Page 163 of Fate of the Sun King

“Please,” I say, pressing my forehead to the Mirror. “Please.”

I have something, it finally replies. I have something for you, Heart Queen.

“What is it?” I look up.

It laughs then. The sound is low and dark.

When your grandmother broke the world, we held on to this for safekeeping.

We? The Artefacts. It’s then I know. I’m sure. There can be only one thing it has for me.

Back up, Heart Queen. It is time for you to go home.

The surface of the Mirror begins to glow with silvery light, and I do as it asks, jogging in reverse, peering over my shoulder at Nadir, who waits in the middle of the room.

He takes my hand and squeezes it as we watch the Mirror glow brighter and brighter.

The surface liquefies into a molten whirlpool before an object comes hurtling towards me.

Everything slows down, the world holding its breath as the object flips end over end, curving through the air.

“Nadir,” I say as my magic lurches under my skin with the force of a tidal wave. “Get down.”

Sparks dance along my fingertips. My arms, my torso. I feel them crackle in my head.

He needs to get out of the way.

“Get down!” I scream as my bag tumbles from my grip, and my hands reach for the object, the cool dark stone imprinting my fingertips with the caress of magic.

It’s the ark—an oblong cameo with a woman wearing the Heart Crown carved into its surface, just like Nerissa said.

My fingers curl around it, feeling the ridges and grooves sculpted into that black sparkling rock that I suddenly realize I know so well. That glitter-flecked black stone I stared upon from my hole in the Hollow when I vowed to tear the Aurora King and his Keep apart bit by bit.

I have only a moment to register the incongruity of that fact.

And then I explode.

Red lightning erupts from my hands as the sealed door in my chest finally slams open, releasing waves and waves of power through my blood and my limbs, stirring in my cells and my nerves. It spears out of me in long, jagged streaks, spreading out like I’m a magnificent tree unfurling its branches.

Hundreds of flashes twirl in my gaze. Thousands upon thousands of them as the room spins and turns. We’re standing inside a beating heart—pulsing rivers of crimson feed my organs, expanding in my lungs, allowing me to finally breathe.

I feel Nadir clinging to my waist, keeping me in place while I shake, as magic, so much fucking magic, ripples through me until the glass-domed ceiling blasts apart, detonating in a spray of sparkling shards. The sound roars against my raw scream as my power flows and flows, finally unleashed.

For every day it was locked up, for every moment I was forced to hide it away, it flows out of me in angry, righteous waves.

This is who I am.

This is who they tried to cage.

And this is who they will now fear.

My arms spread wide, and my head tips up.

Today, I am the fucking Heart Queen.

Finally, it stops, and the room falls silent. Rain cascades over us, and it takes me a moment to realize I’m drenched. The promised thunderstorm flashes overhead, white lightning streaking across the sky as if calling to the ruby sparks circling my arms and legs.

Nadir climbs up my body and cups my face in his hands, kissing my cheeks and my lips and my forehead.