“She did let some things slip,” Malchior continued. “Hinted at the...incompleteness of the crown, as well as the fact that your mother might still have been alive. Imagine my surprise and delight to learn that the lost princess was an entirely different kind of lost than we all thought.”
Cedric’s knuckles were white around Ashrender’s pommel. “You came there that night, had your people slaughter my father in cold blood, and you weren’t evensure?”
“My intuition is rarely incorrect, my son.”
“I’m not your fucking son!” Cedric roared, heat blazing in his chest.
Malchior’s voice turned wistful as his gaze raked over Cedric, the blood leaking from the bodies of his own followers soaking the hem of his robe. “The reality of the crown was disappointing. I had hoped that despite Aurelia’s warnings, you might still come out of the Crucible with the Crown of Concord in hand. Or, had you not, that your little sylvan friend would still deliver it to me. But higher still were my hopes for you. For ourfamily.” His eyes narrowed on Elyria. “But you just had to go and wreck it all, didn’t you?”
She smiled, sidestepping even closer to Cedric. “It was my pleasure.”
Malchior scoffed and reached into the pocket of his robe. A long golden chain was wrapped around his hand when it emerged, and Cedric’s eyes widened at the sight of Tenny’s golden locket dangling from his fingers.
“Tell me, Cedric,” Malchior said, eyes gleaming, “did my daughter not look beautiful in this?”
“What did you do to her?” Elyria spat.
“Howdareyou imply I did anything at all? She is my daughter, my blood. Iloveher.” He tilted his chin at Cedric, his voice turning wistful. “I had hoped you still loved her too. It would have made this all so much easier. It is why I thought you might appreciate seeing this around her neck.”
Cedric didn’t respond. Barely reacted, in fact. His gaze wasanchored on the locket, memories poking him from the back of his mind. The sound of his mother’s voice as she tucked a similar one beneath her collar. The feel of his young fingers tracing something so identically shaped.
“That’s not—It’s not the same. You can’t—” Cedric’s words were stilted, his voice frantic. He dropped Elyria’s wrist to rub at his eyes, as though there might be a different scene before him when he opened them again.
It was impossible.
Wasn’t it?
There were still differences between Tenny’s locket and his mother’s.
Though, as Cedric watched it swing in the air, he realized there was really only one difference.
The only thing missing were the intricate carvings he remembered spiraling across its surface, the pattern similar to the runes carved into the floor before him now.
Runes that were quickly filling with blood. Like a snake creeping on its belly, the slain cultists’ blood seeped into the crevices in the floor, forging a slow path toward the basin of the manaforge.
A cruel smile lifted Malchior’s lips. “You think me so evil, but I went back to that hovel for you, Cedric. Retrieved those mementos from your parents to bring you comfort.”
Elyria scoffed. “How magnanimous.”
“Fine, perhaps I also hoped the memories might stir the magic I witnessed within you back to life.” With a low laugh, he tossed the locket at Cedric, who caught it by the chain with a wince. “I did consider giving that to you along with the ring and the sword. But then I thought, didn’t I also deserve a prize? And it was admittedly so delightfully delicious knowing it was right under your nose these past months, and you never even noticed.”
Cedric’s magic flared white-hot in his veins. Outside of them, too. Golden light leaked from his skin, that furnace in his chest blazing.
Malchior’s face twisted in a grin of wicked glee. “There it is. Our risen sun. There is no doubt that now is the time to do this.”
Cedric looped the chain of the necklace around his fingers, and the locket fell flush against his palm. He closed his fist around it. “To dowhat, you bas?—”
Elyria gasped as new light poured from Cedric’s closed hand.
Malchior inhaled a sharp breath, his amber eyes widening.
Cedric opened his fist. The glow receded. And there they were—those intricate carvings he remembered, spreading across the locket’s plain golden surface like ripples in a lake. A sense of rightness, of belonging, overtook Cedric, and he swallowed hard, the corners of his eyes burning.
He slipped the necklace—thecrown—into his pocket, his expression full of dark fury when he looked up. “I could say the same to you. All these years with it in your possession, and you never knew its true worth either. Never knew the real prize you had stolen.”
Malchior’s brow furrowed, and he took a step toward Cedric. “Speak plainly, boy.”
“The time for speaking is over,” Elyria said. “Thisis over.”
