I scraped the knife up his jaw, drawing blood. “Tell her about Nacea, Winter.”
He flinched at the name. Elise moved toward us.
“Nacea? The old coast territory?” She shook her head. “What does he have to do with it?”
“Everything.” I flicked my blade up and scratched a thin line along the edge of his face.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Winter.
“I found your name with Horatio del Seve’s, and I know your circle was in charge of directing troops.” I looked at Elise, fully seeing her for the first time, and wanted to rip off my damned mask so she could see the hurt and truth in my eyes. See my apology for what I wanted to do to her father. “Tell her, or she’ll hear it from me when you’re dead.”
“The shadows were drawing closer to Erlend—”
“The shadows you released among Alona’s civilians.” I swallowed, unable to stop my disgust from seeping into the words.
“And we chose to withdraw a few troops from Nacea so they could protect Erlend.” He leaned away from my knife. He was too calm, too steady with this happening, and he stared over my shoulder, never at me. “Nacea’s lack of an army unfortunately meant they were ill prepared, and many failed to evacuate in time.”
“Yes, we were very ill prepared for the shadows you didn’t warn us about.” I glanced at Elise, trying to say as much as I could with the motion since I still wore my mask. “I’m sorry.”
“You shouldn’t be,” she said. “He should. I might be too young to remember the politics, but I remember our agreements with Nacea.”
We both fell silent under the cutting, cold voice of Elise. She was utterly unrecognizable in her horror—eyes wide, lips twisted into a sneer, and body reeling back from her father like physical distance could erase the past between them.
“Darling.” Winter recovered before me, sweeping the sword he’d gutted Ruby with to one side. “You really can’t believe—”
“I can believe whatever I damn well please, and if it’s anyone’s fault for making your hand in a massacre seem plausible, it’s you.” She glanced between him and Isidora, gaze falling on Ruby’s crumpled body, before finally looking at me. “Nacea?”
“Nacea had no protection except Erlend soldiers.” I swallowed, the words heavy on my tongue. “And the Erlend lords decided that when the shadows got close, they’d buy time to fortify their lands by withdrawing their soldiers and letting the shadows tear through us like battle fodder. And the names in the letters planning the massacre were North Star, Deadfall, Riparian, Caldera, Coachwhip, and Winter.”
Elise sniffed. She shook her head and leaned back, failing to keep the tears at bay.
“I’m so sorry,” I said quickly. “I never wanted to take your father from you. I never would, but he took my whole family, my whole world. I’m sorry. I am. And this, I didn’t do this.”
I gestured weakly to Ruby’s blood splattered across the room, praying she’d understand.
“I have always done what is best for you and our family, and that woman is not it!” shouted Winter.
Elise shook her head, tears dripping down her face, and eased back toward the door. “The worst part of this is I’m not surprised at all. But thousands. Do you even know how many you killed?”
The tiny little piece of me that still woke up screaming at night and pushed Seve off the roof was shrieking in my mind, anger and need coursing through my veins like blood. I wanted him dead, and I wanted him to suffer.
Elise would hate me. I wasn’t fair at all.
“Winter.” I turned to him, pushing Elise from my mind, and felt the cool wind of autumn whipping through the window at my back. Eastern winds dragging the scent of the sea with them. They’d crossed Nacean lands. Nacean graves. “You want to tell me anything else?”
“No.” Elise shifted toward me, gaze stuck on the bloodstained knife in my hand. “You can’t kill him.”
I sniffed. This was the end then. A home for a home. Life without Elise wouldn’t be pleasant, but I’d live. I could live with her hating me.
Hopefully.
“I’m so sorry,” I said and lunged.
Winter jerked his sword toward me. I raised one arm to take the hit, rearing the other back to tear through his arm. Elise slid between us.
“Stop!” She grabbed my wrist and squared her shoulders, neck even with her father’s blade. She took a step back and forced us farther apart. “Just stop.”
The two of us froze, but Winter didn’t drop his arm. He didn’t even tremble as he held a sword to his daughter’s neck.
“Don’t kill him.” She rubbed her thumb along my wrist, the memory of her warmth and words on my skin rising to the surface. “Trust me.”
“Elise,” Winter started, but she cut him off.
“You don’t speak. I can’t even look at you.” She stepped from between us. “Don’t kill him. People need to know what he did.”
“What?” My knife dropped to his shoulder.
Elise turned to her father slowly and said, “We failed Nacea and you, and I’m sorry, but he can pay with his life in court. Let everyone find out what he did and know it was wrong. You can have justice with that. Trust me. If you kill him like this, no one will know and nothing will change.”
Would it be justice if his death wasn’t by the last Nacean hand? They’d hang him. They’d have to. But she’d be sending her father to the gallows.
“It’s what he deserves,” she said softly to me. “Please, for me.”
She’d no part in this. This was justice, vengeance, everything I’d been breathing for laid out right in front of me, flesh beneath my blade and heart beating at my command. I could stop it. I could end this.
And it was only the beginning. His death would give me everything.
Except Elise. Except Maud. Except my new place at court. No matter what he’d done, they’d never forgive me for killing him. And Elise, Lady, she’d never forgive me for murdering her father. Not after she’d asked me to stop.
Nacea for Elise. A home for a home.
A home Winter didn’t deserve. A comfortable, wealthy lordship he hadn’t earned and should never have kept. He deserved a thousand deaths, the skin stripped from him and a decade of haunting nightmares filled with faceless friends all clamoring for attention. For revenge.
They’d bled me that morning while I watched my siblings die and heard my parents murdered, and there was nothing left in my veins but vengeance.
Till now. Till Elise had seeped under my skin like ink on paper and swept my loneliness away. I could have the home that was taken from me. I could have Winter paraded out for all of Igna to see and watch him hang. I could be Opal, he could be dead, and Elise wouldn’t hate me.
I’d have someone who cared about me—what Winter stole. I could have that back.
I opened my hand, knife clattering at my feet. “I trust you.”
She stepped away from me. Her father surged forward, arms outstretched and sword slashing through my stitched side. I stumbled back, crashing into the windowsill, and he grinned. He tipped me up and over.
And I fell and fell and fell, the image of Elise’s terrified face framed against the night sky scorched into my mind.