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“But you’re what the dragons need,” I say. “You’re the heart, right?”
She laughs.
“I don’t understand.”
“Everything in this life requires a sacrifice, just as restoring Azar’s power, his flame-blessed lifeforce, required the loss of something equally powerful—his love-forged connection to you.”
“What happens to me now?”
Freya doesn’t smile this time. “You have one more decision to make before I’ll know.”
Great. “What now? Do I have to choose which of my siblings to save? Or do I have to skin another innocent child to save them?”
Freya’s laughter is bitter. “You’d do that in a heartbeat.”
She’s not wrong. It would erode my soul, firmly establishing that I’m the monster my mom believes me to be, but I would. For Sammy, Coral, and Jade, I would do it. “You already know I’m a monster.”
Freya slowly shakes her head. “No, your actions are more complex than you give yourself credit for. You’re always willing to sacrifice yourself, and monsters don’t do that. You’ve retained your memories of Axel, while his memories of you are now gone.”
“How is that fair?” I ask. “I thought mine would disappear too.”
Her smile is nearly feral. “You must remember or the choice would be rendered meaningless. You can’t suffer without knowing what you’ve lost.”
“You’re a horrible person.”
She shrugs. “A monster, perhaps. The queen of the cursed.” She points to Gordon and Rufus. “You already know that the earth blessed are different.”
“They can reproduce,” I say.
“They paid the price when we created this barrier. Their strength, their abilities—they gave them up to contain the cursed in this place. More than any other blessed, they loved the humans and wanted to keep them safe.”
The cursed hurt the humans? “I don’t understand.”
“I’m aware.” Freya sighs. “You can save Gordon and Rufus, and you can restore to the earth blessed their power, their strength, and their glory.”
I’m waiting for the catch.
“But then they’ll be afflicted like the others.”
“What does that mean?”
“They’ll know longer lives, they’ll be on par with their companions, but they’ll never know the joy of offspring. They’ll lose their ability to shift and their empathy for the humans.”
Axel.
He’d never be able to take a human form either.
When I agreed that Azar would be restored but his memories lost, I was counting on the opportunity to recover them, or at least recreate them. I was convinced that I could penetrate that massive ego, that stubbornly insistent brain of his, in much the same way I did in the past.
But that will be gone.
He won’t smile at me from his gorgeous human form. He won’t brush his hand down the side of my face, or ask me to teach him to kiss.
He’ll simply be my enemy.
But if I made this choice, the earth dragons wouldn’t be fodder any more. Azar wouldn’t need to hide that he’s Axel, because Axel won’t be a liability.
“I’m not qualified to make this decision,” I say. “They need to make it.”
