Page 170

Her gaze cuts over me, then shifts to the rest of them filtering in behind me, and I see it then—the crack. Not in her body, but in her magic. In the thing she’s built here. The cathedral thrums beneath my feet, like it’s coming apart at the seams, and for the first time, she looksafraid.

Good.

She opens her mouth like she wants to speak, to purr something cruel and calculated, but her voice falters. There’s nothing left of the queen she pretended to be. And I watch her crumble.

I let my footfalls echo as I stroll forward, closer to the steps of her dais. “Let’s get this over with, Branwen. I’m bored of this song.”

The fucking end is coming. And I hope I’m the one who get’s to put this bitch down.

Caspian

Her voice slithers through the cathedral like rot beneath marble, sliding up my spine and curling cold fingers around my throat.

“Caspian.”

My name is a prayer on her tongue, saccharine and poisonous. Like I’m the prodigal sin returned to her altar. I hate how easily it hits me—the shape of it in her mouth, how sweetly she dresses the venom.

I want to flinch. Gods, I want to recoil like a whipped dog, but I lock my knees and clench my jaw so hard my molars threaten to crack.

Branwen smiles, that smile. The one I used to bleed myself dry to earn. The one I used to think meant something. It doesn’t reach her eyes. It never did.

“Look at you,” she purrs, chin tilting, gaze sweeping over me like she’s cataloguing every piece she used to own. “I thought you’d stay lost forever.”

I feel her words trying to slide under my skin, trying to settle in the cracks she left. I know that voice. I know how soft she can make it, how effortlessly she can carve you down until you’re nothing but need.

And for a heartbeat, I want to hide behind Luna. Tuck myself in the curve of her warmth and let her keep me steady.

But before I can so much as blink, Ambrose steps forward like a blade unsheathed, his voice cracking the spell in two.

“Fuck off, Branwen.”

There’s no venom in it. No snarl. It’s calm, detached, like he’s pointing out a stain on the wall. Like she’s beneath his time. And that cuts sharper than any threat.

Branwen’s smile falters, a twitch at the corner of her mouth, but she recovers fast, lashes lowering as she shifts her attention to him.

“Ambrose Dalmar,” she says smoothly, like she’s savoring the syllables. “Didn’t you used to enjoy playing the long game?”

“I’m not playing,” Ambrose replies without missing a beat, folding his arms across his chest like he’s settling in to negotiate the cost of her corpse. “I came to kill you.”

The air in the cathedral hums, a low vibration beneath our feet, the very stones of this place remembering centuries of blood and betrayal. Branwen’s throne, carved from crumbling bone and tarnished gold, looms behind her, but she doesn’t look like a queen. She looks like the remains of one.

“And yet,” she says softly, gaze flicking back to me like she can’t help herself, “you brought my favorite little thing back to me.”

I feel her eyes trace every part of me like she’s peeling me open. Like she can still taste me.

Ambrose’s jaw ticks once. “He’s not yours.”

Her smile sharpens, predator-slick. “Everyone’s something, darling. You should know that better than anyone.”

“Don’t,” I rasp, and my own voice scrapes raw in my throat. I hate how much effort it takes to get the word out, to make it sound like I don’t care. “Don’t talk like you ever knew me.”

Branwen’s gaze cuts to me, and for a second, something flickers there. Not power. Not seduction. Something uglier—emptiness.

“I built you,” she murmurs.

I want to laugh. I want to scream. Instead, I lift my chin and smile, sharp as glass. “And I tore that shit down.”

Ambrose hums beside me, amused like this is the most entertaining negotiation he’s been in all year. “You’re looking a little hollow, Branwen. I thought this cathedral was supposed to be your crown jewel.”