“The Memory Orbs aren’t here, El. We still need them to restore Dravara. I need you to live. To find the Orbs. I need you to take back your throne. So when Maireth’s guards get downhere, I want you to run, fight, kill—whatever you need to do to live. Get Seren here. And go!” His voice is savage now. All teeth and fury.
Elyssara shakes her head, mouth opening and closing, desperate to say something, anything that will change his mind. “And what of you? You’ll stay?”
“I’ll draw them to me. I’ll kill every last one. But El, this thing…” he gestures to the rot running through his veins, “it owns me. Next time you see me… I won’t be there. Leave me.”
Fear threatens to swallow her whole.
“No.” The words leave her without conscious thought. But there’s no conviction in it—it’s a whisper.
Another roar tears from Kael’s throat, darkness spreading across his chest like it’s made a home there.
He shakes his head like he’s trying to remember himself.
“I cannot hurt you. I cannot bear the thought of hurting you. Of losing control with you. I need you to leave me. Please,” he begs.
The rasp of steel sings through the corridors, bootfalls closing in.
“I can’t,” she sobs. “My heart won’t let me.”
But Kael bares his teeth. “Leave me!”
Elyssara shakes her head again, ripping the mask from her face. “You are part of me,” she whispers, voice tender and raw.
Kael winces at the truth. “And I will find you in every lifetime, Elyssara. I will burn down hell to get to you. But in this one… let me go.”
Elyssara reaches for him.
But a snarl rips from his throat.
Kael fights the Decay, straining to keep it in check. He strains, neck muscles bulging under the pressure. “I will do inexplicable things to keep you safe, my love. You cannot behere when I become the creature even the monsters fear. The Decay will not care who you are. Bodies are all it sees.”
A sob wracks Elyssara’s body. “I love you?—”
A booming clap cuts through her declaration.
“So touching,” a smooth voice echoes through the vaults.
Princess Marin steps across the threshold, chin lifted, an ugly sneer across her beautiful face, and her crimson and ivory dress dragging through the grime of the corridors without a single care.
“I see you found our gifts,” she croons, sarcasm thick on her tongue. “Welcome to Caeloria.”
As if the kingdom itself had been waiting beneath the silk for a chance to show its teeth.
Kael doesn’t move. But his hands flex at his sides, preparing to strike.
“You fucking killed them!” Elyssara screams, the words rasping and strained as they tear from her throat.
Marin strides forward, shrugging nonchalantly. “Comply or die, darling. It’s not just an idea—it’s a promise.” The words come out flippant, easy. As if they haven’t snuffed out the lives of people Kael loved.
“All because they helped us,” Elyssara snarls. “How pathetic. Are you really so easily threatened?”
Defiance rises in her chest—an old friend.
Marin laughs, and it sounds genuine. “Threatened? No. Committed to upholding the standards we’ve set? Undoubtedly.”
The soldiers are close, their footfalls echoing through the corridors like a war drum. They have heartbeats to form a plan.
Elyssara needs information. Needs to know what in the fucking Stars is happening—the resin, the Orbs.What does all of this mean?
