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“Good girl.”
“Utter one more foul word about her and I will slit your throat from ear to ear.
I’m sure the red of your blood will look like a work of art pooling at her feet.”
But the second that swine—Donnet—had opened his mouth … Andrian had never felt such fury in his entire, angry life. The darkness dwelling in his veins had swirled up and out, veiling his vision so suddenly that when he’d finally been able to recapture its reins, he’d found himself standing between Mariah and the lord, his dagger pressed against the man’s sweaty throat.
He still hated her, he’d reminded himself.
Hated her. Hated her.
Andrian had always been colder, darker, and filled with far too much ice and shadow to make his father happy.
“I am disappointed in you, Andrian.”
“You disgraced your family tonight, Andrian, by dancing with that whore bearing a name worth nothing that we are soon expected to call queen.”
“Hear me closely, Andrian. I do not care if you have been captivated by whatever it is about her you find so … appealing. She will never be queen; I will make sure of that.”
“If you so much as think about accepting the bond from her, or of assisting her in any way towards the growth of that useless power she stole from a family far more deserving, then I will personally assure her death. In fact … I will force you to be the one to serve as her executioner.”
But all Mother did was act like it was my fault, like I’d deserved it, that I had to play nice. I was a girl, after all; nothing more than a burden to my mother, an extra mouth to feed. Girls are worth very little in a world where money and magic and power reign supreme.
His feelings had always been a convoluted mess hidden behind a facade of ice, but now that crystalized front was failing him, and he was reeling.
If he was honest with himself, he knew he’d never truly hated her. The anger he’d directed towards her was always just the loathing he felt for himself. He was weak; that much he knew. But he also recognized his flaws were not her fault.
No. Fuck that. There would be no sharing. Fuck his role as an Armature. She was his. And he would stake his claim.
“That is never going to happen. Because you are fucking strong, and more importantly, because the bond is something you will never have to worry about from me.”
“I do not want you to bond with Trefor. I grew up with him, spent the last twenty-one years of my life training beside him as a brother, but just the thought of him being near you like that makes me want to slowly peel the skin from his fucking bones.”
“Forget what I said the other day in the library. I’ve changed my mind. Just because I can’t have you, doesn’t mean the others—or any other—can.”
“You know what, nio? Fuck the kingdom. Fuck the Goddess. Fuck my family, too. I can’t—won’t—risk your life with some antiquated old ritual, but I won’t share you either.”
“And I don’t care about your past, or your future, or any of it. Because you are fucking mine.”
“I dreamed of silver and gold flames, of leathery wings both blazing and shadowed. I dreamed of that which was feared, saving us all.”
This is because our magic is not a gift from Qhohena. It is a gift from her sister, Zadione.
And everything that has ever been taught to you about the silver goddess, the Goddess of Death and Darkness, is a lie. The name “Ginnelevé” belonged to my mother, and her mother before her, to me. It is the name of our female line, never spoken but never forgotten. The first Ginnelevé was Xara’s equivalent, hand-chosen instead by Zadione to serve as advisor to the new Golden Queen, the first and only Silver Priestess. She was meant to be the physical embodiment of our Goddess on the earth, the other side to the same coin, the balance to the scales. For Zadione is—and has always been—so much
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But then … Xara lost the First War. The true knowledge of what Zadione is to this world was lost, just as she was taken from it. The blame for the loss was passed to her, and the only reminder of her existence was her silver moon still hanging in the sky and the kernel of her magic still flowing in the first Ginnelevé’s veins. That same magic was passed down from mother to daughter, weakening with each generation but always there, guiding us and keeping us hidden from the darkness that has steadily been seeping into this world. I am the last Silver Priestess. And you, my light, are our last
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the last of her chosen line with a power I could not yet comprehend. You carry something in your veins that our world has not yet seen, something that perhaps has been forgotten since the days the gods and goddesses walked upon the earth themselves. I do not kn...
