"It's over," Renit growls. He has a wide stance, his sword drawn. The sun's glisten dances down the blade as he angles it, aiming directly for his father's neck. Years of training forced by the man he's opposing has led him to this moment, to the point he grips the handle so tight that his knuckles turn a bright shade of white. He drops his chin in preparation for the onslaught of our final stand. His father's final stand.

"After everything I've done for you." The king's nostrils flare. "I gave you life, gave you a home, and allowed you to have a family in this castle."

The titanium band twinkles despite the parting, swirling clouds taking over the sky. Soon enough, there won't be a sun at all. Renit's storm covers it all.

The king gestures towards the remnants of the empty castle behind him and the last bit of an army he has, even if it's hardly a figment of what he had minutes ago. "This is how you repay me? By taking everything I have?"

Silas speaks next. His lip curls back from his teeth and he shifts on his feet. I stand between them but remain behind. Waiting. Thrumming. Pressure building. This is their fight, not mine. Not that of everyone standing around the ruined, blood-stained courtyard. "You took everything we have," Silas objects. "From the day we were born, our lives didn't belong to us. You strung us along like puppets and forced us to do your bidding." His chest rises and falls in one fluid, deep breath. "No longer."

The king's dark eyes dart between his two sons. At one point in my life, what seems like so long ago, I didn't trust either of them. They sat on the dais together, at their father's side, and refused to stand when the fight demanded it. The day I lost my parents, I never thought I would see this moment. Esaria's two princes standing against the man they once sided with to a fault. In the span of time, three hundred years wasted, too many people died. They lost their lives because everyone was too scared to fight.

Now, as I stand with my body to the king, the wind ripping through my hair and clothes, my body tightening at the recognition of a lightning storm, an army behind me, I realize how strong we have become. No one, in all the reign of the Marron line, was strong enough to do this. Lands didn't converge as one, alliances didn't fall apart, life meant more than taking a stand. That ends today.

"You're making a terrible decision, my sons," the king tries once more. "This kingdom is mine; it has been for the better part of five-hundred years. I ruled with your mother, strengthened the people, gave the world a reason to appreciate me. You're planning on throwing that away with a soft reign." He directs the threat at Silas. Once his son takes the crown, the kingdom will soften like melted butter. After everything he did to harden the hearts of the people.

Renit loosens his stance enough to swallow. "You killed our mother and left us to pick up the pieces. You weakened the people by scaring them into compliance, and the world does not appreciate you. The world fears you, and those are two very different things," he growls.

They're dragging this out. As lightning begins to cleave across the sky and strike into the back of the courtyard, creating a physical wall that the king or the remainder of our enemies can't get through, I come to the conclusion that, despite all their father as done, these are his final moments. And what needs to be said...can't wait for the death. There is freedom in death and the Marron brothers aren't ready to complete it.

"It's you, Renit, that I believed to be better than this. Your brother was always kind, always selfless. He gave my people a reason to believe that this kingdom could better itself someday. But you...I trusted you to keep the people in line once I handed over my reign," the king says. He makes a show of looking Renit up and down as if this is the first time he has truly looked at his son. "I was hoping the death of your love and your son would harden you until the end of time."

As if one needs to learn a lesson from such a tragedy.

A lightning bolt snakes from the clouds faster than I have ever seen one travel and strikes too close to the king. He leaps out of the way, too close to the crown prince. But Silas doesn't budge. Instead, his voice barely above a whisper, he says, "You took Avalie from me. You beat her, tortured her, and left me with a fiancée that would rather kill me than save me. You turned everything on its head and I can never forgive you for that, father."

In a crooked response, the king chuckles. "It's amusing that you still think of me as such."

"Like king, or leader, it's nothing more than a title. A name to a face, and I don't think of you as my father anymore. Like the armies and lands I will battle in future wars for the right to live happily, you are my enemy. And like every Marron king, you will die today. Not as my father or my king, or as anything of significance. Mother died with honor—I wish for you to die as cold and heartless as the day the world was cursed with your life."

The two brothers don't have to speak to know the time has come. The storm quickens, spiraling out of control, and the king takes two steps back as his sons converge on him. Silas takes the lead and Renit brings up the rear with the knowledge that it's not his job to kill their father. Despite the sickness of the tradition, it will continue.

Our army turns hushed as they prepare themselves to watch the final moment. The king stands without a weapon and the castle behind him is no longer part of his army. Instead, it's a blockade and the perfect target for Silas to impale his body on.

My heart pounds in my chest. I wait for the unofficial death of the king, opposite to where every other has taken place. In the visual eye of the city's circle, under the remembrance of ordinary citizens. Heads fell, and they transgressed. This time, an army stands at my back and waits for the inevitable.

Renit drops to a knee and swings low but his father jumps out of the way. What was meant to disable his legs is now an escape route that Silas can't reach. The king dodges along the outside of his two sons and Silas swings for his head. While they went through years of training, the king has seen more. Their skill is born and bred from his, only meaning that he is stronger in ways they'll never reach.

He makes a run for it and someone gasps, but he doesn't get very far. His eyes harden as he runs directly for me. A final stand to break Renit completely. I stand my ground, boots firmly planted into the broken stone of the courtyard. Renit shouts my name but he's the only one panicking. Everyone knows the king has nowhere to go and nowhere to hide.

