I took a deep breath and pivoted to the two female Drae.
Draeryn and Draelyz were on their knees although the fierce expression of insolence my aunt wore was eerily similar to how my eyes narrowed and how my lip curled. As I saw my mother in her, I could also see myself, a weary, bitter, hard version of myself.
Draelyz was hunched over, and with the tattered edges of her tunic riding up her thighs, purple and green bruises were now visible on her pale skin.
“You beat her,” I said, pointing at Draelyz’s legs. Her face and arms were untouched, and my dinner congealed in my stomach. He’d only beaten the lower half of her body. Was it so I couldn’t see until now? Or because he didn’t want to see her mottled skin while he ate? “Why did you beat her?”
“Why do you think?” he asked. He pulled her hair back, revealing her beautiful face, her blue eyes glistening with tears. “Betrayal.”
His favorite word.
But he couldn’t kill them. They were Drae.
In a blur, he brought his hand back and swept it forward, his fingers turning to talons as he sliced.
I shouted in warning.
Draelyz managed a half-whimper before Draedyn’s talons sliced through her chest. Her body pitched forward, and her head bowed.
Draedyn glanced at one of the Druman and pointed at Draelyz. The mule pulled a knife from his belt and a bead of silver dripped to the black stone. I sucked in a breath, my body stiffening, but before I could yell out a warning, the Druman drove the blade through her back. Her body jerked and then crumpled. She fell on her side, seizing.
Draedyn sauntered over to the writhing female kicked Draelyz over the edge of the balcony.
I stared at the spot where she’d disappeared, listening to the flap of her clothing as her body fell below. How could he—
Draedyn straightened with a deep inhale and looked at me with bright eyes. “Before you ask, no, that is not my favorite method of execution. There is something inherently satisfying to seeing heads roll, but I have to work around my limitations.”
How could he kill another Drae? How was that even—
“Possible?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. “Technically, heir-daughter, I’m not delivering a killing blow. The Druman, who you’ll recall do not have such limitations, can wield a blade with Phaetyn blood to kill a Drae, and I’m merely pushing the Drae over the edge. The ground and the Phaetyn blood are doing the killing.”
My stomach churned, and I averted my gaze, desperate to not lose my dinner. I locked on my aunt’s panicked face. Drak.
“Now,” Draedyn said. “It’s your turn.”
“My turn for what?” I asked. He was going to kill me too?
“Draeryn has not only betrayed me but you, her kin as well. She deserves to die.” He frowned as if considering his next words and then added, “She deserves much worse, but I’m willing to forgo the torture to watch you take revenge.”
I glanced at the Druman, but none of them even moved. I stared at the unmoving mules and then at my father who merely raised his eyebrows, as if waiting . . . I shook my head, bile rising in my chest. “I won’t.”
A slow, cruel smile spread over his face. “You will.”
I braced myself for the mind-invasion, only it didn’t come. Aunt Ryn frowned, and I glanced at my father.
“You’re not going to make me?” I asked, scooting closer to my aunt, and then thinking better of it, I backed away. “You’re not going to take over and make me?”
He shook his head. “Then I would be doing it, not you.”
Something about the way he said it made me more nervous, not less.
Ryn remained on her knees, tears falling down her cheeks.
“No,” he said. “But I can force you in some ways.”
My nails on both hands elongated, becoming deadly blades, and I quickly flung my arms behind my back even as my fangs extended and my eyes narrowed to Drae slits. I fought his control over my body, but the tips of my talons bit through my skin.
“There now, all ready,” he said.
I shook my head, refusing to do what he wanted as long as I was in control.
“No?” he asked. “Then you can watch. If you’d acted, you could’ve spared her this.”
A blast of his energy hit me in the chest, expelling the air from my lungs and pushing me against a Druman. He wrapped his arms around me, holding me still. I turned my head away, and another Druman forced my head back toward my aunt and my father. I closed my eyes.
“Even if you do not watch, you will hear every cut, every scream, every time my talons run against her bones. And you will know, heir, you could have spared her pain if you’d acted.”
He was right. I could’ve given her mercy. I couldn’t even shake my head, so I spat. “Don’t blame me for your actions. You’re the one killing her, regardless.”
“Killing? I’m not killing her. I can’t. But you could have. So don’t blame me for your inaction,” he replied, his tone no more riled than if we were discussing the weather.
Ryn screamed, and I clenched my teeth and closed my eyes. Another scream, and another. I whimpered with her, but refused to look as Draedyn mutilated and tortured her.
“Please,” she begged. “Ryn, please.”
I choked on my refusal of a few minutes prior, filled with a new awareness and even a small amount of appreciation for why Tyrrik had moved so quickly when killing Arnik so long ago. Her wet, strangled cries continued, until I couldn’t take her suffering any longer. “Al’right,” I shouted. “I’ll do it.”
The Druman released me, and I collapsed to the dark stone, pounding it with my fist. Tears streamed down my face, blurring my vision, and I let them fall unchecked, hoping they would obscure a bit of the torture Draedyn had inflicted on my aunt already.
I hadn’t even had time to know her.
I struggled to my feet and raised my gaze, hunching back over as I threw up all over the balcony.
The tang of Ryn’s blood saturated the area, and when I stood upright, I was more prepared—if that was even possible—to see my aunt’s flayed body suspended by Draedyn’s grip. His hand was buried in her hair, and she dangled limply in the air. Her chest still moved. She was alive, and her wounds were slowly knitting back together.
“Do I have to cut off her head?” I asked him, choking on another sob.
Draedyn shrugged, and my aunt’s body swayed. Her eyelids fluttered, and her bloodied lips moved in incoherent pleas.
“I don’t care how you do it.”
A mercy. That’s what Tyrrik had said, and now I could see it. My talons emerged again, and I whispered to my aunt, “I’m so sorry, Aunt Ryn. Go to the stars and be with your sisters. Please tell my mother I love her.”
I sliced into my leg, and Draedyn watched, transfixed. “Yes,” he said, his voice filled with eager anticipation. “Taste the reward of vengeance, daughter.”
I glared at him.
“Do it,” my aunt coughed on the ground.
I tore my gaze from the emperor and closed my eyes, sliding my talons into her chest cavity like a hot knife into butter.
Draedyn released her, and her body slid from my talons and crumpled to the stone. I squeezed my eyes shut, listening to the drip of her blood from the end of my talon. I choked on a sob and coughed, opening my eyes to see one of the Druman plunge a dagger, slick with Phaetyn blood, into my aunt’s chest.
“A bit too slow,” my father said with a frown. “I’ll leave a contingency of Druman to make sure you’ve learned your lesson. You will stay with her until she’s dead.”
“No,” I gasped as Draedyn whirled on the spot and left the balcony.
I blinked, disconnected from the scene around me. The Druman moved, time didn’t stop, yet I existed in a muted bubble. There was my vomit. There was my aunt, the woman I was named after, her broken body trembling as her life bled from her. As black cracks marred her face, reacting to the Phaetyn poison in her bloodstream.
Twilight descended, and the air cooled. The Druman retreated into the dining room, leaving me and my aunt on the graphite platform.