“You taught me with no uncertainty that those days are gone,” he says, testing her.
“Only because we chose to bury them,” Lara replies. “I can just as easily…unburythem.”
She moves her body awkwardly, as if she can dislodge whatever this emotion is from her body. It’s not kindness. It’s tolerance, at best. Maybe even acceptance.
She turns before he can answer, already moving toward the nearest Melder. The girl sits up straight as Lara approaches, reacting to her presence, to the terror she has learned to feel for the witches—alertness. Always waiting for the next move Lara makes.
Smart girl.
The air changes.
The chamber holds its breath.
Lara reaches out.
The girl flinches, but Lara grips her forearm and hauls her to her feet.
“Do you wish to take to the skies?” Lara asks, voice cold and distant, though the offer is genuine.
The girl’s eyes dart from Vren to Rubi to Saana to the other Melders, slumped against the walls of The Underbelly.
Vren doesn’t hesitate this time.
“What’s the catch?”
Lara pins him in place with her stare, amethyst eyes fixing on him with force so powerful and absolute that Vren’s breathing falters.
“Scorch everyone from the north and do not repent,” Lara commands, the words coming out all vicious and venom.
The Melders move, languid and light-headed, but they move.
Lara nods.
“Above ground,” she says.
And no one argues.
The cityabove them is barely recognizable.
Structures lie in ruin, streets torn open, fire carving its way through what remains. The sky is choked with smoke, the air thick with ash and the distant roar of a battle that has already taken too much.
Vren comes to stand beside her, his gaze sweeping the destruction, and a low, horrified breath escapes him.
“What happened?” he asks, not looking at her.
Lara does not answer immediately.
She studies the city instead—the broken streets, the fires still burning through what remains, the distant flashes of power tearing through the skyline. This is what Nyrielle calls control. This is what she intends to rule. And a kingdom ruled through fear always mistakes silence for peace.
“Too much,” Lara says at last.
She steps forward.
The Melders gather around her, unsteady but present, their mortal forms moving with a heaviness that speaks to years spent bound inside something too small for what they are. Blood still runs down their arms, drying against their skin, the remnants of what they have already given.
She can see it now. The sacrifice. The selflessness. Things she had never deigned to give. Not for kingdoms. Not for gods. Certainly not for people.
Until now.Until Seren.
