my own stare and straightens his shoulders. I glance between him and Branka who is still heavily zoned out to notice, and then wave a finger for him to come over. He hesitates to do so which makes me even more suspicious. A shove from his sister and he slowly makes his way over here.

"She'll be okay." I snap my eyes back onto Branka and plaster on a supportive smile before she can catch me studying the King's gait.

"Of course, she will be."

Shit. That wasn't what I meant to say. Her eyes narrow on me as she catches the abnormal optimism too. Thank the Gods this man has long legs and spares me from having to fix my shit. "Hello."

Damn, that was too cheery too.

The King doesn't know me well enough to see the abnormality, and smiles as he says, "My Lady Rohana."

And just like that, the cheer's gone. "Oh, heathens no."

I spin on my heel and walk away. Branka calls my name, but I mist back to our camp in Cadorelin before she can call me back.

My Lady Rohana. Ugh. My whole body cringes at the whole thing. I am not a lady.

I mist to where I tracked the rest of my sisters, back to the white-roofed canopy we had the meeting with the royals this afternoon. Or was it yesterday afternoon? I look up at the sky in search of the moon, but clouds block my view. A second later and I feel the first drops of rain hit my cheek. Typical. I'll just assume it's past midnight.

Loud voices catch my attention and I approach the canopy to find everyone standing beneath it and two voices arguing.

"You don't get to tell me what I can and cannot do!"

"I wasn't telling you what you can and can't do - I was telling you that your expectations are -"

"You don't get a say in our lives anymore!"

I walk up beside Dee to find Lance and Will in each other's faces and drawn to their full height. "For Saint's sake, what's this all about?"

"Lance threatened to kill Will if he found out he had to do anything with his sister going M.I.A. again, and Will told him to fuck off. Now we're here," she explains.

"Why hasn't anyone stopped them?" I demand.

"Do you want to get in the middle of that?"

"You lost the right to any opinions the day you murdered Rose!"

"Oh, believe me. I lost it far earlier than that, asshole."

No. I definitely do not want to get in the middle of that. I look around to find everyone else also making the same decision and giving them a wide berth in case fists fly. "Go set up a perimeter."

Dee rolls her eyes but walks off to stand guard at one end of the tent. Even if this thing had fabric walls I wouldn't take any chances that there's not someone with their own bow and arrow aimed at us. I make sure the others have taken up their own spots as well before tuning back in.

Someone's going to have to jump in sooner or later, and Darius and his twelve other shitheads don't look like they'll be doing that anytime soon.

"Oh, yes. I completely forgot how you fucked my sister and then left her broken-hearted the next day."

"I didn't mean to hurt your sister-"

"Bullshit! You knew exactly what you were doing-"

"Oh, and you didn't?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You were the Sinister Fox! You had whispers and rumors rushing to you like sex-crazed girls every day! You loved to brag about how you could see my tells and read my emotions and thoughts from a mile away. Are you really telling me that you didn't have a single clue as to where I spent my time and who I spent it with?"

"I had far more important things to worry about than where you spent your time."

"Like what? Kissing your father's ass?"

Lance closes the distance between them at the mention of his father. Will doesn't back down, and I take a step toward them both readying to intervene. "Don't talk about my father."

"Or what?" Lance doesn't answer, which is a whole ass answer in itself that Will doesn't seem to care for. "You didn't give a shit about what I cared for then, why would you give one now?"

"You're full of shit."

"Says the man who took the first woman I fell in love with and claimed her as his without a second thought to his best friend's feelings."

"You are no best friend of mine-"

"But I was! Three years ago, I was - and you didn't blink an eye before you made her yours!"

"It's not my fault the universe decided you weren't good enough for her!"

"She was never yours." I take another step as Will's voice drops lower. I'm surprised they've gone this long without swinging a fist. I would've knocked my opponent out cold the moment he mentioned my father.

"Her choice says otherwise."

"She didn't have a choice! You were thrown together as a part of a vendetta. You never had her!"

"Are you really so desperate that you're making up illusions and excuses now?"

"The illusion was your fating to her. It wasn't real. It was a lie crafted by the same man who killed your mother and your father and took your sister."

"You're lying," Lance growls, but he hesitated. A splinter of a second he hesitated.

A cold hand grasps my hand. The same hand that always shows up when nothing but the truth had been spoken into the wind of the world. I step closer.
This isn't going to end well - for anyone.

"I loved Rose-"

Lance's hands grab two fistfuls of Will's shirt. I take another step. "You don't get to speak her name."

"I. Loved. Her." Will's voice deters in its strength, wavering to shaken waves. All his fight seems to have gone with the words, leaving nothing but torn eyes that stretch the scar the wrong way.

"You have one hell of a way of showing it."

Where's Katarina? I ask along the bridges.

Serephina's voice echoes back. I took her and Roseia to Fernweh when they first started yelling.

Tension eases off of my shoulders slightly. I think it's best neither of them are here for this, and I'm glad Inna thought of it too.

"I went to your father as an orphan and he gave me a family."

"And you crushed that family when you killed her."

"No. You crushed it." Tears well in Will's eyes. A weak stance for a man who's walking a dangerous edge with an explosive one. "I never had what you had. I didn't have a father to teach me things or a sister to talk to at night. I didn't have the memories of my mother - she was killed before I could walk! All I wanted was what you had, and the moment I finally got a taste of it - the second I saw a future where I wasn't alone - you took it. And then you had everything all over again, and I had nothing. All over again."

"You took it all back! You killed them! You had my sister and you fucked that up too!"

"I had no one!" Will yells, shoving Lance's hands off of him. "I was supposed to have Rose-"

"Don't say her name-"

"I'm allowed to say the name of my fate!"

Lance freezes at that. His whole body stills like that of a statue, but I know that look in his eye. I know what comes next, and yet Will pushes on.

He loses the fight of his posture, shoulders slumping, and chin lowering. The tears run down his face furiously.
What the fuck is happening right now?

"She was never yours," he repeats, voice cracking. "She was mine."

A snarl rips from Lance's throat as he palms his fox-eyed blade. He raises it against Will who doesn't move to block the blow.

"He's telling the truth!"

Lance's blade stops inches from Will's throat at the sound of the voice. We all turn towards it, finding Clarice standing in the rain, her hair matted down from the water. She changed out of the armor and torn dress, now wearing a simple light blue silk covering and a white shawl she holds tight around her arms and chest. Both of which are also soaked through.

Darius steps towards her from where he stands nearby me. "Clare?"

Her eyelids flutter at his voice, but her eyes stay glued to her brother who stares back at her, blade still raised.

"He's telling the truth," she repeats. I couldn't tell before with the rain dripping over her face, but it's hard to oversee it when her voice crack. She's crying. A lot. "You were never fated to Rose, Lance. It was all a lie."