She laughs, a sharp, bitter sound that holds no humor. “Then you are a fool for drinking it.”
I have no answer for that. The logic is, once again, inescapable.
I watch as she slowly, painfully, gets to her feet. She is bruised, her body marked by the ferocity of our encounter. My ferocity. And as I look at the dark, blooming bruises on her pale skin, a new sensation, cold and sharp and utterly alien, stirs in the pit of my stomach.
It is a feeling of possessive rage. Not directed at her. But at the thought of anyone else ever marking her in such a way.
The thought is a key, unlocking a door in my mind I did not know existed. I think of the Matriarch. I picture her, with her cold, starless eyes and her sterile, obsidian laboratories. I picture the specimen—my son—on one of her cold, stone tables, probes and needles dissecting his perfect, miraculous form. I picture the Matriarch’s guards, the Crimson Wing, putting their hands on him.
And then I picture them putting their hands onher.
A low, guttural snarl tears from my throat, a sound of biblical fury that makes her flinch back, her eyes widening in renewed terror. The chain on my wrist strains, the iron groaning under a sudden, violent surge of my strength.
In that instant, the entire equation of my existence shatters.
The mission was to retrieve the cure. A simple, logical objective for the survival of my race. But the Matriarch does not care for the source. Elza would be an inconvenience, a loose end to be disposed of once the specimen was secured. They would kill her. They would take my son and they would kill his mother.
The thought is not just unacceptable. It is an act of war.
The cold apathy that has been my shield for ten thousand years evaporates, burned away by a possessive, protective fire so intense it threatens to consume me.
I look at her, truly look at her, huddled against the far wall, defiant and terrified and so fiercely, stubbornly alive. The Anomaly. The mother of my son. Mine.
A jolt of pure ice shoots through me as the truth settles, cold and hard and absolute. My hunt is no longer for a cure for the Vrakken. It is for them. The mission is compromised. No, it is not compromised. It has been annihilated, replaced by a new, singular, and utterly illogical purpose.
I must have them. Both of them. And I will burn this world to the ground to keep them.
15
ELZA
For three days, I do not go to the lower cells. I send Tarek with the food and water, a silent admission of cowardice that chafes at me like a raw wound. I avoid the very heart of my own fortress, because the monster chained there has undone me.
I try to scrub him from my skin. In the washroom, I use a rough lye soap and a coarse brush until my flesh is red and raw, but I can still feel the phantom pressure of his hands, still smell his scent in my hair. It is a stain on my soul, a brand I can never remove.
So, I throw myself into my duties. I lose myself in the endless, grinding work of keeping Haven alive. I spend hours on the southern wall, directing the masons as they reinforce the section he pointed out, the mortar now mixed with crushed iron shavings. His criticism was a weapon, but I will turn it into a shield.
“You work too hard, My Queen,” Tarek says, finding me atop the wall, my hands covered in grime and dust.
I look out over the small, bustling sanctuary I have carved from the world’s forgotten places. The title still feels strange on my ears, even after all these years. I never asked to be a queen.There is no human kingdom left to rule. But when I led the first wave of escaped slaves to this ruin, when we fought off raiders and starvation with nothing but our bare hands and a desperate will to live, they needed a leader. They saw the scars on my back and the fire in my eyes and they started calling me their Scarred Queen. The queen of the broken, the lost, and the defiant. It is a crown forged of desperation and loyalty, and it is heavier than any crown of gold.
“A queen’s work is never done, Tarek,” I reply, my voice rough with exhaustion. I am trying to build a future for them, but all I can feel is the past, chained and breathing in my dungeon.
I try to lose myself in my son. I spend the afternoons with Lyren, helping him with his reading, watching him spar. But even there, there is no escape. I see the flash of silver in his hair, the startling intensity in his gaze, and I seehim. My love for my son is a fierce, pure thing, but now it is tangled with the shame and confusion of what I have done. I have willingly lain with the creature who is his father, and the hypocrisy of it eats at me like a cancer.
On the third evening, Lyren finds me in the armory, where I am sharpening my own dagger with a focus that borders on obsession. The scrape of steel on whetstone is a harsh, grating sound that almost drowns out my thoughts. He comes and sits beside me on the bench, his small legs dangling, his expression uncharacteristically solemn.
For a long time, he just watches me. Then, his small, quiet voice cuts through the noise.
“Mama,” he asks, his dark eyes serious. “Why is the winged man so sad?”
The whetstone slips from my hand and clatters to the floor. The sound is unnaturally loud in the sudden silence. My bloodruns cold. I stare at my son, at his innocent, perceptive face, and I cannot find the breath to answer.
I see a monster. A cold, calculating, unfeeling thing. A predator. But Lyren… he sees sadness. He senses the vast, echoing loneliness that I felt for a terrifying moment through the psychic link. The loneliness of a creature who has lived for ten thousand years and never felt a moment of warmth.
The thought shakes me to my very core. It makes me question everything. I can no longer hide from him. I can no longer hide from what happened between us.
The next morning, I take the bucket and bowl myself. My hand is steady on my dagger as I descend the stairs. The fear is still there, a cold knot in my stomach, but it is overshadowed by a new, burning curiosity.
