Nura spoke instead.
“If the Capital is held by Aviness’s army alone, then maybe you’d have a chance at taking it back easily. But that would mean taking, at the very least, the Gridot, Lishan, Varnille, and Archerath families out of his ally pool.” She gestured to five cities on the map. “They have strong armies and deeper connections within the old blood. Without them, Aviness’s forces fall apart.”
Zeryth nodded. “I think so, too. And so, that will be our approach. Tisaanah will help me topple Varnille and Archerath from power. And you, Max, will take Gridot, Lishan, and a few other of these little strongholds to the west.”
Tisaanah and I exchanged a quick glance.
“Absolutely not,” I said.
“If you gain these people as your allies,” Tisaanah said, “you will be stronger than if you simply conquer them. You absorb their strength instead of destroying it.”
I could tell that even Tisaanah understood what she was suggesting was unrealistic. But I knew Ara’s upper class well enough to know that it was more than unrealistic — it was outright lunacy. These families? They would sacrifice their own lives and thousands of their soldiers’ before they would bend the knee to someone like Zeryth.
He gave us a look that said he knew it, too. An ugly realization settled over me. After everything, this was what it was all for. The Orders’ manipulations. Tisaanah’s Blood Pact. This was the war she would fight. The servitude he would demand. She would kill in Zeryth’s name.
And I wasn’t about to leave her side. Not for a minute.
“I’m here to keep Reshaye under control,” I said. “That’s all. I’m not about to tramp across the damned country collecting lordships for you.”
“Let’s drop the pretenses. Everyone in this room knows why you’re here. And it’s not because of Reshaye.” He leaned forward, his smirk fading into something sharper, a look that made my blood boil. “I’m not too prideful to say that you’re a great fighter, Maxantarius, and a phenomenal Wielder. Any army would be honored to have you on their front, mine included. But.” His lip curled. “If you step a single hair out of line. If you undermine me. If you so much as look at me in a way I disapprove of, I will make these next five years the worst ones of Tisaanah’s life. And I do know the scale of all that implies, considering her past.”
Beside me, I heard Tisaanah let out a slow breath through her teeth.
My fury ran so hot it scalded the insides of my veins. And for a moment, I genuinely considered the possibility of killing him — right here, right now. I could take him. And was there anyone in this room who would stop me?
Zeryth’s gaze sparkled, in that particular way that I’d come to learn meant he knew exactly what I was thinking.
“There’s one more thing I’d like to show you.” He reached down and unbuttoned the wrist of his jacket, then wrenched the sleeve up to his elbow. There, on his forearm, was a tattoo. I did not recognize the design — similar to a Stratagram, but more twisted and chaotic, the lines twining through the circle’s center and growing so dense that individual shapes were indistinguishable. Circling its edge were tiny, jagged figures that looked as if they could be words, though not in any language I’d ever seen before. The black ink bled angry, mottled purple into Zeryth’s albino skin.
“Nice,” I said, flatly. “Very pretty, Zeryth. Looks infected, though.”
“This isn’t just a tattoo,” he said. “It’s a spell. It combined my blood, and Tisaanah’s. And it binds her life to mine. If I die, so does she.”
My heart stopped beating. My gaze shot to Tisaanah, just long enough to see her eyes go wide.
“Impossible,” I barked.
Zeryth smiled as he rolled down his sleeve. “Nothing is impossible, Max. The people in this room should know that better than anyone, by now.”
Impossible, a part of me still insisted — the part of me that wanted so desperately to be right. It can’t be done. Impossible.
Tisaanah moved so silently I didn’t realize that she had stepped forward until she was leaning past me, pressing her palms on the table as she stretched towards Zeryth. Her face was utterly calm, and yet, her eyes were so bright, like something inside of her had lit on fire.
“I signed your pact,” she said, her voice quiet and sharp. “I will fight your war. I have no choice in this. But know that I’ve defeated more powerful men than you, Zeryth, and in the end their desire for power only made that easier.”
“It’s nothing personal,” Zeryth said. “I’m realistic about the risks I face. I’m protecting myself. Don’t pretend any of you would be doing anything different, if you stood in my place.”
I wouldn’t. And that’s why I would never stand where he stood.
His fingers brushed the crown, absentmindedly, and a flicker of thoughtful uncertainty crossed his face.
But then that smile was back, easy and careless. “Do you know what power is?” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Power is sitting here alone in a room with four people who want to kill me, and knowing I’ll walk out alive.”
Chapter Six
Tisaanah
I remembered very little about my life in Nyzerene before it fell. I was so young when we fled, my lost country reduced to fragmented sensations burned into my memory. Sometimes, moments that I didn’t realize I remembered would come roaring back at the most unexpected times. Now, as Max, Sammerin, and I strode through the hallways of a beautiful house that I had never been to before and yet recognized more clearly than my own homeland — as Reshaye roiled and hissed in the back of my mind, awakened by the sheer force of my anger — one of those lost images bloomed to life.
My father had kept a little, useless metal contraption on his desk, a series
