has already fallen. If we do not stand, Loreen will be next. I did not suffer—we did not suffer for all those years to let elves take our lives from us. Thousands dead, countless soldiers slaughtered, families torn apart, and you’re upset because I used you as a bargaining tool to buy the only army available to me?”
Disgust made his guts turn over. “No! Fucking… no. I’m… I’m upset because you’re surrendering to Amir… and to the flame.”
Vasili ground his teeth. “I surrender now, or tomorrow, or ten years from now, what difference does it make? It will always win.”
“I told you I’d stand with you so long as you never surrendered.”
“And it was a nice dream, while it lasted, but I live in the real world, Nikolas.”
“There’s a way…” Yasir croaked and cleared his throat. “The keys. I don’t know where they are, but the books say the keys can stop it—”
“What books?” Vasili snapped.
“Your books,” Niko said. “Taken from Amir, who likely stole them from the library before it burned. Go on,” he urged Yasir.
“But in the Seranian language, the stories translate as the keys being close to the palace. Perhaps there’s something within its walls that can stop the flame… Perhaps for good?”
Vasili blinked and briefly looked afraid, but then quickly shuttered his expression. “Or perhaps it’s not literal. Whatever the case, perhaps is not enough. I cannot fight a battle with perhaps.” His gaze slid back to Niko. “You will return to the palace, and you’ll do whatever Amir demands of you. You’ll be his fucking doulos, just like he wants. If that means you have to bend over and let him fuck you, you will do it. I need my brother to give up control. If he does not do that, if he kills me, which he will, given half the chance, all of the flame becomes his, and you have no notion of the chaos that will be wrought upon this land if that happens.”
“You can’t ask Niko to do that,” Yasir said.
Vasili’s eye flashed. “I’m not asking.”
Niko drew in a breath and closed his eyes. “I can’t—”
“You are a soldier, Nikolas. You vowed to protect this city. You fought and gave everything to stop the elves. The war never ended. It’s here now, and your service is needed again.”
He sighed and opened his eyes. “I can’t fucking submit to that prick. I’ll kill him or he’ll kill me.”
Vasili closed his eye and sighed hard. “Do you think I don’t know that?” He opened his eye again, and his next words trembled. “Do you think I don’t hate myself, hate everything I have become, and everything I’ve done and will do? You should never have shown me another way. Now every second of every wretched day in that palace is another drop of blood from my veins. I don’t want this either.” He cut himself off, his face so raw suddenly that Niko almost reached across the table to pull him close. “It must be done. If I do not return with you, either by force or under your acceptance, my brother and I—” He choked on the words. “Only one will remain, and whether it’s he or I, the full force of the dark flame will consume whoever is left standing.”
If Niko didn’t return, the brothers would fight, and only the flame would win. With Amir’s forces, Vasili would deter the elves. He might even drive them back. He was fighting, even now, just as Niko had demanded of him when they’d first met.
He didn’t want the flame, never had. And he certainly didn’t want it all.
Vasili stood rigid, but his fingertips trembled against the tabletop. He looked furious, spoke like he was too, but Niko knew him. Vasili Caville was terrified.
Niko spread his hands on the table and bowed his head. “I don’t have a choice.”
Outside the palace, Niko was nothing more than a blunt blade, but inside its walls, he could fight a different battle. Amir was dangerous, but he was also riddled with insecurity, and while the flame was split between the brothers, it could be controlled. If Niko could get close to Amir, there was a chance he might be able to distract and hopefully control him, just as Vasili had controlled Julian. Maybe it would buy time for Yasir to find answers in those damn books.
Cold, hard dread armored his heart, as though he were facing the battlefront again. But this battle would be different. It wasn’t at