Elyssara chokes on a sob. “In this life and the next.”
Kael pulls her in, wrapping her in his embrace.
Muffled in the nook of her Starbound’s arms, Elyssara murmurs, “But you’d be a fucking fool to think I’d give up just because something seems impossible. It’s never stopped me before.”
Kael laughs. A rich, gravelly chuckle that warms her chest like strong liquor. She’s never heard a more beautiful sound.
“I know,” he murmurs, pressing the words into the cascading waves of her auburn hair. “There is no stronger force than your will, my love. You could make the Stars themselves kiss your feet. I’m sure of it.”
Elyssara pulls back, emerald-green eyes opening vibrantly for the first time in weeks. “The sun is setting, my Sky. Will you hold me until we have to leave?” Desperation creeps into her tone. A need for him. His presence. Because with the absence of the tether since the Battle of Kryntar, Elyssara has felt starved, desolate.
“It would be my honor, my light,” he vows.
And once again, his eyes are made of the ocean and lightning—the tempest swallowed by something greater.
CHAPTER TEN
The girl who bleeds to find her own
May cross the dark and call it home
Seren fastensher braid with a leather strap, reaching for another to secure around her head.
She stares into the mirror atop the dresser, with the rushing cascade of the waterfall whispering through the window of her room in the west wing of Elarion Castle. Staring back at her is no longer the girl, the scholar, the little sister, the sweet one. She’s gone.
But the ghost of her remains. Perhaps she always will. She’s beenherfor so long that anything other than blind compliance and submission feels like rebellion.
Seren shakes her head as if she can rattle the past from her bones. She worries the rough edge of the leather strap between her fingers. Like her, this strap started as a blank canvas—rough and raw. But over time, after many hands shape it and mold it, it will be worn into something smooth, compliant, obedient.Just like her.
So she stops smoothing it down, and chooses to let it remain. Unsculpted, unmade. She pulls the strap taut across her forehead, drawing it tight enough to leave an indent.
Because now, there is no evidence of the compliant little sister at all. Staring back through the same honey-brown eyes is a warrior. A woman.A witch.
She sheathes a blade at her thigh, double-checking the clasps of her leather armor, and for the first time, she smiles at the sight. As if who she was told to be surrenders to the woman she was always destined to become.
Fire gathers where fear should live, and a hard, burning resolve settles in her gut.Because Seren Calvatere is going home.
She strides for the door—no hesitation, just fire.
Her boots pound steady and measured through the halls of Elarion Castle, her gait efficient and determined.
The scent of roasted meats and spiced wine hits her first, and she knows she’s close to Queen Ilyra’s dining courtyard. Seren didn’t attend the private evening meal, though she received an invitation. Perhaps the queen will be offended by her absence, but for once, Seren is not bothered by the opinions of others. Not even the revered Queen of Nymeris.
This time, she’s concerned with something far more important:her blood.
She passes through an archway where limestone pillars stretch far into the skyline, and lanterns spill soft light across the terrace and the faces of her friends.
The full moon looms over her like a watchful eye, expectant.
Seren sucks in a long, smooth inhale, steeling her nerve.
Her friends drop into low bows and curtsies, and Seren spins to find Queen Ilyra, resplendent and refined in a cascading dress of ice-blue that trails behind her in a dramatic declaration. Hair like soft golden threads, so fair they appear almost whitebeneath the moonlight, flows behind her in an elegant sweep, and her frostlit eyes catch on Seren, intense and unyielding as they take her in.
Seren drops into a curtsy as Ilyra passes beneath the arches woven with ivy.
Queen Ilyra stops before her, pressing her slender, elegant fingers under Seren’s chin to lift her face.
Seren’s thighs burn, but she tilts her chin up. Their eyes meet.
