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I cannot tell you what to do with your life, my darling Diem. But whatever you choose—be smart. And above all, survive. Your life is far too precious to me to be wasted.
Because in this world of injustice and cruelty, where innocents died every day while people in power turned a blind eye and hid in the comfort of their privilege, doing something and failing was better than doing nothing at all.
His intense gaze burned with words unsaid. I knew from the flare of hope I saw within them that my own expression was giving me away.
would have walked into the flaming heart of the sun itself,” he shot back. “If you are suffering, nothing will keep me from coming to your aid. Least of all something as trivial as death.”
His frozen silence was a dagger to my heart.
I had once believed there was some goodness in him, buried under his lies and plots. Had he been a monster all along, and I’d refused to see it?
he had never expected me to abandon who I had been for who I had to become.
Wrapped in his arms, for a fleeting instant, I started to believe everything might turn out alright. That somewhere at the end of this, true happiness might be waiting, after all.
Both misunderstood, for although we often ran from the shadowy unknown toward the clarity of day, the light could blister and burn just as the dark could shield and soothe. It was in the meeting of the two, the dusk and the dawn, where peace was truly at its height.
I’d prayed this was all another mask, another lie—but as I scoured that face I had once read as easily as an old favorite book, the only emotion I found was ruthless resolve.
A firm hand clamped on my shoulder and forced me to turn. “You will choose me.” Luther’s menacing expression was unlike any I’d ever seen. His eyes were their own kind of weapons, tipped with poison and aimed to kill. His features were honed to a brutal razor’s edge, radiating a malice that had my breath catching.
There was no trace of the loyal man I thought I’d known. There was not even the frosty indifference of the Prince. This was Luther the warrior. Luther the executioner.
“I don’t answer to you, Prince. I’m the fucking Queen.”
Then I understood. Luther never wanted to fight me. He wanted to lose to me. He sank to his knees. His head drooped, his hands wrapping around the backs of my thighs. “Let me do this for you,” he begged. “I could hope for no greater death than this.”
“It’s rude to kiss a man like that and then die, Your Majesty,” Luther panted, his breath hot against my swollen lips. I hummed. “I guess that means I’ll have to live.”
“Remember who you are, Diem Bellator.” He clasped the medallion at my neck. “But remember you are a phoenix, too. We do not fear the flames, for the hotter we burn, the higher we fly.”
“Burn, my Queen. Glow so bright, the darkness trembles.”
An emotional fighter is a sloppy fighter, my father whispered in my ear. Let him focus on seeing you beg at his feet rather than die at his hand.
“If you want that Crown, you’re going to have to fight me eventually,” he taunted. I stopped behind him, then unfolded my palm and held it to my lips. “I already have the Crown.”
“I do not rule for you,” I shouted. “I rule for them.” The man’s face froze over with vicious wrath. “Then you will die like the rest.” A blinding explosion of light lit the world aglow until there was nothing but endless white. Now, Daughter of the Forgotten, the voice whispered. Now, you are ready.
I did not need to surrender to my power in helpless submission, nor did I need to beg it to come save me. All this time, I had been waiting for the godhood to embrace me, when what I really needed to do was embrace myself.
Just as I cherished the humanity and love that my mortal family had instilled in me, so too could I wield my immortality, my magic, and my Crown with pride. Both halves were necessary to make me whole, and I would not succeed in this war without accepting them both.
“The true measure of strength is not in the lives we take, but in the lives we save.
