“Foldrey made a choice to protect you because he loved you. When you love someone like that, you don’t think. You act.”

“I loved him, too. But I never told him.”

“He knew.”

“It’s not the same.” Water beaded on his eyelashes. “It’s not enough.”

The rain kept pouring. Ranka’s fingers pruned, and gooseflesh rose on her skin. The trees groaned around them, bending under the force of the downpour. Far below, seabirds whirled around the cliffs, screaming their delight.

“I never wanted this,” Galen whispered. He flexed his fingers again. A breeze slipped around them, playful and light, summoned by only a twist of Galen’s hands. “I still don’t want it—why can’t they see that? Why can’t anyone?”

She had no answers for him; she’d long wondered the same.

“My father was a good king,” Galen said quietly. “People loved him, but they feared him too. The first time Father demonstrated storm magic, I was so excited, so ready to learn. I wanted to make him proud. He took me to a farming village—just this tiny little patch of a town, really. They’d been refusing to pay their taxes.” The wind howled. “So he picked three village leaders and drowned them. And his advisors—they just stood there. They let it happen.”

Ranka flexed her scarred fingers. Droplets rolled down them, pooling in her palm.

“Leaders make hard choices.” How many had Ongrum hurt to secure the Skra’s freedom? How many more would she? “They carry that burden so their people don’t have to.”

“I don’t want it,” Galen whispered. “None of them get it. They all just tried to talk sense into me. Father, Mother, even Aramis and Foldrey. They tried to explain the reasoning, as if I were too stupid to understand that if you let one village out of paying, the rest would follow suit. People would starve. I know that.” Galen’s mouth trembled. “But I don’t want to drown people. I don’t want to smash ships or call hurricanes down on witches. I don’t want to rule at all. I never—I never asked for this. For any of it.” His voice was so, so small. “I can’t be what they need me to be. I tried, Ranka. But I can’t.”

Ranka’s heart ached for him. They were so different—the boy groomed for his magic, the girl whose power erupted out of her. Galen had spent his entire life shying away from violence, tempering the magic in his veins, knowing the weapon they’d forge him into lest he set his power free. But Ranka had been reborn amid fire and blood. She was ruled by the death in her veins, had accepted her role of monster long ago.

She’d never been given a choice. Not really. But Galen—Galen had one yet.

“Then don’t.”