Khamsin ripped off her lead cloak and dove for Roland’s sword, snatching it out of the snowbank. Her fingers closed around the hilt. She stared at her reflection in the gleaming blade—the wild, lightning-kissed hair, the quicksilver eyes—and thought, Fire. The clear diamond flashed blinding bright, and flame engulfed Blazing’s blade.

“Summer Sun,” she whispered. “It’s me. I am Roland’s Heir.”

“Over my dead body.”

She turned to find Verdan Coruscate standing at the edge of the clearing, Krysti held before him, a knife at the boy’s throat.

CHAPTER 26

Strange Bedfellows

“How can she be the Heir? It’s supposed to be me! It was always supposed to be me!” Falcon paced back and forth across his father’s tent. Roland’s sword, still sheathed in Falcon’s scabbard, lay on a table against the side of the tent. Falcon had thrown it there in disgust earlier. “I’m the one who spent years reading entire libraries of books, tracking down every fragment of a lead. I was the one who followed the trail to Wintercraig and that damned Book of Riddles! I’m the one who spent the last three years traveling from one corner of Mystral to another, risking life and limb to follow the clues in that book! I risked everything to find that sword! It’s supposed to be mine! I’m the true Heir of Roland!”

“Yes, you are,” King Verdan agreed. “With my sword arm ruined, you are indisputably Roland’s rightful Heir.” He stalked over to the corner of the tent, where Khamsin was sitting, bound securely to a chair, gagged, and once more draped in a heavy lead-lined cloth. He grabbed her face, squeezing her cheeks and jaw in a hard grip. “What vile magic did you work to make the sword recognize you instead of your brother, girl?”

She glared up at him. The thick wad of cloth tied over her mouth rendered her incapable of response.

Verdan loosened the cloth and let it fall to her chest. “Answer me, girl.”

“I did nothing. Clearly, Blazing judged Falcon and found him lacking.” She switched her glare to her brother, and added, “Maybe he should have spent more time trying to emulate Roland’s noble qualities—like honor, generosity, and self-sacrifice—instead of murdering, thieving, and whoring his way to the sword’s hiding place!”

“You traitorous little bitch!” Frothing with rage, Falcon lunged forward, fist raised.

Kham’s chin jutted out, and she braced herself for the blow. “Do it,” she dared. “My hands are tied, my magic bound. Hit me and prove once and for all what a fine, brave hero you are.”

Falcon swore, and his fist stopped midswing. Perhaps because he still retained the ability to feel shame. Or maybe, just because he remembered what happened the last time he assumed a lead cloak rendered her powerless.

“Do you see now?” Verdan said, waving a hand at Khamsin. “I warned you to send her to Hel with the rest of Atrialan’s lackeys. I told you she’d betray her family, her country, and her king at the first opportunity.”

“You aren’t my king, Verdan Coruscate,” she snapped. “And you aren’t my family, either. You lost all claim to that the day you dragged me into the depths of Vera Sola and beat me near to death. All the loyalty and devotion I would have given you, if you’d loved me even a little, belongs to Wynter now.”

“Love? You? I’d sooner love a plague on my own House! I should have drowned you at birth. If I had, my Rose would still be alive.”

“So you’ve said my whole life,” she scoffed, “but that’s just a cowardly lie.” For the first time, his hatred didn’t hurt. He had nothing she wanted, nothing she needed, and he had lost all power over her. “Tildy told me the truth. The doctor warned you to stay away from my mother, but you didn’t. You couldn’t. And do you know what? I don’t blame you for that. I know now what it is to love someone so deeply you can’t stay away. But do you think for one minute my mother would love the vile, corrupt monster you’ve become? A man who would plot to kill his own child—her child? She would despise you! She would cringe from you in revulsion. She would—”

Verdan’s fist shot out. Unlike Falcon, he didn’t stop midswing. His knuckles struck a hard blow to her jaw.

Her head snapped back from the impact. She and the chair she was tied to fell sideways onto the floor. Kham lay in the dirt, working her jaw, and regarded him with narrowed eyes. “That is the last time you will ever lay a finger on me.”

“Or what? You’ll call your weathergift, Storm?” Verdan laughed. “Go ahead and try. Did you truly think I would be fool enough to repeat Falcon’s mistake? This entire tent is lined with lead.”

She clamped her lips tight and watched in mute silence as he sauntered over to the table to pick up Roland’s sword with his left hand.

“It really is quite beautiful,” he murmured. He turned the sword from side to side, watching with almost hypnotic fascination as the light of the tent lamps reflected off the razor-sharp blade. “The weapon of a king.”

He closed his eyes and tightened his hand around the grip. When the diamond in the hilt flared with light, Verdan opened his eyes again and smiled.

“I don’t know how you could ever have thought this blade was anything but the true sword of Roland, Falcon. Could you not feel the power surging inside it? Trying to connect?” He pulled back the right cuff of his coat, revealing the dark red Rose birthmark on the wrist of his ruined arm. He laid his left forearm across it and gave a small, dazed laugh. “Even though my arm is frozen, my Rose is hot to the touch. The sword knows my blood, and my blood knows the sword.”