Page 123 of Embers of Ruin

His gaze sharpens. “I did not say that.”

“No, you didn’t have to say it. But I know that you think it. You think because I came from one miserable village, I can’t understand the weight of a kingdom.”

“I think you have been taught a narrow version of the world.”

The words aren’t cruel, and that makes them worse.

“And whose fault is that?” I demand. “Who made the world narrow? Who filled it with fear? Who made girls like me hide what we were until hiding felt safer than breathing?”

“The curse did that.”

“Your curse, Thorin! Your family’s curse! You did this to me, to all of us!”

“Lyra!” Onyx snaps, his expression telling me I’m crossing a dangerously thin line I may not be able to come back from.

I toe the line anyway.

Thorin’s eyes flash. “Stop, Lyra.”

“Then tell me! I’d certainly like to know. But you’ll never, ever admit it, will you?”

I laugh, and there’s nothing soft about it. “No. No, I am done being careful because everyone else is uncomfortable with the truth. You want me to understand what’s at stake? Fine. I understand that villages are dying. I understand that your garden is dead. I understand that your kingdom looks at me like I might save it.”

The light around my hands grows brighter.

“But you don’t understand what you took from me.”

His expression shifts in warning. “Lyra.”

“No.” My voice cracks, but I keep going because the crack only makes the words sharper. “You took my home. You took the only life I had left. You took whatever safety I scraped together in Elvora, miserable as it was. You sent Onyx after me and dragged me here and now you stand there acting as if all of that is justified because your kingdom needs something from me.”

The shadows move, and Onyx moves with them. I barely notice because the grief is rising now. It’s old grief. Familiar grief. The kind Mara gave shape to long ago. The kind I built my hatred around because hatred was easier than emptiness.

“You took everything from me,” I whisper, tears spilling freely now.

Thorin’s face goes very still, and I see the moment he realizes where the words are headed and tries to stop them.

My magic flares before I realize I have moved. Light spills over my hands, bright and sharp. I feel so much rage and I have nowhere to channel it—what do I do with it? It’s begging to be set free.

“You don’t understand what you took from me.”

“Lyra.” His voice rises, a command for me to stop speaking. But it’s too late—I can’t stop now.

“You took them.”

Silence doesn’t simply fall over the room—it crashes like a wave threatening to drown an entire village.

My breath comes hard. My hands are shaking, light flickering wildly beneath the skin. Thorin stands across from me, shadows curling around him, face stripped of all emotion.

“What did you say?” he asks. His voice is low. Too low.

I should stop. I know I should stop. But the door inside me is already rattling, and anger has become the only thing holding it shut.

“My parents,” I say. “You took them. Your curse. Your guards. Your kingdom. I don’t care which piece of it held the blade. They died because of you. Because of you allowing the order your ancestors started to stand. Magic is forbidden, so take the children. Magic is forbidden in Solaris.” I spit the last words at him as if they’re ash on my tongue.

Onyx lowers his head.

That movement cuts through me. He looks devastated. Why does he look like that? Thorin doesn’t look at Onyx. He looks only at me, and for the first time since I met him, I see something like fear in his eyes.