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“Her cunt is so fucking tight.” He was right in front of me now. “You wouldn’t believe how wet she was for me.”

“Enough.” My shoulders were heaving as shadows moved up my arms.

“And the sounds she makes when she comes.” Theron exhaled heavily. “Magical.”

With a roar, my hands were around his neck. Theron recoiled for only a second as I slammed him into the ground. I fought the searing pain that burned in my head as I wound my shadows around his throat, the sharp tug of Elara’s anguish in the center of my chest spurring me on.

“I’M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU!” I bellowed, fighting for breath as I pulled the shadows tight around Therons’ neck.

He grinned even as he spluttered, as he saw my own eyes widen as I tried to breathe. The pain in my head threatened to split my skull, but I held tight. If I died killing him, then so be it. Elara would be free of him at least.

The door flew open, guards running into the room. I summoned another shadow and threw it in front of them, doubling over as the pain tore through my body. My limbs burned as though on fire, and I tasted blood, feeling it run down my chin.

Theron’s eyes were wide now, bloodshot as he suffocated. His tongue lolled out of his mouth as he gasped for breath.

My own vision was going gray, my mind failing as agony claimed me. I began coughing up more blood, my lungs draining of air right along with Theron’s.

Then she was there, in my head, screaming. Begging me to stop. Pleading with me. She could feel it happening. She could feel me dying. She could feel me breaking my promise to her.

A sharp pain in my side stopped everything. My shadows fell, and Theron rasped and hacked underneath me. I fell back from him, onto the floor, and looked down at the dagger lodged between my ribs. I met his eyes, and his chest heaved as he leered at me triumphantly.

“She truly brings out the best in you, doesn’t she, my friend?”

Guards crowded Theron as I slumped to the cold stones. I pulled the dagger from my side, and felt a sharp pain in my chest. It hurt to breathe. Blood poured from the wound onto the cold stone floor, and Elara’s sobs echoed in my head.

I’m sorry. I wasn’t strong enough.

I clenched my eyes shut.I was a fool. I’d made her a promise, and now I’d simply left her alone. I’d broken my oath.

I’m sorry. I love you.

And still she screamed and raged, begging me to live.

* * *

Elara had told me how she had woken up in the castle after the battle in Grixos, confused that she was alive, and in pain, and not in Nav. I understood that as I woke, pain shooting through my side.

Regan was looking down at me critically as my eyes opened. “Norahi, you’re a fool.”

“We’ve established that,” I said with a groan as I tried to sit up.

“Don’t,” Regan snapped. “Stay where you are, you’re still healing.”

“Lucky me,” I said, trying to raise my arm and wincing. I eyed Regan’s displeased face. “I don’t know why you’re looking at me like that, your King’s still alive isn’t he?”

“He is, thankfully.” Regan turned to the guards standing watch and waved them away. “Leave us.”

The guards left the infirmary, the heavy oak door falling closed behind them. Regan turned to me, and the urgency in his face caught me by surprise.

“Elara is safe,” he said quietly, “I swear to you, she will be safe. And when the time is right, you will need to get her out of here.”

I stared at him, trying to absorb what he was saying. “What are you -”

“The next eclipse, it is coming,” Regan interjected, “and with that will come her power. She is the heir to the Sun Throne, you knew that didn’t you?”

“Ye-Yes,” I stuttered, trying to understand why Theron’s advisor was telling me all of this. “But what does that have to do with her power? Peyrus is gone.”

“Elara is the one true Queen of Korbiriya, and when she comes into her power, she will be the target of every race wanting to seize that power,” Regan said. “She will need your protection. You are her Bonded, the joined sun and moon, just as the prophecy said.”