My power manifests from the surface of the world and a wall of stone, rock, mud, and blood slams into his chest. It wraps around him and he grits his teeth together. His boots leave the ground and my power lifts him into the air. Lightning cracks around us and he screams out in pain as that lightning begins to swirl around my body—not touching, but soothing. Renit's power recognizing the final stand.

I slam my blood-caked fist to the ground and his body follows suit, crashing to the broken rubble of the courtyard. The unmatchable power of ground pins him there, and despite thrashing, he's out of luck. Nothing can penetrate my strengths, not the scariest or most ruthless of kings. After five hundred long years, it's finally over. Years I would never imagine. Those that Renit and Silas endured with a swollen heart.

"You don't wish to do this," the king grunts underneath the hard foundation of compacted stone holding him down. He lifts his head off the ground, hardly, and meets my eye. This is that man that took everything from me.

I swallow down the lump in my throat. "My worst fear growing up was that I would somehow outlive my family. My father, I knew. But my mother and my sister...they should've lived longer than what you granted them." I shake my head, and with that, the tears depart. "Even with power as unpredictable as this, I feared to lose my family the most. Not ruining the world or tearing myself to shreds. It was the fear of loneliness. And I never thought it would actually happen...but it did. And you're the reason why." I point a shaken finger at him and I snarl, stepping onto my power to stand over him. Renit's lightning continues to swirl around my arms. "Don't think for a second that after what you did to Renit, to Silas, to Avalie, to everyone—that I'll let you live. You've done enough."

Raising my eyes to the Marron brothers, I jerk my chin at Silas. He takes that as his cue and places one boot in front of the other. I turn my shoulders, away from the king's final breath, but his hoarse voice stops me. "They deserved to die," he growls despite my power pressing harder and harder onto his flattened body. "As do you, for all you did as my third hand. You're just as terrible as me."

The rage swallows me whole and I whirl, allowing my power to escape him in the slightest. I grab onto the lip of his armor and tug his upper body off the ground, cocking my hand into a fist. The first blow slams into his cheek and my knuckles burn, but I'm reminded of the pain from my days as the king's third hand. I did this to innocents, rebels, and warriors that never stood the chance. I beat them to a pulp, and in honor of them, I ignore the searing numbness in my hands and drive my fist into his cheek again.

The king's hand snaps right and blood pools from his already red lips. I don't care about the rest of the army watching me, I don't care what they might think and where the insanity has gone. I keep punching, keep driving my fist into his face until arms wrap around my waist and tug me back. I'm lifted off the ground, and something filled with hate leaves my lips, directed at the red and blotched face of a broken king. But Renit is there, bracing his hands on my shoulders when he sets me back down.

He doesn't say anything. My chest rises and falls rapidly with strained breath. His eyes dart down to my bloody, bruised knuckles. Renit's eyes twinkle and his brows draw together in an innocent, almost childlike matter. There are no words for this moment, and there won't be for as long as we live.

My bottom lip quivers as I stare into his handsome face, and he reaches over, tucking a strand of loose hair behind my ear. To block the tears from the remainder of our army, those I care about and others I'll never receive the chance to thank, Renit wraps his arms around my shoulders and holds me against him, turning my head so I don't have to look at their questionable stares.

I allow those tears to slip from my burning eyes, along with my power. Only a fraction of it, enough for Silas to stand over his father and hold the sword towards his heart. The king stares up at his son, bloody lips parted, broken teeth dangling from red gums. His dark hair sways over his shoulder, bundled in knots.

Renit clutches tighter and the entire world seems to stop moving. "It's a new day in Esaria!" Silas booms. He hardly gives anyone the fraction of a second to appreciate the volume of his statement, in his father's own words, before he drives the sword down, directly through his father's impenetrable armor and through tattooed flesh.

He shoves down as far as he can, and I gasp. Renit's cheek presses against the top of my head, and against his chest, I feel his heart quicken. After three hundred years of beatings and accepting his father's quests at the hand of being too scared to do anything else, this is it. The end.

The king's broken, shuddered gasp echoes through the courtyard and the entire army resists the urge to stir. It's not over yet. Silas twists the blade and muscle tears. The king squirms, but as blood pools from his lips, too think to be the result of a punch, Silas rips out the blade.

Wheezed breaths fill my hearing and I clutch the back of Renit's armor in my hands. I bury my face in his chest and he kisses the top of my head as another brutal slice echoes through the silence. The severing of the king's head to ensure he's really dead and won't be coming back any time soon.

I can do nothing other than bask in Renit's warmth as he rocks us back and forth, too gentle to register if it wasn't for our powers soothing each other. I allow my strengths to recede; I allow my body to relax. For the first time, I can breathe. I hold Renit at arm's length and stare up into his face in search of a new light. It's there.

The immediate death of his father lifted a weight off his entire body and he smiles down at me, gentler than I've ever seen, and takes my face in his hands. As Silas disregards his father's body and runs for Avalie, Renit brings his lips to mine and kisses me softly. The first of many to come under a new day in Esaria.