My eyes focused on the man who had spoken, and my racing heart skidded to a halt.
Tall and lanky, his slender frame was topped with shimmering blonde hair, his attractive face ruined by the vitriol carved into his fair-skinned features.
But there was more than hatred behind his eyes—there was doubt.
Fear.
Because he recognized me just as surely as I recognized him.
And the last time we’d met—in a dark alley in Paradise Row, where I’d watched him murder his own son and his mortal lover in cold blood despite my pleas for mercy—he had walked away bleeding, and I had walked away alive, an ending neither of us could have predicted.
“You,” I growled, narrowing my eyes. “I will happily fight you, you murderous piece of sh—”
“I will Challenge her.”
I whipped around to the new voice, this time from a face I didn’t recognize, though one look at the simpering green-haired twins beside him told me everything I needed to know.
“On behalf of House Byrnum, I, Roderyck Byrnum, wish to Challenge Diem Corbois as unworthy to wear the Crown.”
My stomach lurched. This was not good, at least if I believed his parents’ claims that he was one of the most powerful Descended in the realm.
But also not entirely unexpected. I had known that by encouraging Lily to reject the betrothal, a Challenge might come from House Byrnum. Even knowing this result, I wouldn’t have changed a thing.
I took a deep breath.
You can do this, I told myself. You can—
“I will Challenge her.”
This time, I recognized neither the voice nor the House, one of the nameless few I’d met with at the height of my grief, when I’d been little more than a sentient ball of dark, vengeful despair.
“I will Challenge her,” another called out.
“I will Challenge her.”
One at a time, they stood.
One at a time, they declared me unworthy.
Five Houses became ten, then fifteen, then eighteen. When only one House remained, their members all clad in matching glittering red, I turned to face what I knew was coming with my head held high.
“On behalf of House Hanoverre, I, Jean Hanoverre, wish to Challenge Diem Corbois as unworthy to wear the Crown.”
Every last one of the Twenty Houses, save my own, had raised a Challenge. The Lumnos nobility stood unified against me.
And then the bad somehow got worse.
The Challenges kept coming, this time from the smaller Houses that did not make up the elite Twenty. Then, just to add insult to injury, there came Challenges from Unhoused Descended, who spoke for no clan at all.
This wasn’t just a Challenging—this was a Humiliating. Though I would only have to fight one of them, the message would linger. This was an outright rejection of me and everything I stood for. A vote of no confidence.
A declaration of war.
It was that realization that finally pierced my armor and sliced straight through to my heart.
After meeting the Corbois and finding people I cared about enough to now call family, I had allowed a tenuous hope to grow inside me that I could find some way to end this war not in bloodshed, but in reconciliation and common ground.
But these people did not want unity, they wanted power—and every last one of them was willing to kill me to keep it. Even if I survived today, what peace could I possibly achieve with a people so unified in their hatred?
My hope withered away, a flower wilting beside a flame. Whether I died today, or at the hands of one of the assassins they would surely send my way, the Descended of Lumnos had marked me for death.
My blood went cold. What if they couldn’t get to me, and they came after Teller instead? What if they came for Luther and every Corbois who had ever shown me kindness? I couldn’t protect all of them forever.
Maybe the only good I could really accomplish was to accept death today and spare the people I loved from meeting the same fate I’d brought down upon my father.
I turned my eyes to the royal box. Luther’s face was pale, his expression conflicted. “I’m sorry,” I mouthed, wishing I had more to offer him for all he had done. He shook his head and stepped forward as if he might come to me. I closed my eyes and turned away.
I could not bear to see any more. My heart would not survive seeing my brother’s reaction, and if I had to look at the smug satisfaction that surely illuminated Remis’s face, I might commit a murder before the match even began.
My shoulders slumped, my chin dipping low. I took a deep breath and awaited the decision on which Challenger would seal my fate.
“I will Challenge her.”
The crowd gasped.
A young girl screamed in protest.
I would have joined them in their shock, had I not been recoiling in pain at the sharp flare of magic against my wrist.
The sign of a bonded bargain breaking.
“On behalf of House Corbois, I, Luther Corbois, wish to Challenge the Queen.”
Chapter
Forty-Two
The royal box was in chaos.
Lily was screaming, weeping. Luther knelt in front of her with her hands in his, whispering something in her ear that was only making her sob even harder.
Eleanor and Alixe stared at each other in wordless shock. Remis was holding his wrist and gaping, eyes wide with panic, Garath gesturing wildly at his side.
Taran was the only one who did not look surprised. He watched Luther and slowly hung his head in what looked like sadness—or perhaps disappointment.
Around me, the arena exploded in frenzied excitement. No Crown had ever received a Challenge from their own House. For it to happen to me now, after being Challenged by every House—and by the man who had just kissed me to claim me as his…
If they had come here for entertainment, they were certainly receiving it.
I was so frozen in disbelief that I didn’t notice Teller running to my side until he shook me to get my attention.
“D—what’s going on? Did you two plan this?”
I shook my head numbly, eyes still fixed on the royal box. Lily clutched Luther, weeping against his overcoat, while he and Taran had a heated conversation. Taran’s expression had shifted to red-faced fury, and he jabbed a finger in my direction while shouting words at his cousin I couldn’t make out.
“Diem,” Teller hissed again. My gaze sluggishly dragged to his, the world moving too slowly around me.
He looked terrified. Lost.
Some still-functioning part of my brain told me to comfort him, but what could I say? What words could possibly ease this horror?
“I’ll have to fight him,” I mumbled in a daze. “Remis has to choose the most powerful Challenger. That’s Luther. I… I have to fight Luther.”
And one of us has to die.
“You can’t. Talk to Remis, there has to be another way.”
My attention shifted back to House Corbois. Luther stood preternaturally still as Remis screamed at him while his wife struggled to hold him back. A cold, cruel smile rose to Luther’s lips at his father’s rage.
“He betrayed me,” I breathed. “Luther wanted revenge on his father. He’s using me to get it.”
I didn’t quite believe the words, even as they came out of my own mouth.
I glanced down at my wrist, still aching with the phantom pain of the bonded bargain snapping apart. “My agreement with Remis is broken. His magic is gone.”