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Before I know what I’m doing, I’m propelling through the darkness. I materialize in front of my father, my body still hurtling forward, my fist cocked back. An instant later I slam it into his face, roaring as I do so. I throw all my rage, all my fear, and a healthy dose of my power into the hit.

He goes flying through the air, his body colliding with a pillar that shatters against his back.

I mean to grab my mother and run, but this is my father. The father who degraded her, threatened her,struckher. The same father I once pined for. The man my mother has protected me from. The man whose cursed blood runs through my veins.

I feel that potent, rotten blood of ours. It’s enticing me to be vicious, to end what I started. And I still have too little control of my own anger to resist my magic.

I straighten my shoulders, my wings fanning open behind me.

“Desmond,” my mother says behind me, “don’t.”

Ignoring her, I stride over to my father, the darkness gathering around me as I watch him sit up. I step up to him just as he wipes away a line of blood seeping from the corner of his mouth.

He stares up at me, his eyes moving to my wings. “So the rumors were true.” Then his gaze moves over my frame, which I know is slender and wiry, then my face. “Pity you are not much to look at.”

I say nothing, though my jaw clenches.

The two of us lock eyes, our rage moving like a river beneath our skin.

Finally, my father flashes a cruel smile. “Yes, you are my son indeed. That power is a terrible burden, isn’t it?”

I’m not sure I could answer him if I wanted to. I need to release this magic before it devours me.

My mother’s hand clasps my shoulder, breaking the spell. “Leave him, Desmond,” she says quietly.

But not quietly enough.

The king’s eyes move to my mother. “Leave me?” he says, his eyes narrowing, even as he begins to grin. “You think I’d let either of you escape me twice?”

One second my father is in front of me, the next he’s gone.

I startle.

Same power as mine.

That’s all I have time to think before my mother’s hand is ripped from my shoulder.

I swivel around in time to see the king at her back, a knife to her throat.

He doesn’t hesitate. Faster than I can react, he drags the blade across her delicate neck, slicing the throat of the only person I’ve ever cared about.

Time seems to stop.Everythingseems to stop.

My entire life condenses to this one instant, this one terrible instant. And it can’t be real. None of this can be real.

Not that blood, which spills down her throat like some strange necklace. Not my mother’s surprised face, or her choked breath, which bubbles out of her wound. Not my father’s pleased face and his wrathful eyes.

This … this can’t be possible.

All at once, time whooshes back to life, and I realize this is possible. This is real. This is what death looks like. This is what true, endless loss feels like.

I’m still that dying star, all my magic, all my grief, all my fury and fear pressing inward. The pressure of it all builds until it’s unbearable. The cavern darkens with it.

I stare at my mother, and I can barely feel the hot tears tracking down my face.

My eyes move to my father.

Everything silences—my pain, my power, my dying heart. I can only hear my breath sighing in and out of me.