“They want to return to Meranor, Amara,” he says. “They don’t care who dies to make that possible.”
These bastard Fae. All of them would see me dead for their own power. Their greed.
I may be able to see through their glamors, but I am still so blind.
Blind to their finely tuned deceptions. Their silk-spun lies. Their perfectly measured truths. They plot and kill as easily as they breathe, all smiling mouths and silver tongues, hands slick with blood they pretend is wine.
They call it sacrifice. But it is murder.
I glance at the Golden Son, at the shadow crossing his face. At the sorrow in his gaze. It is genuine. Perhaps. But it changes nothing.
“You knew,” I whisper, and my voice no longer trembles. “You knew, and you still let me believe…”
“I wanted to tell you.”
“But you didn’t.”
His mouth presses into a hard line. He does not deny it.
I turn my back to him, my fingers curling over my stomach as my child kicks again, stronger this time, as if sensing the storm inside me.
If Daed cannot find me, then I will free myself, for there is one thing the Ithranor cannot bind: my will.
My power was never theirs to use, and I will burn this realm to cinders before I let them harm my child.
Let them lie. Let them plot. Let them come.
Because I’m done being their sacrifice.
It’s time I became their reckoning.
I spin on my heel, ready to tear another shred from the Golden Son, but a gust of wind slams through the cavern before I can.
It knocks the breath from my lungs as I’m thrown to the ground. The current barrels past me, shrieking before hurling the Golden Son against the cavern wall.
His body hits with a crack that echoes through the darkness, and he slumps, pinned by nothing but the crushing force of the wind. He groans, straining against it, muscles trembling.
Ashen brushes against me as I sit on the floor of the cage, a low, worried purr vibrating from his chest. I reach for him, stroking his spine to soothe his worry, then I lift my gaze to the mouth of the cavern.
Anethesis drifts toward us, his jaw tight, face twisted in rage.
“Ronin,” he says. “I am so very disappointed in you.”
He clenches his fist.
The wind crushes harder against the Golden Son, pinning him deeper into the rock. Stone splinters. Rubble rains down into the lake below with heavy splashes. The Golden Son can only groan, helpless beneath the unseen force.
Anethesis sighs. His voice softens, but there’s no kindness in it.
“I’m sorry, Princess. I did promise to keep you safe from him.”
He clicks his tongue, almost thoughtfully.
“We will have to discipline him. Harshly.” A pause. “Such a shame when friendships take an ugly turn.”
Before I can demand what that means, Anethesis slices a hand through the air. The wind obeys.
Ronin is ripped from the wall and flung into the distance, vanishing like a discarded thought.
