Duskbound

by Bree Grenwich

"Remember," Aether's voice was barely a whisper now. "It's not about surviving. It's about choosing to keep fighting—resisting—even when everything inside you wants to give in."

The weight of what that meant settled between us. I thought of my own vision in the Void, of the two people facing the flames together. Of all the questions still burning inside me.

"Do you think she was family?" I asked, unable to keep my own uncertainties from coloring the question. "I don't know." "She looked like you,"

"The Blade of the Realm, of course."

"All of those decades spent here, all of the sleepless nights searching for any kind of meaning to my existence—it was so that I could find you."

"I give myself to you," he said, voice deadly calm. "My life, my shadows, my loyalty—they belong to you now. Not because you're the heir to this realm, but because you're the only thing I've ever wanted to believe in."