“And that takes the total up to what?” Cyrus asks.

Brynn shifts uncomfortably under the weight of the King’s eyes, standing beside Matthias. “Twelve,” she reports.

Twelve. Twelve is the tiny number we have found and slaughtered of the descendants in the last three days we have been hunting for them.

We’ve been hunting the surrounding mountains. We’ve searched the nearest villages. Every square meter within a hundred miles surrounding Roter Himmel has been searched and re-searched.

And twelve is the grand total number of descendants we’ve found.

“What if they’ve left?” Matthias suggests. “Perhaps Lorenzo realized he was outnumbered with my army taken into consideration. Maybe he realized how futile this was. Maybe he took his children and retreated.”

“I wish that were the case,” I say as I lean against the edge of Cyrus’ desk, folding my arms over my chest. “But Lorenzo was patient for six hundred years. He managed to wait all that time for all those children to be born. I just can’t imagine now that we know, now that he’s exposed them all, and told us the truth, that he will just squander this opportunity. It’s now or never, I think.”

“He must be waiting for something,” Cyrus says. He sits in his chair, his booted feet propped up on his desk. “Perhaps not all of his children have arrived yet. Perhaps he has retreated to make plans. Perhaps they are even gathering at a location where they have been stockpiling weapons.”

“There’s any number of reasons why he isn’t striking yet,” I conclude, nodding in agreement with Cyrus. “But we can’t let our defenses down. If Roter Himmel is taken, we’ll fall. This is our stronghold. This is the center of everything. If we lose Roter Himmel, we’ll lose the war. Continue to hold the borders.”

Matthias and Brynn both give a bow, and leave the office.

“I don’t like this kind of warfare,” Cyrus says. He twirls the sword between his fingers, the point of it spinning on the ground, the hilt held loosely in his fingers. “All this waiting and hiding. If Lorenzo St. Claire wants to take my crown, he should just march to the doors and rip it from my head.”

“He thinks differently than us,” I say. “I can’t imagine the patience the man must possess. He’s waited six centuries to make his move.”

Cyrus is quiet for a moment, and finally, his eyes slide over to me. “I don’t even remember it, you know?” He studies me a moment longer, but I know it isn’t me he’s really seeing. “Lorenzo said I killed his parents because they were caught drinking from a human. But I don’t remember it. I don’t remember his father’s name. I don’t remember his mother trying to save him. I don’t remember a young boy having to watch it happen.”

His gaze slides over to a wall and they glaze over. I can feel the weight upon his shoulders filling the room. I feel it press down on me, too.

I walk around the desk. I push his feet off its polished surface and straddle his hips, sitting in his lap.

But his gaze is still fixed on the wall, not seeing anything.

“It is no wonder he hates me so much,” Cyrus continues to muse. “I ripped his family away, and don’t even remember doing it. He thinks me a monster who doesn’t value family, and now he wishes to take them all and make them one.”

I place my hands on either side of Cyrus’ face, attempting to turn his gaze to me. It takes a moment, but finally he does look at me with his sad, weighted eyes.

“You are not a monster,” I say. “You are only cruel to protect our people. You do the things you must to keep us safe. They may not recognize it and that is because they have never had to live in fear. But you know, and I know, the life that would await us if we were exposed. Lorenzo’s father knew he should have been more careful. He knew the potential consequences for doing what he did. You have to enforce the rules to protect us all.”

There’s pain in Cyrus’ eyes. There’s regret. He squeezes them closed, and I press my forehead to his, wrapping my arms around his shoulders, holding him close.

“I’m so tired of it all, Sevan,” he says quietly. “I’m tired of the games. I’m tired of the politics. I’m tired of ruling.”

Emotion bites the back of my eyes, but I don’t let the tears well. My heart does twist in a knot, though. My stomach feels so heavy. “I know, im yndmisht srtov. Me, too.”

---

The next night, at two in the morning, Gunter bursts through the doors of the Great Hall, where Cyrus and I were meeting with Dorian and Malachi. He’s breathing hard, a heavy sweat on his brow.

“They’ve returned,” he says, his eyes jumping from one face to another. “They’re in the village just through the canyon.”

“How many of them?” I ask.

“I’d say around three hundred of them,” he says.

All of them.

“I want to see them,” I say, grabbing the sword laying on the table and slinging it around my waist. “Take me to them.”

Cyrus is instantly on his feet as well, followed by Dorian and Malachi. “Stay,” Cyrus growls at them. “I need you two to be here in case anything happens.”

