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“I cannot . . . feel it as I should,” he said, his voice soft and unusually vulnerable.

He didn’t need to explain further. Stian had already told me that excessive use of dullroot caused patches of power to forever lose sensation. Wielders often lose the sense of connection to their power, he’d said sadly. But that wasn’t all; spectral scars produced excruciating pain, even decades later.

Which was why, throughout my captivity, Erik had dosed me with a low concentration of dullroot. Because he hadn’t wanted me to suffer as he did.

I held his gaze now, breathing rapidly as I realized that, amid all the lies, Erik had always maintained one vital truth. That he’d never wanted me as a weapon. From the moment he’d realized I was a Wielder at the Opal—when I’d used my specter to end a sympathizer’s suffering—he had only wanted me in one capacity, in the way he’d always claimed: as his true equal.

Isn’t this a relief, he’d asked me in the dungeons, that I’ve known you, and have wanted you anyway? And now I recognized his own longing behind those words. I saw the raw pain beneath his glow of self-assurance, the quiet desperation to be seen and wanted exactly as he was.

The realization was jarring. My whole life, I’d wished to find another Wielder to share myself with. And the man I had hated the most—had feared the most—had secretly been yearning for the same.

I ache, just as you do, he’d once said, as close to a confession as he would come. Because all along, he’d been right here, watching, waiting.

Aching . . . for me.

I slowly shook my head, blinking away the tears that had glassed my vision. Noticing the shine in my eyes, Erik fed out more of his specter, the edges wisping out in cool ribbons that threaded gently through the back of my hair in an embrace.

Then I whispered, “Do you expect my sympathy?”

And his brow twitched in sudden confusion.

He hadn’t anticipated those words. Hadn’t realized that the hot tears beading on my lashes were not products of my compassion . . . but of my agonizing rage.

“You,” I snarled, fists clenching above my head, “who continued to slaughter Daradonian Wielders when you had both reason and power to free them instead?”

Erik’s jaw clenched.

Then he yanked his specter away with the speed of a whip, the motion stirring my hair. It was the irrationally resentful movement of someone who’d foolishly shown his cards to an opponent and then snatched them back when he lost the game.

“Free them?” he echoed, all softness gone. “Free the rats who couldn’t protect themselves in the first place? Who let Wholeborns slaughter them for generations?” He rebuttoned his shirt, his expression sharp-edged once again. “If it weren’t for them, children like us wouldn’t have had to hide in our own society. You would still have your parents. A mother.”

I winced, his words twisting deep.

He finished with his buttons and sauntered closer. “Wielders have always held the power to free themselves. Instead, we live in a kingdom built on their weakness. If the powerful allow themselves to be chained like creatures, then creatures they shall become.”

My specter shrank at the dangerous glint in his eyes. Erik once claimed that the events at the Opal had planted in me a seed of resentment toward my fellow Wielders—those who should have protected me not just in that moment, but in the generations that came before.

Now I knew: That same seed had been planted in him long ago. And he had nurtured it until it had sprawled out like a dullroot scar, taking up all the space inside him.

“Every single one of them,” he continued, biting out the words, “deserves the fate they earned.”

I trembled, wanting to recoil from his vehemence. Earlier, I couldn’t determine why he would wish to strip the power of Wielders. And while I still might not understand the full picture, I now grasped one thing: This was personal for Erik.

Because those Wielders hadn’t protected him either.

And there it was—pity, twinging in my gut at last. Because Erik could have become the person who unified Daradon’s Wielders, the protector of the next generation. He might even have become a man I would truly want to call mine.

Instead, he’d become this.

“I know what the blade does to Wielders,” I said. “And nobody deserves that fate.” I spoke slowly, emphatically, meaning every word.

Because even if part of me did believe that those Wielders had been cowards, I also remembered Osana asking me why I hadn’t taken a stand myself when I’d had the chance.

I am one person, I’d justified. They are many. I did what I had to do to survive and to protect the people I love.

And perhaps other Wielders throughout the generations had believed the same. So they’d turned their defenses inward, toward their own households, because when a flaming arrow is flying toward your loved ones, you use the only body you possess to block those behind you—and you desperately hope that others will add their bodies to the shield.

But there were too many households blazing in Daradon, too many shields spread out too thinly. Yes, in a perfect world, those who came before me would have unified and fought. But it was from a fear response that they collectively froze, not realizing that the most damning moments in history are born out of the simple act of standing still.