"In all the generations since the families first formed, there has only ever been one blade that craves the blood of made men..."
Rosalia blinked, clueless. "What blade?"
The soldier's lips trembled around one word: "Mietitore."
Rosalia's jaw dropped. The color drained from her face.
But before she could gather her wits, a voice split the air from somewhere above the compound walls, heavy with authority that needed no anger to terrify.
"Silence!"
"I destroyed the Ferro heir with my own hands. Mietitore was shattered by my order. It no longer exists."
"You will not spread such baseless fear!"
I knew that voice. I knew it the way you know the sound of your own heartbeat. Aldric Valente. My enemy for as long as I had drawn breath.
And the one who had wounded me deepest of all.
He was right about one thing. I was the Ferro heir he claimed to have destroyed.
I was also the only other true power that had emerged from the Old Country alongside him, the only one who had survived the annihilation of the original families.
The year the old dynasty was wiped out, the two of us had nowhere left to go. We set aside our enmity out of necessity, clinging to each other to survive.