I know that.

Robb had blamed himself for so long, he didn’t know what it was like to think, just for a moment, that it hadn’t been his fault. He knew he should have died when Mellifare pulled the trigger, but it was as if his mother had been there waiting the entire time. She could have left. She could have run.

But she hadn’t.

Because Valerios did not run away.

“And where were you?” Robb snarled. “Fleeing like the good little Ironblood you are?”

The lightsword pressed to his throat shook with Erik’s rage. He ground his teeth, unable to find an answer worthy of a Valerio, and Robb knew it the moment he saw the crease in his brows. He’d run—and no one had caught him until now.

“Toriean el agh Lothorne,” Erik said, his voice barely controlled rage. “Glory in the Pursuit.” Then, with a cry, he raised his blade for one last strike.

Robb was helpless. He was pinned to the stairs without any way to block, his sword too far to reach—

His brother’s blade came down.

He felt his mechanical arm move, and he caught the blade in his hand. It heated his fingers and burned his glove away to reveal his metal fingers. His arm—his hand—saved him.

Something clicked then where it hadn’t the last six months. He might have lost his sword arm at the palace, but he had survived.

And he was stronger now because of it.

Erik stared, wide-eyed. “You have a metal arm?”

“Unlike you, I didn’t come out of the coronation unscathed,” Robb replied as the gears in his arm whined, louder and louder, until his grip broke the blade in two.

He . . . hadn’t realized his arm was that strong. Then again, he’d never thought his arm was anything more than a nuisance. He hadn’t let himself accept it, but it was a part of him nonetheless, wires and all.

With Erik stunned, he slammed his foot into Erik’s stomach and kicked him back. Then he pushed himself off the stairs and grabbed Erik by the collar, forcing him up against the wall. An antique Baseren painting rattled with the force. His metal arm smoked, fingers slowly dulling from a vibrant orange, leaving burn marks across Erik’s collar. “Can we stop fighting? We’re brothers, for Goddess’s sake, and there’re bigger things to fight about than whether you have your damn crown. We’re all going to die, Erik, if you don’t give me that file.”

His brother gritted his teeth as if just the thought repulsed him. They were almost the same height now, which was strange to Robb. He had always been shorter—but now that he was at eye level with his brother, he began to wonder why he had been so afraid of him all these years. He looked like any other insufferable asshole in the world, who took and took and never thought about giving back, and Robb pitied him.

But only a little.