of my hurt when Maxantarius had pushed me away in the wake of the greatest gift I’d ever given him. I had been so, so angry, and I had wanted him to have nothing but me, so that finally, for once, someone would see me, and I—

No. No, notI.

Notme.

“That was not me,” I said.

“It was you,” Nura snarled. “It isstillyou.”

I launched myself at her, my hand coming to her throat, and I had to hold myself back from killing her. “It was not me. When I was Reshaye, I was not even a person anymore, becauseyou, becausehumans like you, took everything from me over centuries of torture. Your human mind cannot possibly even understand it. It was not me.”

For a split second, there was pure, satisfying fear in her eyes. But then a smile rolled over her lips, and she laughed.

“You believe that, don’t you?” The smile soured like rotting fruit. “I have spent nearly a year trying to lead a country that your king is trying to destroy. I’ve lost count of how many little bodies I’ve pulled out of the wreckage after another attack, and another, and another. If I’m lucky, they’re already dead. If I’m not, they’re mortally wounded and screaming. On the worst days, I get to see one of those shadow creatures of his rip them apart alive while they cry for their mothers. So no, do not tell me that you’re the good ones, Reshaye.”

“Look at what you have done to the Fey you kidnapped. No creature that deserves life could do such things. Even your own people hate you. Maxantarius and Tisaanah are going to Ara to take your throne from you, did you know that? Your own sickened country is ready to be rid of you. And we are ready to be rid of you, too.”

My fingernails dug into her pale flesh. Shock, then hurt, then anger twitched across her face, and I drank up each split-second of emotion with sadistic glee. It felt almost as good as her throat did beneath my grasp.

I realized that Nura had changed since I had last seen the inside of her mind. Then, she had erected so many steel walls to keep such feelings far, far from the surface. But something had eroded those walls over these last months. I was so close to her that I could see every muscle in her expression and how they all warred with each other to fight her emotions back—but all of it was still there, lingering just beyond her restraint, ready to explode.

Perhaps she had driven herself mad in her desperate pursuit of power, like her predecessor before her.

Good. She should know what it was for her mind to escape her own control.

My fingers tightened.

She struggled to remain conscious, her left eyelid twitching ever so slightly as she glared at me—like it took all of her will to hold that silver-edged stare.

She had no remorse for what she had done. She was a broken creature who weaponized her shattered edges and used them to draw blood over blood over blood. Caduan was right. He had always been right.

But… she was not mine to kill. Meajqa needed that more than I.

I released her. She slumped against the back of her chair, wheezing in a hollow gasp.

“Only one thing will stop this,” I muttered as I straightened. “Until your kind is gone, it will always continue.”

I turned away, but behind me, Nura spat, “You shouldn’t even exist. I felt it the moment you walked into the room. I feel it even now, pulsing from somewhere in this wretched city. Whatever magic your precious king used to create you, it is just as dark as mine. He and I are the same. The only difference is that he succeeded in creating what I haven’t been able to.”

I stopped.

She lies. She always lies.

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