The Rivaled Crown (The Veiled Kingdom, #3)

by Holly Renee

I was a threat to everything he stood for. And still, he had chosen me. Even after the betrayal, after learning my true identity, after every reason I had given him to turn away, he had protected me. He had given me the most dangerous weapon of all. Hope.

“What are you doing here?” I pleaded, raw with disbelief. “I’m here for you, Nyra,” he murmured the only name he had ever known me by. Micah.

Tithe. The word echoed in my mind over and over like a curse. My father was a siphon, and he used his power at every tithe to transfer the power that the people of this kingdom gave. At least, that was what he was meant to do. That was the history of the tithe that I had always been told. The people sacrificed at the tithe, gave a bit of their own magic, and in return, the tithe gave back. It was meant to provide a balance that our kingdom no longer had. A balance that the rebellion had been fighting for.

“Let me be clear,” I said, my voice like a whip. “I will choose her over every one of you.”

“I am not an enemy you want, Eiran, but for her, I will become whatever I have to.”

“And all I’m doing is trying to save my mate.” I met him head-on even as murmurs rippled through the council.

The word settled hard into the room, and it seemed to draw the very breath from each of their lungs as they stared at me in disbelief. “Mates are from storybooks.” My father cocked his head slightly as if he could see through me, see the lies he believed I told. “And we have grown tired of your lies.” “She is my mate.” I said each word slowly, letting them land as hard as I intended. “She is bound to me as I am bound to her.”

“Your grandmother was not from Marmoris, Dacre. She came here as a young woman, a handmaiden to the princess of Veyrith. The princess to the last kingdom that stood against Verena’s father.” The air seemed to thicken, pressing against my lungs. I had never heard this, never been told. “She served Verena’s mother,” Liya continued, her voice steady. “And she watched firsthand as the King of Marmoris burned her kingdom to the ground.”