“I should leave you here,” Cassius growled. “How long do you think you would last against the Stormlord without me? How long before he would have you? Do you think he would kill you slowly? Keep you around to torture and play with? I hear he’s viciously mad. Maybe you will get lucky and he’ll take your head in one clean cut, and mount it on the battlements to make a display of you like he has done to so many of our soldiers. I’m done being your pawn, old man. I should have gone my own way the day you got our home destroyed.”

His father swallowed, lifting his chin to meet his gaze head-on. His eyes were watery—from the drink, no doubt, not from emotion. Cassius knew his father had few of those.

“You are wrong if you think he will stop at me,” the king spat. “The things you have yet to learn about this world could fill an ocean.”

“Then perhaps it is time for me to venture out and see if I can swim. Good luck keeping your head above water without me.”

Cassius stormed from the throne room, out into the hallway of the dome beyond, fury stirring in his blood. Soldiers and servants alike were working on cleanup, and he wove between them, determined to put as much distance between himself and his father as possible.

Cassius was not, by nature, someone who second-guessed things. He made a decision, and he charged forward. But in recent weeks, he found his mind forging the same paths again and again—asking the same questions.

What if they had never come here? Would the Stormlord have thought them dead? Or did he have some way of knowing? Of tracking them? Was it only his father’s greed for another kingdom that had brought him upon them once more? Cassius liked power, but he was not naive enough to think becoming king was the only way to gain it. There were a hundred different lives he could have lived if he had done as he threatened, if he had split from his father on the day his homeland fell. With the magic he possessed, he could have gone anywhere, seen anything, but instead he was here, doing this all over again—watching the world fall, piece by piece.

Perhaps this time he would not stick around for the end. What did he care for this land, for these people? And thanks to his father’s careful raising, he had never grown too affectionate of anyone else in his family either—emotions were vulnerabilities, after all. There was nothing at all tying him to this place.

When he re-entered his rooms, he ripped at the buttons on his shirt, needing the fabric off and away from his burns. He hissed as he pulled the fabric free, opening up wounds that had already clotted.

Let it bleed. The pain helped dull his rage.