I hold because my daughter's life depends on it. Because my son deserves to be free. Because Rhystan has been carrying this alone for three hundred years and it's my turn now.
I hold until the transfer is complete.
Until the curse settles into my bones like molten iron, burning and changing and finally, finally going still.
Then I collapse.
I'm on my knees in the silver circle.
The ritual is done—I can feel it, the magic complete, the curse transferred. My body is wracked with aftershocks, tremors rolling through me as the divine rage finds its new home. Everything hurts. Everything is different.
But I'm alive.
I'm alive, and?—
I reach for the twins through the bond. Through whatever connection links mother to children.
Our son is quiet. Calm. The curse that rode his blood isgone—I can feel its absence like a missing tooth, the space where violence used to coil now empty and peaceful.
Our daughter is there too. Strong. Kicking. No longer hiding from a brother who wanted to destroy her.
They're safe.
I saved them.
A sob tears from my transformed throat. Or maybe a laugh—I can't tell anymore, can't separate relief from agony from the overwhelming strangeness of what I've become.
"Kess." Rhystan's voice, rough with fear. He's on his knees beside me, bloody hands framing my face. "Kess, look at me. Are you?—"
Movement behind him.
Valdris. Still standing. Still holding the blessed blade. Blood streaming from wounds Rhystan gave him, but driven by something beyond pain. Beyond reason.
He's looking at me like I'm an abomination.
And he's raising the blade.
"Rhystan—" I try to warn him, but my voice comes out wrong, guttural and strange.
He turns.
His father lunges.
And everything happens at once.
36
Rhystan
My father'sblade is six inches from Kess's throat when I shift.
No thought. No decision. Just the dragon exploding out of me with force that shatters the stone beneath my feet, jaws closing around my father's arm before the blade can fall.
Bone crunches.
He screams—a sound I've never heard him make, not in three hundred years of knowing him. The blessed blade clatters to the ground. I wrench my head sideways and throw him across the throne room, his body crashing through a pillar and into the far wall.
He doesn't stay down.
