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I felt safe. So very safe. I wanted to fall asleep in those arms and never, ever leave. Sleep... “Stay with me, Diem. Please... stay here with me. No, wait, don’t—” Darkness.
You’ll stay with her until I’m back?” “Lumnos herself couldn’t pull me from her side.” More silence. “Cousin... who is this woman to you?” A pause, and a long, heavy sigh. “Eleanor, I... I think she...” Darkness.
I think se WHATTTTTTTT
Luther. His eyes opened, our gazes already matched. For a heartbeat, his expression didn’t change, and I marveled at the softness of it. I’d never seen him like that. I’d seen him angry, annoyed—even terrified, I remembered with a shiver—but never quite so... peaceful.
“That was Sorae, King Ulther’s gryvern.” He strolled to the window and leaned a shoulder against the wall, eyes turned upward. “She’s been agitated all morning. I was worried her antics would wake you up.”
“She’s normally quite docile. Disturbingly so.” His expression warmed. “I’ve tried countless times to use her for battle training the Royal Guard, but no matter how much I bribe her, she insists on sleeping through the whole thing.”
“When the King dies, Sorae will pass to a new master. I suspect she feels it coming.” “You think she’s sad?”
“Gryverns are exceedingly smart, with minds and opinions of their own, yet they are magic-bound to obey only the Crown. I imagine she’s wary at being forced into service to a stranger whose goals she might not share.”
“You shouldn’t wait to call for a healer for a mortal, you know. We aren’t like you Descended. Our bodies don’t always heal just because an injury didn’t kill us.” He gave me a strange look. “You really believe that, don’t you?” “Believe what?” “That you’re not...” His voice trailed off with an awful sadness, something that seemed too close to pity on his face.
I was very much scared of the way all my nerve endings were aflame, my blood rushing to all the many, many places where our bodies touched. And even more scared of how I couldn’t seem to talk myself into pulling away.
“If the death of innocents is a cost we’re willing to pay, then we don’t deserve to be powerful.”
THIS FUCKING LINE !!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Fair point. You do seem to be impressively bad at following orders.” “Thanks,” I said dryly. He smiled. “But you’re very good at your job.”
“Where is my mother?” I ground out. He gave me a grim, humorless smile. “I wondered how long it would take you to ask me that.”
Luther stopped and raised his palms. “I assure you, whatever you think happened between me and your mother, it didn’t.”
It was an odd thing, to feel so distrustful of my own heart.
I gave his wrist a gentle squeeze and softly whispered the sacred Rite of Endings: “End be your time, a trade in kind, a life well-lived for peace to find. Be not afraid, as shadows fade, all pain and woe shall be unmade. Now fate well-sealed shall be revealed, for those whose worthy souls shall yield. In love and calm, this holy psalm, shall guide your soul to realm beyond.”
His eyes flew open, already on me, like he’d been watching me even in sleep. Dark, deep-sea blue. Startlingly clear. Lucid. No—something more than lucid. Seeing more than me. Seeing into me.
“You,” he croaked, voice hoarse from months of atrophy. “You’ve finally come.”
“They told me your blood would shatter our stone and lay waste to our borders.”
The King gasped, his grip on me tightening. “I am not afraid, Devourer of Crowns. Ravager of Realms. Herald of Vengeance.”
“Give him our gift, Daughter of the Forgotten. When the end has come, and the blood has spilled, give our gift to my faithful heir, and tell him this is my command.”
“Diem—” “That’s Miss Bellator to you,” I snapped, still refusing to meet his eyes. “Arrest me or let me leave. I don’t want anything to do with this palace or anyone in it ever again.”
“Touch her, and I’ll rip off your fucking arms.”
HOT
“You think I fear my own death?” he whispered in my ear. “Every day I draw breath is as much a curse as a gift. I’ve been living on borrowed time for longer than you can imagine. If you’re the way my fate finally catches up to me, I can’t fathom a more beautiful end.”
“Favor?” I managed to ask, despite the heady fog clouding my thoughts. Without pulling away from my dagger, he turned his face, hot breath spilling over my cheek as his mouth trailed the line of my jaw. His eyes rose to mine. “Let me die with the taste of you on my lips.” Our lips collided, and I was lost.
I’d never been kissed like this before. I’d never even known this was what a kiss could be. And that scared me even more than a blade to the throat.
“How should I know?” I said, shrugging like it meant nothing. Like that kiss—that fucking kiss—had meant nothing. “You’re practically a stranger. You’ve never shown me any side of you that’s real.”
But Luther wasn’t cold at all. Luther was an inferno.
I hid behind false bravado and snarky jokes, while Luther’s shield was forged with brooding stares and clenched jaws—but inside, we were one and the same.
Inside, we rattled the bars keeping us trapped in lives we didn’t choose. Inside, we roared with an insatiable craving for more. Inside, we paced and we planned and we waited. Inside, we burned.
“The only person you’re good at lying to is yourself.”
Oh shit
“Go ahead,” he breathed. “Lie to me. I already know the answer. I know you feel my power.” His chin rose, our lips so very, very close. “Because I can feel yours, too.” No. No. He smirked. “You’re no more mortal than I am.”
yesssssss i knew i
“Take the role back from Maura. Not because of your mother or the bargain. Because I’m asking you to. Because I need—”
Something had shifted in my soul. The wind was changing course, pushing my sails on a new, uncertain path, and though I didn’t know how or why, I felt powerless to stop it. More than that—I didn’t want to stop it.
“You saw it too, didn’t you?” I stopped, but I didn’t look back. “Last night,” he said, “right before the roof collapsed. The vision. The battlefield.” I couldn’t move, my body paralyzed, my thoughts stunned to stillness. “What if our story isn’t over, Diem Bellator? What if it’s only beginning?”
No mortal who goes in to Sophos ever comes out.”
“When the mortals have outlived their usefulness doing the research, they... become the research.”
“You might not know your father as well as you believe you do. He’s not the hero you think.”
“Enough,” he bellowed. Even the cutlery laying along the kitchen hutch rattled faintly at the force of his thunderous tone. “I am your father, and you will obey me.” FIGHT. “You are not my father!”
“Tell me, dear Father—where is our mother?” He faltered. A subtle, almost imperceptible thing. “I don’t know.” Liar. “I don’t believe you.” My eyes narrowed to slits, a silvery firestorm blazing behind them. “Why did you stop looking for her, Father? Why have you barely lifted a finger since the day she disappeared?”
“Perhaps you do not look because you do not care. Perhaps you’re the real reason she’s gone.”
Free me, Daughter of the Forgotten.
Far away, a shrill and inhuman cry roared through the night. An ancient sound. A mourning—and a calling. Release me.
Claim me. I am your birthright and your destiny. I couldn’t take it anymore.
Take me, I whispered to the voice. I surrender.
“Diem—you’re wearing the Crown. You’ve been selected. You are the new Queen of Lumnos.”
oh my god i knew it!!!!!
Fifteen steps. As long as she stayed within fifteen steps, she was safe. Out of reach. She’d learned that the hard way, back then. Tonight, she stopped at twelve. She stared into the depthless shadows. “It’s me. I came back for you.”
Is this diems dad??
Being here felt wrong in some deeply fundamental way, as if the very blood under her skin knew it did not belong in this place.
Despite her still-aching hand, a jubilant grin spread across her face. The King was dead.
Which could only mean one thing... In thirty days, Auralie Bellator was going home.
