Page 23

The Mani Goddesses materialized from the thick void—towering, faceless figures constructed of starlight and shadow. Their presence hit my mind with a wave of dizzying, cosmic weight, their eyes burning like dying stars through the dense liquid. Their voices vibrated directly inside my head, an overlapping, whispering hiss that echoed with centuries of judgment.

“A half-breed.”

“The blood of mortals runs through her.”

“Is she worthy of the dawn?”

“Is she worthy of the night?”

“Look at her fear. Look at her weakness.”

“A fragile thing from a fragile world.”

The words cut through the dark in my head, sharper than Kaelor’s blade. They wanted me to break. They wanted the human in me to surrender and beg for the surface.

Something hot and stubborn flared beneath me—the same refusal to yield that had kept me breathing through every brutal lesson on Earth and in Nymeria.

I tried to shout, but only a stream of silver bubbles escaped my lips. I fought the crushing pressure, my mind flashing to the training mats, the smell of pine in the forest, the dragons waiting on the high peaks.

I squared my shoulders in the dark. I am Tauriel. Princess of Nymeria, carved out of dirt and blood. Claim me... or let the silver burn me to ash.

The three figures went perfectly still. A silence so absolute it felt like the second after an execution settled over the deep.

Judgement.

An invisible, crushing force slammed straight into my chest, launching my body upward through the heavy liquid like a stone fired from a cannon.

I shot out of the water, breaking the surface in a massive spray of silver. The silence of the cavern shattered as a ragged, agonizing scream tore from my throat.

The Remnikai burned its way through my skin.

Survive. I will survive.

I won’t break.

As I hung suspended in the air for a single heartbeat, black and gold marks erupted across my flesh like fire. They seared against my skin, wrapping around my ankles, climbing my legs like hot irons, and covering my back in intricate, jagged lines. The markings laced around my ribs, burning and cruel, before branching upward across my chest in heavy lines of midnight black and molten gold—a permanent map of night and day etched into my flesh.

The sheer pain was too much for my mind to take. The world spun, the gold and silver light of the room blurring together.

My scream choked off, my lungs emptying, and I plummeted straight back into the pool. My limp body sank beneath the surface.

“TAURIEL!”

The desperate roar echoed off the high stone arches, stripping away every shred of courtly restraint. Aerynn’s shout collided with Caspian’s shattered roar as both males broke formation and charged the pool.

Through the dark spots closing over my vision, I heard the heavy, frantic slam of Caspian’s boots against the flagstones. He moved before my father or Dellyn could even react, rushing toward the edge with feral desperation, his hands tearing at the silver sash of his formal doublet to throw himself into the deep.

“Caspian, stop!”

Aerynn’s voice cracked through the cavern like a thunderclap. My brother lunged off the dais, throwing his full weight into Caspian’s broad shoulder, tackling him away from the water’s edge just as his boot cleared the stone lip.

“Let me go!” Caspian snarled, his voice a primitive growl, his face contorted in rage as he fought Aerynn’s grip with enough force to tear his formal velvet doublet. His blue eyes were fixed with absolute terror on the spot where I’d gone under. “She’s drowning! Get off me!”

“If you step into that water unchosen, it will strip the flesh from your bones!” Aerynn yelled back, his hands locked onto Caspian’s silver breastplate, his own voice shaking. “Look at the water, Cas! Look at it!”

Caspian stilled beneath him, his chest heaving, his breath coming in ragged hitches as he looked back at the pool. Slowly, the unhinged panic in his eyes retreated, forcing itself behind a wall of iron. He shoved Aerynn back, his hands smoothing the crumpled velvet of his doublet as he fought to regain his composure.

He stood a few paces away, the formal velvet of his doublet slightly torn at the collar as if he’d just fought off a physical restraint. The raw, unhinged panic in his blue eyes was barely locked behind a wall of sheer iron, a dark, haunted shadow clinging to him—the look of a male who knew the specific, agonizing weight of an old grief and refused to let it bleed out again.