He’s insane. Mad. Completely lost to this idea of genocide.
I could feel his hatred whipping around me, his need to destroy all those he considered to beother. Abominations. Vile beings with too much power.
Excepthewas the one abusing the dark source now, forcing me into a wicked web of death and despair.
This isn’t the way, I thought.This isn’t how the dark source wishes for someone to ascend.
I could feel it weeping, begging the ruler—Constantine—to stop. To take it all back. To redirect the trial to something of growth and potential, to have me prove my worth in a more appropriate manner.
But Constantine ignored the plea, his mind made up.
This was the path he’d chosen, this cruel game of “sacrifice a mate.”
I shivered, my heart fracturing into a million pieces. I could feel Kols’s strand weakening, his ties to death too tender and fresh. The dark source was absorbing him, the lesser of all evils.
He’d almost died once.
It made logical sense to take him again and finish his path.
No, I thought, shooting energy down that strand and emboldening it with my earth source. I was a being of life and creation, and I used that gift to root Kols to me now.
Aflora?he whispered, his voice a beautiful caress to my mind.
Kols,I breathed, sending more vitality to him and renewing his strength.
What are you doing?
Holding on to you,I replied, strained as the source rippled around me in a demand for me to release a mate.
I cried out as it pulsed, stretching me wider, thinning the souls of those I loved most.No!I screamed, slamming the vines with another bout of inner strength, drawing my own version of vines around them to reduce their strain.
But to the detriment of my own soul.
It burned.
Ached.
Left me breathless in this mass of black magic.
You can let me go, Kols said, his voice soft and understanding.It’s okay, sweetheart. I’ve already been gifted with more time, a chance to say goodbye to you all. To love you, even in my short weeks left. It’s enough for me to dream of you for eternity while I rest, Aflora. It’s enough for me to have lived a full life.
No!I snapped.Stop telling me this.I wouldn’t let him go. I wouldn’t choose. I wouldn’t allow him to be the sacrifice Constantine demanded.
There had to be another way.
There had to be?—
“This is pathetic,” Constantine said. “And it’s exactly why a female can never rule. You’re thinking with emotion and not practicality. Kolstov is the obvious sacrifice as the closest to death. But rather than choose the weak link, you’re making them all suffer. What a pitiful queen you would be.”
I growled. “You know nothing of the queen I will be.”
Because he underestimated the powers of the bonds, the strength of mating, the bolstering of the heart. This Midnight Fae Elder only thought in terms of practical recourse, making decisions about life and death on a whim.
No ounce of remorse.
No concern for others.
Just a need to be in charge, to lead by his own example, and to never accept anyone outside his skewed view of superiority.
