Page 148 of Children of Virtue and Vengeance

All this time I thought I was choosing my kingdom over my heart. I was naïve. Too blind to realize that you were both…

Tears drop onto the parchment, bleeding into its ink. How dare he try to crawl back into my heart after all the pain he’s caused me?

I slap the letters away, wishing Kenyon were here to burn them to ash. But when one letter clinks against the ground, I lift my head. I open up the parchment and a bronze piece falls into my hands. I tilt my head as I lift it by its silver chain.

Then I remember the piece I gave him…

“What’s this?”he asked.

“Something you can hold on to without killing yourself.”

I placed the cheap metal in his hands.

He kept it all this time?

My tears continue to fall as I unfold the parchment.

I know this might end up at the bottom of the ocean. But as long as there’s a chance, I have to write it.

I have to try to make things right.

I could apologize until the end of time and it still wouldn’t be enough, but I’m sorry for hurting you. I’m sorry for all the pain I’ve caused.

It’s clear to me now that the plague of Orïsha has never been magic at all. It’s us—Father, Mother, and me. Even Amari has been twisted by this throne. The monarchy poisons us all.

As long as it stands, Orïsha doesn’t have a chance. So I’m doing the only thing I can and ending it once and for all.

I grip the parchment so tight, it nearly rips in half. I didn’t even know ending the monarchy was something a king could do.

I don’t know what comes next, but I know it’s time for this reign to end. I will work till my dying breath to protect this kingdom, to be the man I thought I could be when I was with you.

But should our paths collide again, I will not raise my sword.

I am ready to end my life at your hand.

“What is it?” Tzain stands behind me. I wipe away my tears, handing him the letter. His eyes widen as he combs over the words.

“He did all this?”

I nod, and Tzain rubs his jaw. “You two.” He shakes his head. “Even when you crash, you intertwine.”

I stare at the bronze piece in my hand, wanting to throw it into the ocean. I hate Inan for doing this. I hate the part of me that wants to believe he’s telling the truth.

“What’re you going to do?”

“What I have to.” I shrug. “It doesn’t matter what he says, what he promises. Our people are still behind those walls. I have to do whatever it takes to get them out.”

A silence hangs in the air and I grab his hand, staring at all the parchment on the ground. “What’re you going to do about you and Amari?”

Tzain’s face twists as he winces. He holds back his tears, but I feel their sting behind my own eyes. Throughout all the pain we’ve endured, she’s been the only one to make him smile. Even when I resented her to my core, I loved Amari for that.

“There is no me and Amari,” he finally speaks. “Not anymore.”

“Tzain, how you feel about her, that’s not something you can just turn off—”

“She almost killed you,” he interrupts. “There’s no coming back from that.”

He sinks onto the replica of his old cot and I sit by his side. I squeeze the bronze piece in my hand as I lean my head against his shoulder, listening to the crash of waves outside our window.

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