He swatted her. Cold, callused hands in the dark. “You cannot help me.”

At first, Safi thought he meant it was too late for him. That he had lived here too long, so only death waited ahead. But then he added, “You ruin everything you touch, Safi. Leave this place. Go.”

She inhaled slowly, sulfur harsh in her nose and Eron’s words harsh in her ears. A familiar knife slid into a familiar hole above her heart, but for once, it did not hurt her. For once, the knife sliced in … then sliced right through. Because all these years, she’d misread him. All these years, her magic had fed her lies.

Only with her powers removed had she finally seen the truth.

“No,” she said quietly. Then stronger, harder: “No. You don’t mean that, Uncle, and you never have. It was all an act. I see that now. A stupid act designed to make me hate you—and I do hate you. You succeeded in that.

“But I also know you did it and are still doing it to protect me. All those years, you were the distracting right hand to an emperor who wanted me dead. And all those years, it worked. He never looked my way while you assembled your plan—a vast plan that might have started out pure, but has grown so terrible and wrong along the way.

“Which is why I’ve done it my way, Uncle. Do you hear me?” Safi pushed to her feet and grabbed him. Rough, intractable, she gripped him as if he were a child and heaved him to his feet. “I completed your plan with no bloodshed and no pain. The Hell-Bards are free—you are free—and Henrick is deposed. But if you think I’ll rule as an Empress, then you’re going to be disappointed.”

Eron didn’t resist her pull—not that he could have. His muscles had atrophied in the month here, and the instant he was on his feet, coughing overtook him. It was blood spraying from his mouth. Splattering to the stones as he tried to curve away from her.

Safi was stronger, though, and she hauled him toward the exit. Toward the light. When at last his coughing had subsided, they were almost to the stairs. Clean air brushed down, cold and crisp and alive. “Can you manage these steps or will I have to carry you the entire way?”

Eron growled, a sound Safi had once loathed but now found thoroughly delightful. He would heal in time.

“What do you mean,” he rasped, squinting against the natural light. “What do you mean you will not rule?”