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“…It was you who tried to break into this chamber,” I gasped, gaze darting toward the Sword of Light, which had started to rock unsteadily in the air. “You slaughtered the guards…and silenced Rowen and Farren too, didn’t you?”

“Clever again.” The glow around his body flickered brighter, and his golden brown eyes seemed to take on a reddish hue—as did the center of his Vaeloran mark—as he said, “They knew too much. I’ve been periodically pulling out their memories with my magic over the years, so they didn’t remember my returns to the Above, or othersensitiveinformation, but the task of keeping them oblivious was becoming tiresome. I had to seek a more permanent solution.”

I pictured the still bodies of Rowen and Farren. Their red-ribbon throats, their forever-silenced tongues, their pale skin and empty gazes…

I swallowed hard, forcing a calmness into my voice that I didn’t in any way feel. “What are you planning to do now? Andwhy?”

“Can’t you guess?” His eyes—still disturbingly close to the color of blood—darted between Luminor and Grimnor before settling back on my face. “There isn’t enough magic to sustain both worlds, and there never will be again. But there is a chance at creating something greater—imagine the Above in all its current glory, but with all that remains of Noctaris’s power and magic added to it, as well.”

“…And with you as its ruler?”

He was quiet for a long moment, his gaze calculating as he looked me over. “You could rule at my side, if you wanted to. The Vaelora are always stronger together, after all.”

“You would sacrifice this entire realm, even after all the time you’ve spent in it? Even after seeing the life that still clings to it?”

His expression remained unchanged. “This world is little more than ash and shadows, anyway. And its survivors don’t trulywantyou as their queen, by the way; they only care about what you can do for them. Their admiration will fade as soon as they believe their world is safe. It hasalwaysfaded after the job is finished. For a millennia, our kind have been expected to sacrifice ourselves after fulfilling our duty, and so that is all we’ve been reduced to—mere tools to be discarded. But I am rewriting that narrative. Ending our servitude. And you could help me do it.”

“And youwouldn’tbe using me?”

“No. Because I don’tneedyou like this world does; I simply want you.” He cocked his head, as though truly curious about my answer. Offering his hand to me, he asked, “Isn’t there a difference between the two?”

I stared at his outstretched hand. At the ribbons of deeply golden light moving around it, drawing in my shadows like a flame ensnaring moths.

And I couldn’t help considering his words.

Because therewasa difference. I’d grown up painfully aware of that difference, surrounded by people who felt as though they needed to treat me a certain way, with a certain reverence, even though they didn’t truly want me in their presence.

“We don’t have to be enemies, Nova,” Lorien said, his tone shifting into something oddly gentle and…alluring. Like a calm stretch of cerulean sea, begging me to jump in. To not worry about the jagged rocks that might be lurking below the surface.

I wondered what it would be like, to work side-by-side with someone who carried the same mark as me, who truly understood the weight of the magic that mark represented. A weight, a burden, that I feared would make it impossible for anyone else to ever trulywantme—all of me.

I thought of reaching back.

Just for a moment, I thought of reaching back.

Then I withdrew my sword instead, easing the tip of it into his chest.

The glow around his body flashed brighter, sending a wave of electricity snaking up my sword, burning into my arm.

I refused to flinch.

Lorien kept his gaze leveled with mine, never once glancing at the sword or magic between us. “You reallydofavor her. No blood relation, but the dark magic weaving through your body has certainly left its mark.”

I squeezed Grimnor’s handle more tightly.

He tilted his face closer to mine, his lips barely parting with the words as he added, “And it’s as I suspected: Wielding that sword makes you look evenmorelike her.”

He was too close, his eyes too hungry, and I had the unsettling feeling that he was no longer seeingmeat all—he saw only the woman he believed had wronged him all those years ago.

The one he’d been plotting his revenge against forcenturies.

“I am not her,” I said in a quiet, seething voice.

“No,” he agreed, leaning back slightly, “but I suspect ruiningyouwill be almost as satisfying.”

Chapter Forty-One

Nova