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I love you more than I love the stars in the sky, my light. Never forget that. Lisabel Ginnelevé Salis
Her eyes lifted, instinct and magic reaching out for the only one in that room who was not crowding her in rushing panic. Eyes of forest green collided with those of tanzanite blue, and for one fleeting second the world paused, and she could breathe, a momentary reprieve from the panic laying heavily over her skin.
“Get out. All of you.” Those words—that voice—were both Mariah’s temptation and her salvation.
“What do you need, nio?”
Her eyes went from wide to narrow as she ripped her chin from his grip. “What makes you think you have anything that I need?” “I see it on you, princess. You’re barely holding yourself together. You need help. So, I’m going to ask you one more time: what do you need?”
“You’re right,” he said. “I did once say I would only ever be a distraction for you. But then you went and turned yourself into mine. And now, I think we both know that I will never just be a distraction to you again.”
When he’d asked Mariah what she needed, Andrian had told himself he would rip apart the heavens until he found the gods and goddesses themselves to make her happy. But when she shuddered apart in his arms and requested her mother, he suddenly realized that some needs were never meant to be met.
All he knew now was that he would go to the ends of the earth for this wild girl crafted from moonlight and the darkness between the stars, even if it killed him.
It was at that moment Andrian knew he loved her, heart and soul.
It was also the moment he knew he could never accept the bond from her. Could never be what she needed him to be. Her life was far too precious. As he slowly joined her in unconsciousness, content in both his new internal acceptance and the feel of the soft, warm shape pressed against him, he felt a presence both old and young, light and dark, flit along the edges of his mind just long enough to whisper words he would later convince himself were nothing more than a hallucination. Love is a weakness, Andrian Laurent.
“Vengeance is not a sin, nio. Allow yourself this one moment to adjust yourself to the person you are now, the person you had to become to protect those you care for. But don't wish you hadn’t done it. Never wish to change an evolution that was always destined to occur.”
“Do you long for your own death, nio? Is that it? Do you wish to be free of all those duties the world has shoved onto your shoulders, to return to a simpler existence, one without crowns or bonds or threads of magic?”
“As you wish, My Queen.”
“Show me how good death can feel, Andrian.”
“Fear me, nio. I am not a place of refuge or safety for you.”
She forced her eyes open and met his brilliant blue stare. He was gazing at her with such intensity, it would rival the sun on the Summer Solstice.
“Come for me, nio. Show me your light. Let it blind me.”
“You are spitting in the face of tradition—” “Good. Tradition is fucking useless.”
Not just a sound. A voice. A voice he would know anywhere, even in death. For the first time in days, his magic leaped in his soul, and his eyes shot up from his hands and collided with those of brilliant, resplendent, glowing forest green.
Before he could yank back his control, before he could wrap all those feelings back into himself, pull it all in and let himself suffer the slow, agonizing death he knew he deserved, a single word slipped from his mouth. A word that was like a prayer, a call to home, a desperate plea for forgiveness and hope and salvation.
And he realized then he wasn’t strong enough to do what was best for her. Would never be strong enough. He couldn’t fight it, fight this, anymore. There would be another way to protect her; he would make sure of it. So, he let that word fall from his lips, and didn’t pull it back. “Mariah.”
He took a tentative step forward, and then another, as if she were an animal in risk of fleeing if he moved too fast. In a way, she supposed she was.
He smelled like home.
“But then … you showed up and slashed all of those plans to bits. And I hated you for it. Not only that—I hated myself even more. To make it all worse, I couldn’t seem to stay away from you. You fascinated me. You got under my skin and made my blood sting and crawl and fucking hurt. It made me feel alive, for the first time in my miserable life. So, I found loopholes around my father’s … command. I figured I could fuck you, just once, just enough to sate this obsession, and then I would be able to move on. I didn’t expect what you would do to me next.”
“Every single inch of me craved—craves—you. I didn’t just want to know your body. I wanted to know your brilliant mind, your wild soul, the deepest parts of yourself you would never dare share with anyone. I wanted it all. And I couldn’t fucking handle it. It didn’t matter that my father re-issued his threat. I couldn’t stand that there might actually be someone in this world who would complete me so fully that every fucked up thought I’d ever had would suddenly make sense.”
