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LIORA

T he vision rips through me like a blade, carving through flesh, through time. I see the past unraveling before me, each thread woven into a story I wasn’t supposed to remember.

Dain was never the villain of this tale.

Amara never betrayed him.

She saved him.

The truth slams into me, vicious and unforgiving. I see Amara standing before a council of dark elves, her hands bound in shackles of enchanted iron. She pleads, her voice raw, but they do not listen. They will not listen.

They have already made their decision.

The artifact pulses in their grasp, a relic forged from the tormented souls of the countless beings Dain had slain in his reign of power. It was an aberration. It should have never been created.

But the dark elves had other plans.

They were the ones who cursed him. They took his strength, his mind, his very essence, twisting it into a prison of suffering. The artifact is alive, feeding on him, fueled by his rage, his agony.

It wants more.

Amara could not destroy it.

She could only weaken it.

So she did the unthinkable, she sealed Dain away.

Not to imprison him. To save him.

The bond, the curse, the cycle, it was never her doing. It was never supposed to be this way.

I stagger backward, gasping, my vision blurring as I rip free from the memory. My hands tremble as I clutch my chest, my heartbeat wild, erratic.

Dain is beside me, breathing hard, his body rigid with the implications of what we’ve seen. He is still locked in the remnants of the vision, still seeing the truth shatter everything he has believed for centuries.

His hands shake.

His claws twitch at his sides.

I reach for him.

He does not move.

“Dain—”

A voice echoes through the cavern, smooth as silk, dripping with malice.

“Now you see.”

The darkness shifts, the presence slithering closer. The entity that has hunted us, whispered to me in my dreams, stands just beyond the flickering light of the shrine’s torches.

It laughs.

“Now you understand.”

Dain is still frozen, his breathing ragged.

The voice slithers around us, into us, curling through the depths of our minds.

“You can’t escape this.”

The laughter is slow, deep, filled with centuries of amusement and hatred.

“And she will betray you again.”

I barely register the words before Dain moves.

One second, he is stone, frozen in the realization of the past. The next, he is fire.

His roar tears through the shrine, his wings snapping open as his power surges in a violent wave. His body trembles, his golden eyes flickering between rage and devastation.

He turns on me.

His hand slams against my chest, shoving me backward.

I stumble, gasping, the impact sending a sharp pain through my ribs.

He looks at me like I am a disease. A curse.

Like I have destroyed him.

Again.

“You did this to me.” His voice is hoarse, broken.

I wildly deny it, stepping forward. “Dain, no. I didn’t?—”

His wings snap open, his entire body taut with barely restrained fury.

“Stay away from me.”

The words lash across my skin worse than any wound.

I reach for him again, pleading. “You saw what happened. It wasn’t?—”

He snarls, flinching away from my touch.

“I don’t care what I saw.” His eyes blaze with torment, his claws curling into his palms. “I don’t care what the truth is.”

His voice drops, dark and merciless.

“You are still her.”

The air is sucked from my lungs.

My throat constricts as I say, “I’m not. I’m Liora.”

He steps closer, looming over me, his breath ragged, his chest moves, up and down, with barely contained fury.

“No.” His voice is nothing more than a whisper, but it is lethal.

“You were never Liora.”

I choke back a sob. “That’s not true.”

He leans in, his eyes burning into mine, something unhinged clawing through his expression.

“Then prove it.”

His challenge hangs between us like a blade.

The dark presence laughs again, relishing the destruction, the agony.

Dain trembles, his body shaking as if it is taking every ounce of his will not to tear me apart. His wings flex, his muscles coiling.

He turns away.

My breath catches. “Dain?—”

He flies.

A gust of wind tears through the cavern as he shoots into the air, vanishing into the night, leaving me behind.

Alone.