I scoffed. “That was before. Before I knew you were Moriel. Before you betrayed me, and my family.” I couldn’t let it go. Couldn’t forgive him. Because if I did … I lost myself.
“You found out the truth when you could handle hearing that information and not a moment sooner. Unless you want things to continue as they are, for the world to remain still, for your family and Ka to remain enslaved or worse, you will have no choice but to work with me. This is bigger than your own wants and needs. I tried to show you, to teach you. To prepare you. You grew up too privileged this time, and it was my duty to make sure you were ready.”
“Ready?” I spat. “You tortured me!”
“And yet,” he said, “in the end, you made the right choice. You betrayed your sisters. You kept my shard. Because you knew. You knew it had to be done. You knew your work had to be with me, and not them. And you are too afraid to admit it. Too afraid I’m right. Too afraid to admit exactly who you are.”
A liar. A Goddess. One who’d do anything to get my way. One who’d do anything to protect the ones I loved, even if I had to hurt them to do so. Because it was the only choice I had.
To take down the most powerful force in this world, we needed an even greater power. We needed a weapon unknown to them. A weapon they could not control.
And the longer I was in the dark of this cave, the more I realized the role I had to play, even if I was still railing against it. Because in the end, there was a simple truth about me. One I’d been running from for a very long time.
I wasn’t warm and friendly like Jules. I wasn’t graceful and mannered like Meera. And I wasn’t patient enough to play the game like Lyr, bandaging every wound, smiling through the pain and sustaining half a life until the time was right.
I’d been born different.
I was meant to destroy.
And knowing that, knowing that I was not like them? That had been the hardest truth to swallow. Harder than losing my sisters. Harder than the look of betrayal in Lyr’s face when she’d realized what I’d done. And the one in Meera’s when she saw me for what I was—when I realized I’d have to give her up, that I might never see her again. I’d told her we could fight the Empire, told her there was a way. That we could figure it out. That despite Aemon’s betrayal, we could work with him. I told her that Lyr wouldn’t understand, but she could.
Except she didn’t. Meera was against it. She wanted to escape, to go home. To see things right in Bamaria first.
How did I explain to her that it wouldn’t matter what was happening in Bamaria if we didn’t make a change at the top of the Empire? That it would never matter if the system of our oppression wasn’t destroyed?
Maybe I could have tried to explain it better, maybe I hadn’t wanted to. Maybe I’d wanted to send her away, to also take my revenge on Aemon. But it was done. The sides were drawn. And ever since, every second without Meera next to me—the first time in my life I’d ever been away from her—hurt.
Aemon pushed what remained of my blankets to the floor, his hand sliding up my leg. For a second, the heat from my dream returned, pooling in my belly with the knowledge that his touch brought pleasure, brought peace. That it was familiar, that he had brought me to ecstasy countless times before.
But I kicked out of his hold, rejecting his touch.
“Your choice,” he said. “I’m leaving today. There’s something I must do. If you do not wish to work with me now, then so be it. I give you this time to think. But you should use it wisely. I will return to you within a few days and I will expect an answer.”
“You’re leaving me alone. Here? With them?” I asked, suddenly panicked. I’d been walking amongst the akadim for days—fuck, I’d been with them for weeks since my abduction. By now, I knew they wouldn’t hurt me. But they still terrified me. Even the smaller, more human-like one. “Are you going to lock me up, too?”
“No. That’s not befitting of your station. Do not fear being alone with the akadim. You are their queen. Theirmaraaka.They worship you. They will fight for you. Die for you.”
I took a shaky breath. I didn’t want akadim to worship me. I wanted nothing to do with them. And yet … I feared being on my own with them.
“You won’t be alone,” he said, reading my thoughts. “Parthenay will keep you company.”
Parthenay, that bitch vorakh who’d tricked me. Who’d led me and Meera into the trap that allowed the akadim to take us. She was also the one who’d captured Lyr and Rhyan, the one who’d brought them here. She was the one who ruined everything.
“Company?” I scoffed. “Seems more like my guard dog.”
“She is both. You’re prolonging the inevitable. The sooner you acquiesce the better.”
I stared ahead. Hating everything. Wishing I could go back in time, back to when none of us were vorakh. Before Jules was taken, before a shadowed man whispered into my mind and slipped into my bed.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“The capital.”
I froze. “To Numeria? Wha—What are you doing there?”
He eyed me up and down, waiting a moment before he said, “Freeing a vorakh. One I’ve been trying to get my hands on for a very, very long time.”
“Jules?” I asked, my heart pounding.
