Page 168 of Daughter of the Serpent

A future.

With him?

A rush of heat stirred low in her belly.

“There is so much I would show you…” he breathed.

“There is a whole world beyond Mardova, Sylvie. And it could be yours.”

She searched his eyes, and for a moment, she believed it - because the gleam in his gaze held something she'd never seen before:hope.

“When the trials are over, you could choose,” he said. “To build a life beyond the temple.”

Could she?

The thought was wild. Tempting. Dangerous.

She had never truly let herself imagine a life beyond the temple - not beyond the fleeting daydreams that vanished the moment duty called. It had always felt impossible. Out of reach. A mirage.

But after yesterday - after last night - possibility curled at the edges of her heart, whispering of a freedom she had never dared to touch.

Even so, she couldn’t stop the faces that rose unbidden in her mind.

Her mother.

Haldor.

Tara.

Could she really walk away from all she knew? Her home?

The thought struck like a blade - sharp, sudden, and unforgiving.

She had always known she could never betray them. She couldn’t turn her back on the path carved for her since birth.

That wasn’t their way.

That wasn’therway.

She was bound - body and soul - to the temple.

But now… after everything that she had been through, discovered - something inside her cracked.

Maybe there was more - more than silence and sacrifice, more than dutyand shadows.

And when she looked into Axel’s eyes, she saw it.

More than she had ever dared imagine.

“I would show you my home - what remains,” he whispered.

His breath stirred against her skin, sending a shiver down her spine. In the new light of dawn, his eyes shimmered as they moved over her, and she savored this rare moment - when his guard was down, his face unmasked.

In that light, she could see it all: the hope, the excitement of what could come, but also the weight of years lost, the cost of the ache he carried, the silent toll of a loss too great to name. She couldn’t begin to fathom what it had taken from him - the extinction of his clan, his people. What memories still clung to him, heavy and haunting…

And yet, through his stories - his culture - they lived on. He had given them new life, and in the process he had given her everything.

Power. Knowledge. A wisdom she hadn’t known she needed.