Without another backward glance, Cyrus and I follow Gunter.

We’re more silent on foot than in a vehicle. We’re less noticeable creeping through the woods than in the helicopter. So, across the valley we dart, cutting around the stationed army. Through the canyon, off the road in the trees we race.

Gunter leads us along a mountain ridge, and off in the distance, I can see dim, glowing lights.

We round the ridge, and a rocky outcropping juts through the trees, providing the perfect overlook of the smaller valley. The village so tiny I can hardly call it that. It consists only of an inn, a gas station, a postal office, and the airport. There are only a dozen homes here, and every one of those occupants is employed in the businesses they’re surrounded by.

My eyes widen. My heart wants to stop.

There are so many bodies down below. Not one hundred, not two. There has to be at least three hundred of them down there.

They mill about the street, the main one that cuts through the heart of the village. They wander in and out of the homes, the businesses.

I see a human woman down there, limp and slack in a man’s arms as he drinks her blood. He passes her onto a woman, who drinks deeply. From the paleness of the human woman’s skin, I know there won’t be any recovering from how much they’ve taken.

As I look around, I realize there is more than one human being passed around. I can see five others from here.

I can only imagine the others are dead already.

They’ve taken over the entire village, and wiped out the human population.

“Any eyes on Lorenzo?” I whisper, barely audible to even my own ears.

Gunter shakes his head. “We have our best snipers watching the area. They all know what he looks like. At the first sight of him, they’ve been ordered to take him out.”

My eyes search the crowd, looking for any signs of the man with the dark hair and features, and golden-jade eyes. He’s nowhere to be seen. But as I search, looking over all those half-siblings of mine, I realize something.

“That has to be more than three hundred individuals down there,” I say. “Doesn’t…doesn’t that look like more than three hundred?”

The two of them are quiet for a good thirty seconds as they try to mentally calculate.

While I wait for their conclusion, my eyes whip to the right when a flash of light drops from the sky.

A plane dips toward the airport that isn’t visible from this vantage point.

No one travels into this airport unless they’re somehow connected to Roter Himmel.

“You’re right,” Cyrus says. “My rough estimate is closer to 380.”

I look back at the crowd, and my blood feels cold. “Lorenzo told me he has 308 children from around the world. We’ve killed twelve of them already. There’s the thirty-two Royals who betrayed us. But who…who are the others?”

More lights above us draw my eyes up. I see another airplane circling the valley, beginning its descent.

“Who the hell is coming?” I hiss. My heart is pounding and my brain is screaming a million miles an hour.

“Perhaps Lorenzo lied about how many children he has,” Gunter suggests.

My nerves are strung out. I’m ready to snap at any moment. And hopefully when I blow, I take every one of them out with me.

“Come on,” I say quietly as I slink back into the trees. “We need to see what’s going on at that airport.”

We’re incredibly careful. We slip behind trees. We melt into the shadows of the night. I take to the branches. I don’t even breathe as we slip around the town’s edges and head to the outskirts where the airport is located.

The three of us take position beside a hangar, silently slipping along the edge of the metal building, until the airstrip comes into view.

The three jets are taxied, side by side. And there, at the base of them, a good two hundred yards away, I see a crowd.

There are twenty-one individuals gathered together, talking in low voices.

“Do either of you recognize any of them?” I whisper.

Cyrus and Gunter both shake their heads.

Falling silent, we each strain our eyes, trying to pick up on the voices.

“…has been able to speak with their leader,” one voice faintly floats to my ears. “They won’t even say his name. But they all stem from the same father, obvious by their looks. It has to be him.”

“Are they causing any problems for us?” another sounds across the runway.

There’s a muffle I can’t quite interpret. “So far, they only have questions about our intent.”

There’s laughing, and it makes my skin crawl.

“From what little we’ve overheard, their goal is the same as ours.”

All of my internal organs disappear with the words. Automatically, my eyes flick to Cyrus, who looks at me with similar wide, but ready to fight eyes.

Word spread far and wide of King Cyrus’ death. And with it, all the greedy tyrants came out to play.

We not only have Lorenzo to worry about, but whoever these people are, as well.

The meeting seemingly over, the group before us heads toward the road that cuts into the village.

With a dark look at one another, Cyrus turns to Gunter.

“The stakes were just raised ten fold,” Cyrus breathes. “Double the amount of spies. Collect every word spoken in that village. I want hourly reports.”

“Yes, your majesty,” he responds with a deep bow.

Not another word, Cyrus and I streak like lightning back to the castle.