Page 142 of Steel Heart Iron Claws

“Disagreement?” Vale hisses the word like a snake.

Artain blanches. “Well?—”

Vale cuts him off as he rests a hand over his anatomical heart brooch. “First, I feel the earth shake. Holes are blown in my castle walls. Then night comes half a day early. The screams are so loud throughout the towers that I had to leave the council chamber, where we’re planning awar.”

Artain looks on the verge of dirtying his pants.

Truth be told, I don’t feel much more confident. I shift from foot to foot. There’s no way of knowing what my father will do. On the one hand, Artain went behind his back to trick us into this game. Vale would be well within his right to bring down one of his axes on Artain’s perfect head.

But Vale isfae. No matter the lengths he went to find me, he’ll always be fae. Fickle. Deceitful. Deadly.

Which has me throwing glances between Tòrr and Basten, trying to calculate my chances of saving us all.

“Now, I have to clean up more of your messes, Artain?” Vale’s voice is dangerously low as he makes his way around a minefield of fallen stones. I snap my attention back to him, breathing through my fear, afraid to hope. He continues, “Every thousand years, you find new ways to fuck up, don’t you?”

“It was only a g—game,” Artain sputters.

Vale continues, “A game? You know as well as I do how deadly the consequences of fae games can be. I heard Sabine recount the terms just now. This was the stupidest gamble you could have made, and now she’s called your bluff.” His arm flies out to grab Artain’s pretty chin. He pulls the sputtering god dangerously close to his face. “Toss the coin.”

Artain’s jaw hangs open as he searches for words. Between smooshed cheeks, he babbles, “If she wins, she could leave.”

“You should have thought of that instead of assuming you couldn’t fail.Idiot.” He shoves Artain away by the jaw with enough force that the God of the Hunt trips backward over a fallen joist, barely catching his balance. “You bound yourself to a fae bargain. Now, you have no choice but to play this to the end. Toss. The. Coin.”

Artain massages his jaw, testing out the joint, as his sculpted chest rises and falls hard. No fae likes to be put in his place—but he knows better than to argue with Immortal Vale.

With an angry sneer, he holds out his fist with the coin. He shoots at me, “Call it.”

“Serpent.”

My voice is barely audible. Basten’s face is paler than I’ve ever seen it. He has to have lost nearly two liters of blood. The makeshift bandage is soaked through. His chest barely moves when he breathes—at any moment, it might not rise again.

“Scepter.” Artain spits bitterly, tosses the coin, catches it, and slams it on the back of his opposite hand.

There’s a terrible moment when I’m afraid I got it wrong. That I didn’t remember which side always landsface-up. Or that Artain somehow knows the coin is fraudulent, is toying with me.

No creature—fae, human, animal—breathes as Artain lifts his hand.

I cry out as the coin toss is revealed in my favor, relief flooding me like sunlight melting through ice. I didn’t realize I was holding my body as tensely as a bowstring until my muscles finally uncoil. The blood rushing to my ears quiets. I press my hands against my sides, feeling the cool, still-damp fabric to ground myself.

“I won,” I murmur.

Artain turns away, letting out a sharp curse.

Woudix’s face flickers with the faintest streak of satisfaction, though I doubt he feels joy for my win—I can’t imagine he cares about me. He doesn’t care aboutanything. Except, that is, the cruel delight of seeing another fae bested.

Iyre and Samaur are silent, still as their statues in the Garden of Ten Gods. If they had the power, I think they’d like to disappear into the background, outside of Vale’s reach with his axes.

They might as well be granted their wish because Vale doesn’t glance at them.

He only stares at me.

“It’s decided, then.” His voice feels strangely distant. Oddly, impossibly calm. “Sabine wins her freedom.”

Something itches up and down my skin, warning me that this is too easy. My father spent twenty-two years trying to find me. He sent a goddess and half an army to bring me back.

Is he really going to let me go?

He signals to a group of soldiers inspecting the southerngate’s damage. Matter-of-factly, he says, “Send a stretcher to take Lord Basten to the infirmary. Fetch the stablemaster to return Tòrr to the monoceros stall—and tell him to do a better job locking up the goldenclaws next time.”

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