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“What are you doing?” Dalca staggers back as the Storm sings in lightning and thunder.
Let me in, and take your vengeance, she says straight into my heart, her words rattling in my chest.Wreak your darkness upon this world. Become a god of wrath. Punish them for what they have done to us.
My fists clench. I want it. I want payment for every one of the smiles Amma would’ve given had she lived. I want blood for every second I’m forced to live in a world where Pa’s gone.
You will become a creature of revenge. A darkening fury. You will see that your pain is reflected in the world, on every face that jeers down from the stands.
Why shouldn’t I accept her power?
Why shouldn’t I let her in?
She sends me a vision: a new Regia sits upon the throne, one who wears a shifting mark of darkly iridescent lines. Her face is proud, fearless—and mine.
Why shouldn’t she rule?
Why shouldn’t I?
My attention narrows to the boy before me. His eyes are wide with fear.
Dalca is a dark, twisted thing inside, his pain written in his veins. I see all of him, with Queen-given eyes. The dark has eaten him up, save for a small bit of light at his core. So small I could snuff it out between my fingertips.
The Queen whispers into my heart.Take a taste of what I offer.
My shadow rises from the ground, a perfect silhouette, a dark echo of me. It peels itself from the faintly sparkling stone, looming large over me, growing bloated as it feeds on my pain, eating up the knot in my throat, the prickling behind my eyes. It trembles with the grief I can’t face, not right now.
I faced it once. I accepted it then. It reaches for me, arms out as if it would embrace me. But now... I can’t bear it.
It doesn’t slow, showing me no pity, no mercy. All I can do is endure its embrace and brace myself against the sorrow it reflects back onto me.
I can’t break down. But Icanturn my sorrow to fury.
With my shadow’s arms wrapped around my torso, I turn to Dalca. “I pitied you, you know. All this burden you had on your shoulders. Unwilling to share it.”
His eyes show fear. Fear of me.
It makes me powerful.
“I thought, what must it be like to grow up like that?”
“I don’t need your sympathy.”
“No, you don’t. You’re a cruel boy. Selfish. You’ve crafted this image of the valiant Wardana, the dutiful prince, all to conceal what you really are. But I see you.”
“Pick up your sword.” Dalca’s voice shakes.
“Some part of me hates you and will always hate what you’ve done.” The Queen’s power crackles through my veins, electric and coursing under my skin.
Dalca raises his sword and points it at my chest. His gaze darts between me and my shadow.
My shadow laces its fingers with mine, and together we reach forhim. The skin of his throat flexes under my fingers. The cord of his windpipe is so fragile. I could end it; I could snip the thin thread of his life.
Why shouldn’t I?
I press. Dalca shuts his eyes, his lashes wet with unshed tears.
This is power. This is what the Queen offers.
The Storm whispers again, that same siren song, but this time I hear it for what it is. In each thunderclap is the echo of weeping, sobs like those I cried for Amma, under the wind is a scream, one just like the scream that tore itself from me when Pa—
