His smile stretched wider — slow, cruel, poisonous.
"Truth," he said, as if tasting the word. "It's such a fickle thing. You think it gives you power. It doesn't. It just gives you...pain."
He circled me slowly, his presence wrapping around my throat like a leash. "So now you know. The secret every trueborn has tried to uncover for decades. The secret that would burn this kingdom down if it ever touched sunlight."
He stopped in front of me again, tilting his head. "So tell me, Athena... what are you going to do with it?"
I stayed silent.
He stepped closer.
"You going to run?" he asked, voice like velvet wrapped around steel. "Expose me? Stir up a rebellion? Gather the righteous beneath your banner and come clawing at my gates?"
He smirked. "That's not you. Not yet."
I stared at him. "You built your empire on a lie."
"And yet it stands," he said smoothly. "While others burned. Maybe the lie is what held it together."
I clenched my jaw, but he didn't stop.
