ricochet of the bowstring, the fletch spinning through the air toward him.
And he’d ducked.
“I killed him.” The words tumbled from his mouth, broken, numb.
“No,” Roran Farrald growled, and his large hand clasped Ramson’s chin tight enough to bruise. His gaze scorned. “You are so weak, you foolish boy. Can’t you see? You must learn from this, if you wish to get anywhere in this world. Friendship is weakness. There are only alliances, made to be broken when it serves your gain.” He lowered his voice. “There is something to be gained from every tragedy, every loss. You and I both know that Fisher would have beaten you in the Embarkment. Fisher’s death comes at a convenient time for you. Now you will be ranked—”
The mug exploded against the wall behind Roran. Hot chocolate and brandy dripped down like blood. Ramson was on his feet, his hands shaking. The rage that had been simmering within him had boiled over, and he found himself screaming at his father. “My best friend—my sea-brother—is dead, and all you care about is some blasted examination?”
“Men like me—like us—cannot waste time on friendships and love.”
“My mother—”
“Is dead,” Roran finished calmly.
Ramson was spitting, choking on his own fury, but he wanted his father to feel his pain—to feel something. Wildly, he grasped at words to twist into his father’s heart like knives. “Is that why you wouldn’t help her? Because she was a waste of time to you?”
His father only looked at him with that cold, calculating gaze. “How do you think I got to where I am?” Roran said quietly, the painful truth of his words crackling in the air.
It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be. The world spun. Ramson’s hands fumbled at the wall behind him, struggling for purchase.
Roran stepped backward and turned away. “I cleansed myself of those weaknesses—of friendships, of love—because I knew there were more important things.” Ramson made a choked sound. “Power, and my kingdom, boy. Those were what I gained when I made the choice. And I would make it all over again.”
When his father turned around, eyes dull black, face blank as death, Ramson saw a reflection of what he was to become. A demon of a man, unfeeling and half-crazed, willing to destroy anyone and anything in his way. Willing to murder an innocent child. Willing to let a woman he’d once loved die.
Roran Farrald straightened, tucking his hands behind his back, ever the Admiral, the soldier, the fearless leader. “That is the price that men like us must pay, boy. That is the price.”
Ramson Farrald didn’t show up at training the next day. The soldiers and scouts that his father sent found no trace of him; it was as though, overnight, he had vanished, and they were searching for a ghost.
* * *
—
Men like us.
With each stinging lash, each suffocating moment in that pail of dark water, the truth grew clearer. Ramson had run to Alaric Kerlan, Bregonian-noble-turned-crime-lord, the man his father had sought for years to destroy, in hopes of using him against his father. Your opponent’s hatred is a sword; wield it. His hope is your shield; turn it against him. One of his father’s favorite battle mantras, used to destroy him. The irony had felt like a success in itself.
But how many people had Kerlan sent to this very dungeon to be chained, beaten, and tortured? How many Affinites had his Order sentenced to a life of servitude? And all the while, Ramson had managed his businesses and ports at his side, run his blood trades, and been a good lapdog.
He had purged himself of friendship, of love, of any feelings of empathy or guilt. He had forged countless alliances, and broken them just as easily whenever it served his gain. He had backstabbed good men, conned bad men, stolen from thieves, lied to liars.
That is the price that men like us must pay.
He had become the demon he’d seen in his father that night; he had become the shadow to the monster that was Alaric Kerlan. And, despite the different sides of the war they fought on, Ramson now saw the similarities in men like them. Ruthless. Self-serving. Oath-breaking. Amoral. Merciless.
Men like us.
No, Ramson thought wildly in a moment of sudden lucidity. Not me.
But it was Ana’s face that came to him first, the fierce jut of her chin, and the way she chewed on her lip when she was thinking. Hadn’t he helped her? Protected her when she was weakest, saved her from