her head, her stiff braid swinging over one shoulder.
“Is that possible?” Draeven asked. “To bargain with a god for power?”
She met Lazarus’ heavy gaze from across the table.
“Yes,” they said at the same time.
Draeven cursed again.
“Even if he can bring them back, our numbers estimate his army is larger than any we’ve ever seen on this continent. He can’t bring them all back,” Dominicus said.
“What makes you think they’re all living to begin with?” Quinn asked him. Dominicus narrowed his eyes and then looked away, letting out a heavy breath.
“You think the Trienian army is dead?” Draeven asked.
“No,” Quinn said. “Not completely, but I think that if the numbers are even partially right, that we’d be fools to think they’re all living.”
“Does bringing them back give him power over them?” Lorraine asked softly.
Quinn tilted her head, angling it toward the other woman. “Yes,” she said slowly.
Lorraine nodded as if she now understood something. “The army in Leone cut off the supply lines in the desert, but they weren’t able to question them. Every man and woman killed themselves.”
“They weren’t living to begin with,” Quinn said, following where she was going.
“It makes sense,” Lorraine continued. “Do they need food and water when he raises them again?”
Quinn pulled the metal headpiece from her hair. It snagged in her dry strands, snapping some of the thinner ones as she tore it off and plonked it on the table. She used one bloodstained hand to brush the wiry strays back again as she said, “I don’t know. The demonstration he gave them . . . the vassal didn’t survive it.”
“What do you mean?” Draeven asked sharply.
“He commanded the boy to rip himself apart.”
Draeven swallowed and didn’t ask further. For a rage thief who knew how to fight and kill, he had quite the aversion to the darker side of murder. He might know rage, but he didn’t know depravity. Not as Quinn did.
“This changes nothing,” Lazarus said after a moment. Dominicus opened his mouth to argue, and Lazarus cut him off with a sharp look. “Whether he can bring them back or not, an army still marches for us. We need to retreat into Dumas and warn both Thorne and Axe. If the vassal in his demonstration didn’t survive, it means there is still a way to kill them.”
Quinn narrowed her eyes.
“We can kill a great number of the army, but if he’s as strong as me, he’ll simply bring them back,” she argued.
“As much as I hate to say it, she’s right,” Dominicus added. “The army is a problem, but even if we kill all of them, without dealing with him, it may be for nothing.”
“I agree,” Draeven added.
“As do I,” Lorraine murmured.
Quinn lifted an eyebrow in challenge to Lazarus, and he scowled back.
“He’s a problem we can’t deal with yet,” her king said through gritted teeth.
“He was,” she replied. “But things have changed.”
“Nothing has changed.”
“I feel like you’re both talking of something the rest of us don’t know about,” Draeven chimed in almost idly. Lazarus sent him a sharp glare, and Draeven looked away, but he didn’t refute the statement.
“There’s a way to deal with Nero. We’ve known since the beginning, but we’ve been delaying in favor of trying to draw out the other light heirs—”
“Quinn,” Lazarus said sharply. It was an order to be quiet.
“We have days before that army reaches us. If we make the wrong choice, you and I aren’t the only ones to pay the price,” Quinn replied in a hard voice.
His gaze was fire and ashes. Smoke and wind. He stared at her with an intensity that she had little doubt what would happen when they returned to his suite, but now wasn’t the time for such things.
“I am King,” Lazarus said through gritted teeth.
“And I am not your vassal,” she replied in the same manner. “This isn’t your decision. If anything, it’s mine.”
The muscle in his jaw ticked. “I implore you as your king and your . . . partner, that you reconsider and wait.”
“I don’t think I can,” Quinn said, leaning forward to place both hands on the round oak table. “Not with what I know now. He needs to be dealt with, light heirs be damned.”
“What were you just saying about your arrogance?” Lazarus replied, raising his voice. His body mimicked her actions, leaning forward. “This is an arrogant, foolish decision.”
“It takes a fool to know a fool,” Quinn snapped, baring her teeth.
“Myori’s wrath,” Draeven muttered. “Just what exactly are you planning to do,