Page 134 of Embers of Ruin

I remember home.

I remember being loved.

“They were my parents,” I say, my voice shaking despite every attempt to steady it. “You’re lying.”

“Partially, perhaps,” he says quietly. “Not enough to matter.”

The dismissal knocks the air from my lungs. I press both palms against the glass until my fingertips ache, refusing to let him see me retreat.

“I remember,” I say, shaking my head. “I was born in Valeyn. Before Elvora.”

“No.” The certainty in his voice infuriates me.

“You were hidden in Valeyn.”

“My mother⁠—”

“Loved you.” The interruption is gentle. “I have no doubt that she did.”

His crimson eyes never leave mine. “But love does not make someone your beginning.”

Something inside me snaps. “You don’t get to speak about her or my beginning.”

Immediately, the glass reacts. The white light humming beneath its surface falters, flickering once before steadying again.

Malveris notices immediately.

So do I.

Pain tears through my wrist and I suck in a sharp breath, clutching my forearm as heat races beneath my skin, climbing toward my elbow in fierce, pulsing waves. This isn’t the glass cage. It steals my magic before it can answer me. This feels different. Hotter. Wilder. It feels like fury with nowhere to go.

His gaze drops to the mark on my wrist, and something changes behind those crimson eyes. Recognition.

“...Interesting.”

My stomach knots as the realization hits me in waves.

“You feel the Shadow King,” he says quietly as he circles the outer edge of my glass prison.

“I feel a strong desire to break your nose, Malveris. Do you want to know something else?” I tilt my head to the side, assessing him now. “I’m going to kill you when I get out of here. Those creepy eyes of yours? I’m going to carve them out of their sockets.”

His answering grin is terrifying. “I am not afraid of you, child. But I wonder…”

He walks closer to the glass, sneering at me with yellowing teeth. “The king still doesn't know what you are, does he?”

The question catches me off guard and my mind betrays me before I can stop it, pulling me back through moments I had almost forgotten amid everything else. Thorin standing in the archives with his fingers buried gently in my hair, studying me as though I were the answer to a question he had spent years asking. Thorin in the Sacred Gardens, promising that I would have the truth one day. Thorin forcing open the memories that shattered what remained of my world because he believed I deserved to know what had been stolen from me.

Thorin knows I’m the Cursebreaker.

He knows my magic is the only thing capable of healing Solaris. But does he know everything?

Ever since my memories returned, fragments have surfaced without warning. Fleeting flashes. Half-formed truths. Pieces the gods buried so deeply that even now they refuse to reveal themselves all at once. They wanted me to remember. Just…not everything.

I won’t tell Malveris that.

I meet his gaze with contempt. “I don’t think anyone does.”

A slow smile curves his mouth. “No,” he says quietly. “Not yet.”