Cassian did not die with dignity.
When Malakor’s heavy, leather-bound hand closed around his throat, the former regent shrieked like a gut-shot hare. His manicured fingernails clawed uselessly at the hardened iron of Malakor’s vambraces, leaving shallow scratches that were immediately wiped away by the dark fire licking along the warlord’s forearms.
"Mercy!" Cassian choked out, his eyes bulging as Malakor lifted him clean off the velvet carpet with one arm. "I have... the keys to the imperial vaults! The treaties with the High Barons—"
"The vaults belong to the Empress," Malakor growled, his voice a gravelly vibration of pure contempt. "And your treaties aren't worth the parchment they were forged on."
He didn't draw a blade. With a single, savage snap of his wrist, Malakor crushed the regent’s windpipe. The muffled crack of cartilage echoed off the vaulted ceiling like a snapping twig. Malakor released his grip, letting the lifeless body tumble down the marble steps of the dais to pool at the feet of Lady Vespera, who stepped into the hall flanked by a dozen blood-stained shock-marines.
Vespera barely spared the corpse a glance, nudging Cassian’s limp arm aside with the toe of her salt-rimed sea boot.
"The lower city is secured, Your Grace," Vespera reported, snapping a fist over her chest in salute. "The garrison laid down their arms the moment the Bull-Horn collapsed. But the Sunken Syndicate’s fleet in the harbor has realized the citadel is lost. Their flagship, the Abyssal Leviathan, has turned its broadside toward the lower wards. They’re preparing to fire shore-bombardment shells into the residential quarters to cover their retreat."
Aurelia’s jaw tightened. She looked down through the towering, shattered lancet windows that overlooked the glistening harbor of Val-Khor.
Below, the eighty war-galleys of the Syndicate were in motion, their dark sails catching the night wind. Lanterns flashed along the decks of the massive flagship as bronze mortars were cranked to high elevation, their gaping maws aimed squarely at the crowded slate roofs of the Merchant's Quarter.
"They want to burn my city to save their ships," Aurelia whispered, her voice dropping into that chilling, crystalline timbre that signaled the awakening of the Six Shards.
Malakor stepped up beside her, his chest brushing her shoulder, his great sword resting clean across his back. His gaze swept the harbor below with the cold, calculating eye of a predator.
"Can you reach them from the terrace?" he asked, his hand coming down to rest heavy and warm on the small of her back. The touch was an anchor, a grounding current of dark heat that steadied her blood against the immense strain she was about to summon.
"I can reach anything I can see," Aurelia replied, her silver-violet eyes flaring into blinding luminescence.
She turned to him, her gaze softening for a fraction of a heartbeat. She reached up, her thumb tracing the line of his scarred jaw, brushing away a fleck of dried blood. "Anchor me, Malakor. Don't let the void take more than I offer."
A dark, possessive grin curved his mouth. His arms slid around her waist from behind, pulling her spine flush against his chest plate. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, his lips pressing a burning, open-mouthed kiss against her pulse point.
"I have you," he growled into her skin, his hands locking over her abdomen, channeling his bottomless reservoir of shadow-fire directly into her core. "Burn them out of the water, my empress."
With his power shielding her mortal marrow from the backlash, Aurelia stepped onto the terrace ledge and raised both arms toward the bay.
The air in the grand hall turned to freezing glass.
Aurelia drew upon the Fourth and Sixth Shards—the Astral Tear of the Sunken Spire and the Sovereign Void. High above the bay of Val-Khor, the ocean water did not boil; it ceased to obey gravity.
A terrifying roar echoed across the harbor as a colossal, mile-wide wall of sea water rose into the night sky, lifting forty thousand tons of ocean directly beneath the Syndicate’s vanguard. The Abyssal Leviathan was tossed into the air like a child's toy, its massive hull cracking down the keel before the suspended water suddenly froze into solid, jagged black ice, impaling the flagship on a mountain of frost.
The remaining galleys dropped their anchors in frantic panic, crews leaping overboard into the freezing foam as Aurelia's power gripped the entire bay.
Aurelia exhaled a ragged breath, her head lolling back against Malakor’s shoulder as the silver-violet light in her eyes slowly receded.
Malakor held her tight, his broad chest rising and falling against her back, keeping her from slipping onto the freezing marble.
"Their fleet is broken," he murmured against her ear, his breath warm and intoxicating in the winter gale. "The city is yours, Aurelia. The throne is yours."
She turned in his arms, wrapping her hands around the collar of his tunic, resting her forehead against his chin.
"No, Malakor," she whispered, her fingers curling into his dark hair. "The throne is ours."