Vhalla’s eyes widened, thinking of the unheeded warnings of Lord Ophain: she was the chink in the crown prince’s armor.

“I tried everything I could to formulate an alternative surrender, up until the moment he had you here with a man who was going to kill you if anyone other than my father walked out.” Aldrik stared down at his bloody knuckles, injured from where he’d smashed them against the table. “I traded my hand for your life. The best I could do was to insure your safety as a lady, to see you set for life with my family’s gold. That was my play.”

She stared at him in slack-jawed shock. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t had half an idea of what had been occurring. Vhalla gripped the bottom of her tunic. It was her fault.

“If I, if I’d worn my armor.” Her shoulders quivered. “Then, then—”

“No.” Aldrik sighed, involuntarily softening at her apparent turmoil. “Schnurr would have put the point of his blade as soon through your eye as anywhere else, and I knew you were in no condition to fight after last night.”

“There has to be something else we could have done.” The volume of her voice was inconsistent, changing with each shaky breath.

“Vhalla, enough. It’s over.” Aldrik turned away from her tiredly, his shoulders hunched.

“No!” she cried and scampered in front of him. “No!” She shook her head furiously. “What about everything we said? All we planned?”

“Gone.” Aldrik couldn’t bring himself to look her in the eye.

“How can you be like this?” she snapped.

“How can you?” He turned it back on her. “I thought you knew so clearly how this would end.” Aldrik sneered down at her.

Vhalla’s world stilled briefly from a memory that she had let herself forget, a memory of a woman, a curiosity shop, fire, and red eyes. A future telling that she had shoved away. Tears welled up in Vhalla’s wide eyes. She had known: she would lose her dark sentry. How could she have been so foolish to believe she’d beaten fate in the Pass?

Vhalla absorbed her prince’s face, still handsome to her despite brimming with anger and pain. It was as though all she was to him now was torture. Vhalla shook her head once more, as though she could wake from this living nightmare. Her face dropped into her palms and Vhalla sobbed.

It was broken, all was broken around her. The beautiful yet delicate thing that had been built between them was torn to shreds. She heard the ripping sound of her heart over her tears.

“No,” she repeated, her eyes closed. “No, no! This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen! We—” It was a physical pain, it was an awful wrenching deep in her gut. “I can’t, what do I do now?”

Aldrik hovered, blurry through her tears.

“You’re free now. You do whatever you want.” Aldrik averted his eyes away, his jaw taut. He was struggling with her suffering, struggling with not comforting her.

Vhalla saw it, but she did not care. “Without you?” she pushed him.

“Yes, without me!” he bellowed. “Your purpose here is done!”

“My purpose?” Vhalla gaped. Her voice became shrill, “Was that all I was to you? A-a thing? A conquest? Did you just keep me neatly for your father? Or did you want the honor of saying you took the Windwalker to bed first?” Vhalla yelled petulantly at him. Her words weren’t fair. Life wasn’t being fair.

“How dare you,” he growled, taking a step toward her.

“How dare you, Aldrik Ci’Dan Solaris. How dare you make me believe!” She tugged at the chain around her neck, the watch on display. “How dare you make me love you! How dare you go back on your word!” Vhalla couldn’t stop herself. “I wish I’d never said yes. I wish I had never met you!” she screamed.

“Is that so? Well then, let me assure you that the feeling is mutual, Lady Yarl.” Aldrik drew his height, prepared to give her what she wanted. Somehow he knew as well as she that they needed to break beyond repair. That they couldn’t survive if they could still believe in the love they so obviously still harbored. “You, us, it was all one great lie. None of this was real from the start. You’re right, you were just my trophy.”

“Brother, stop this,” Baldair demanded. The younger prince took a step closer to the feuding lovers, seeing the fever pitch they were being worked to.

“Stay out of this, Baldair!” Aldrik froze his brother to the spot with a deadly stare before returning his attention to her. “Our promises meant nothing, we were nothing.”

Vhalla knew he was lying. She could see it written across Aldrik’s face. But it didn’t absolve his words either. They grated against her heart and tore her insides to pieces. Grief wasn’t logical, it was a self-feeding fire.

“What a pathetic creature.” Aldrik looked on in disgust. “As if I would ever love you. I played you like the naïve girl you were.”

She began to laugh. Lips quivered and shoulders trembled with a new madness slipping out along the undertow of grief. He had to keep pushing. He couldn’t stop when he had clearly accomplished his goal. He had to drive things so far into the ground that there was nothing more than a husk of ash left where they stood.

“You’re wrong,” she rasped. Vhalla had never felt so dangerous. She had a weapon far greater than his lies. “I was the one who played you.”

“What?” Aldrik took a half step away. He saw something on her face, the point that they had pushed to.

Vhalla had half a moment to absorb that fear and regret, if only she’d sympathized with him and stopped her words.

“Our Bond is the biggest lie of them all,” she whispered. Aldrik stood frozen with horrific attention. “I never meant to save you. I thought I was saving Baldair that night. I poured myself into those notes for his sake.”

Aldrik had suddenly been reduced to a lost lamb, his eyes darting between her and a confused Baldair.

But Vhalla couldn’t stop herself now, it was her turn to push too far. It was a sinister sort of pleasure to unleash pain, and she couldn’t refrain. He’d cut her so deeply that she wasn’t thinking about right or wrong, fair or unfair. She wanted to drink from the toxic potion of revenge and unleash the only thing that could slay a liar: the truth.

“What are you talking about?” Neither of them paid attention to Baldair’s confusion.

“You’re not the only one who can lie, Aldrik.” Vhalla laughed bitterly.

Aldrik stared at her in stunned horror. It served as kindling for rage, and she watched his body tense. Aldrik clenched his fists. He jerked his head toward Baldair. “You.”

Baldair held his hands up harmlessly.

“You could not let me have this one joy untainted,” Aldrik snarled.

Vhalla was so startled by Aldrik’s shift back to describing her as his “one joy” that her better sense clicked back in. She hadn’t meant for Baldair to be wrapped into their fight, only to bring Aldrik’s rage further upon herself, upon the fading embers of their futile love. She was crushing her and Aldrik’s future. Not his and Baldair’s.

“Aldrik, he had nothing to do with this.” Vhalla took a half step in front of Baldair, stopping the older prince’s advance.