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And I let the head fall with a sickening wet thump, rolling down the stairs right into his former body. Fittingly, the position it had fallen into did indeed resemble a bow of prostration.
The nobles stared. The world held its breath.
I held my breath, and tried desperately not to show it.
I was walking a very thin line here. Vampires respected brutality, but only from the right people. I wasn’t one of the right people. Maybe I never would be.
If one or two refused to bow, I could handle that. But Heir Mark or no, I needed some loyalty from my nobles, especially if I ever wanted to get out from beneath Bloodborn control. If all of them refused—
The door burst open, the slam against the walls splitting the silence like a sword through flesh.
Vale stood in the doorway.
I never thought I would be relieved to see that man. But Ix’s tits, I had to physically stop myself from letting out a sigh of relief.
He took in the scene—me, the crowd, the advisors, Martas’s bloody body—and immediately strung together what he’d just walked into.
He strode purposefully into the room, so fast his long dark waves flew out behind him. The crowd parted for him. A woman followed him, then lingered at the back of the crowd, looking around the throne room with wide, curious eyes, curly chestnut hair piled atop her head.
“My king,” Vale said, as he approached the dais. “I apologize for my tardiness.”
Before me, he immediately dropped into a smooth kneel—right at the center of the crowd, right into the pool of Martas’s seeping blood.
“Highness.” His voice boomed through the throne room. He knew exactly what he was doing—knew to make himself as visible as possible. “You have my sword, my blood, my life. I swear to you my loyalty and my service. It is my greatest honor to serve as your Head of War.”
A strange echo of the past in those words. The last time I’d heard Vale say them, it was to Neculai. Inwardly, I cringed at hearing them directed at me.
Outwardly, I accepted them as if they were nothing but what was expected.
I lifted my gaze to the others, waiting.
Vale was a noble. He was respected. He’d just tipped some precarious scale.
Slowly at first, and then in a wave, the other nobles lowered into bows.
This was exactly what I’d wanted. Needed. And yet, the sight made me so viscerally uncomfortable. I was all at once very conscious of the crown on my head, worn by centuries of kings before me, kings who were cursed to rules of cruelty and paranoia. Kings I had killed, directly or indirectly, just like they had killed the ones who came before them.
I couldn’t help myself. I glanced over my shoulder again—just for a split second, barely long enough for anyone to notice.
Oraya’s eyes skewered me. Like she was seeing that little shard of dark honesty, stripped bare.
I looked away quickly, but that stare stayed with me, anyway.