I see myself in the mirror at seven years old, crying in a hospital.
I see myself as a teenager, bleeding alone on a bathroom floor.
I see Ethan. His eyes. His hands.
I see Korithax. His smile, his fury, his hands on my throat, on my heart.
I see a throne made of black stone and ash. I see fire licking at the stars.
I see my own face, but different. Older, crowned, terrifying.
“Vel’shakar, naevrith al’domai…” Maelkar chants louder, voice now echoing all around me.
The stone beneath me seems to burn. My back arches, my body thrashing as it’s held down by an unseen force. Then, I can’t move. I can’t scream. I feel like my bones are shattering, reforming, and crashing open just to be rebuilt entirely wrong. My soul… it hurts. Not my body, not my mind—my soul is burning. Like it’s being torn in half and sewn back together with needles of the purest flame. I feel everything. Every nerve, every inch of my body, screaming in pain. I see flashes of myself—but not myself. Other lives, other worlds. A woman with silver hair and black eyes standing in the middle of a battlefield, crowned in fire. Another sitting on a throne of ruin, lovers and enemies bowing at her feet. I see her mouth moving, words forming?—
“From the ashes…”
My lungs seize. The room tilts. I feel the string of my being fray, unravel, twist into something new. And then?—
Silence.
The pain vanishes, the stone beneath me cools, and I…
Chapter 48
Korithax
Iwatch her climb onto the slab, every muscle in my body coiled tight with panic I refuse to show.
She looks so small on that stone. So fucking breakable. The black gown clings to her, still slightly wet from the basin, despite my efforts at drying her off. Her golden hair spills behind her like a dying flame across the stone, and her chest rises with slow, even breaths that do nothing to show the anxiety I can feel radiating off of her.
I feel her fear, I feel it humming through the strange bond between us, a rope pulling taut, but not yet knotted. My palms ache from the restraint, my low amount of power itching beneath my skin, screaming to be used, screaming to tear this place apart and drag her out of it, away from it all.
Maelkar circles her silently. The flickering torches gutter out one by one as he moves, only until the pulsing runes light the chamber. They cast jagged shadows across the walls. I see things in those shadows—faces, malformed spirits, clawing behind the bone lattice that makes up the temple. Some whisper, somescream. The sounds are distant, like they’re underwater. But I know all of them are real. They’re watching, hungry and waiting.
Maelkar stops beside Daisy, raising the blade Il’kethai high above her chest, and the runes throb in time with her hammering heartbeat. She’s afraid, but gods—she’s brave. Braver than anyone I’ve ever known. He speaks low, an ancient language flowing from his tongue.
“Verev’ash kar talren. Ilk’s shoran ez’kai…”
The blade touches her, and she screams, the sound ripping through the chamber. Blood hisses across the stone, and I feel something deep and primal snap inside of me. I step forward, nearly launching across the room, only to feel a burst of resistance from the stone itself—like the ritual is holding me back. Maelkar pushes his palm into her chest, fingers disappearing into the wound, and her small, fragile body jerks. Then, she goes silent. Her back arches, her lips part, and her eyes open, staring at something I can’t see.
The tether between our souls snaps so violently into place with such a brutal force that it brings me to my knees. A blinding, excruciating pull tears through my chest like lightning. It’s not pain, but something so raw it leaves me gasping. Like I’ve been stripped bare, branded, and claimed. I feel her. Not just her heartbeat or her breath, but her being. Her soul is latched onto mine, and it’s not asking, it’s taking. Binding and fusing so tightly to mine, it’s becoming one.
I lift my head, my entire body shaking, and find Maelkar staring down at her with wide, terrified eyes. He takes a step back, like she’s something unholy.
“What have you made me do, Child of Ruin?” He breathes, still not taking his eyes away from her.
My voice is gravelly as I pant, “Turn her immortal. You knew this.”
“No…” he whispers, still frozen. “I have not turned her immortal. She has been reborn.”
My heart lurches. “What?”
He whirls to face me, eyes wide, ringed with fear. “Who the fuck have you made me bring back, Korithax?”
Silence crashes over the room like thunder. Then he says it. So quietly I strain to hear it. “She is your mate, princeling.”
“What?” I croak.
