Page 109 of A Queen This Fierce and Deadly

A woman laughed as she slunk closer, a sword in her hand, one eye gazing at me. Her other eye was gone, an empty hole remaining. “Are you pleased by the horror you’ve wielded?” she purred. “You hold the title of one of the deadliest creatures to ever walk this continent.”

Fae fire filled my hands.

“Lorian, no.”

I blinked. And it was Cavis who was standing in front of me.

He should have moved on. Should be at peace. Was I keeping him here?

“No,” he said, reading my mind. “You’ll know when it’s time for me to go. If you survive that long.”

The soldiers moved toward Cavis, and the sound that came out of me was animalistic. A snarl that ripped through the room.

They would come no closer to him. Or I would make them pay.

The dead paused. But I had a feeling they wouldn’t stay that way for long.

“You’re not holding me here,” Cavis said. “But you’re holding them here. You have to choose, Lorian.”

“Choose?”

He gave me an impatient look, his gaze steady. And he pointed to the bed, where Prisca sat, staring wide-eyed at me.

This war didn’t get to take what we had.

It could take everything else, but it couldn’t take that.

The Bloodthirsty Prince, the dead had hissed. That was the title I heard over and over. I’d once said the title didn’t matter. Perhaps it hadn’t. Until I’d mether.

The woman who’d made me want to be a better man. The woman who made me care.

“Choose, Lorian,” Cavis demanded once more. “Now.”

And I understood.

I might have been given the ability to see the dead, butI didn’t have to see these soldiers. I saw the people I killed because I harbored guilt for those deaths. Because despite my pretense at accepting my title of the Bloodthirsty Prince, I’d always loathed it. And I’d allowed Prisca to defend anyone who dared to name me as such.

It was a weakness—that guilt.

Each and every person I’d killed had deserved to die. They’d threatened my people. Or worse, they’d threatened Prisca.

The man with no hands would have left her hanging in that inn.

The soldier with the gaping wound in his throat had kept her caged in Regner’s cell.

That one there—with half his face missing—he’d leaped at her in Sorlithia, swinging a broadsword at her back.

Realization came swiftly. The name held no power over me anymore. I would no longer feel ashamed of it. Iwasthe Bloodthirsty Prince. And I would keep that title until the day I died.

To keep her safe.

The dead disappeared. Cavis winked at me.

And then he was gone.

“Lorian,” Prisca said carefully. Gods, she was white. And she trembled in our bed. Swallowing self-disgust at the way I’d frightened her, I placed my sword on a chair nearby and strode to her.

She leaped into my arms, burying her face in my neck.

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