“You cannot fathom what I know, girl. Now,sheathe your sword.” A bite in his voice. A hint of a leviathan in his depths.
“No—”
The back of his hand crashed against my face.
I crumpled to the ground. He'd pulled the blow at the last second, enough not to break me. But definitely sufficient to enforce the command to lay down my sabre.
I was staring up at the sky, dazed and unable to force my limbs to work, when a strong hand wrapped around my sword arm and yanked me to my feet.
“Tell me what you see,” Prince Renaud said.
I didn't need to look around me to know. The white stone was awash with red, dark because of the night. And the Prince surveyed it coolly, unfazed and still at full strength. Killing him wouldn't be easy.
Stubborn.
“The result of several generations worth of blood feuds.” I matched his chill, pointed tone, channeling the hauteur my mother could don at the drop of a hat, the effect marred because my head ached, and my words came out slightly slurred.
He shifted his grip, arm sliding around my back to hold me up as if shouldering my weight was the most natural thing in the world. “The result of our inability to change.”
He grabbed the sabrestill clutched in my handand tossed it aside. “Our enduring obstinacy and adherence to norms that almost caused our destruction once. I did not cross the realms and seize this city only for it to bite my hand.”
The dizziness in my head mimicked the effect of two good bottles of wine, plus the hangover the next morning. “There's a whole lot to unpack in that statement but go on.”
“Let me tell you what you see. You see me, having stayed my hand. Do you really believe I could not have ended this fight in the first five minutes? I was sorely tempted.”
It took me two tries to speak. The words I wanted to say were so much more offensive. “Did you want an adult response or my natural one? Right. Never mind—that was a rhetorical question.”
“I asked you what you want, but I'm aware your bloodline is almost genetically incapable of rational thinking.”
He sounded so much likesomeoneI knew. Maybe that was why I kept dropping my guard.
I sneered. “You don't know us.” My head twinged.
“Uncouth? Rude? Reveling in your own banality to the point where your betters wonder if you are little more than barking dogs?” He lifted a shoulder. “Each House must choose its own stamp. But no, Aerinne, you are not rational. I will answer the question of what you want for you.”
I weathered his offhand string of insults without expression mostly because expression took energy, and I had none. “So why ask me a question you know the answer to?”
“So you admit the answer to yourself. What you want is peace. What you'll do with that peace, I don't quite know. But this—” his gaze traveled over the battle “—this was never your ambition. It was never even your mother's.”
“Don't speak of her.” Another twist of pain in my head. I grit my teeth through the pulse.
His arm tightened around me. “I knew Maryonne for far longer than you, girl. I'll speak of her if I wish, and you will listen.”
Anger gave me a jet stream of strength. “I may be hot-headed, but you're arrogant. You think you know our moves andwillcounter them all.” I pushed away from him and turned, one foot behind the other. “I won't listen to you.”
If I had doubts before, I had none now. Hewouldpay for my mother, for his casual claim of kinship to which hehad no right.She wasmine,grief was mine.
“And if you cared for my mother, as you imply, Danonwould be free!” I screamed the last three words, self-control broken and tossed aside like trash. “I'll leave this field when one of us is dead.”
Eyes narrowed and watchful, he didn't move, the sword in his hand pointed down. “So you Vowed.”
Wind whipped my hair in my face, a sudden steep rise of the night breeze. “I will fulfill my Vow, and not only because I must.”
I took another step back, defiant, uncaring of his anger.
Paused.
And bared my teeth. For a fleeting moment, I accepted what I was.
