“All the waiting, all the hoping, the prayers for true healing that did not come. It was all worth it. Because of you.”
She was melting against him. She was pressing closer, closer, until he swore their lips were about to touch.
“Ezer,” he whispered.
She shivered at his voice.
“There’s something I want you to know, before I...”
The image shifted suddenly, just before he was sure he was finally about to tell her he loved her...forthatwas the face of a man who would surely bow before her for all his days. And then...
He saw himself kissing her.
He saw the way her hands curled into his hair, and her grip was desperate, and her lips were ravenous, as if she had beenstarved for this moment for so, so long. As if he were the only thing holding her onto life. He saw how her perfect body was pressed against his, how he was so tall and she was so small, but theyfit,gods damn it, they fit.
She needed him, wanted him so fiercely it was palpable.
She was his, and he was hers, and there was nothing, not even death, that could tear them apart. He felt it in his chest, his blood, his bones.
Together, they would slay the Acolyte. Together, they would...
The vision shifted again.
“No,” Kinlear gasped, for he wanted to cling to it, hold it close and play it over and over again...for nobody had ever wanted him like this.
But now, they were inside a dark, cavernous space. The halls twisted like some kind of cold, frozen labyrinth, their breath forming before them in clouds. Six was with them, and...
Again, the image changed.
His heart raced, his eyes stung from the cold, and he could feel something roaring in his chest. His feet. His entire body...filled with the chants of an entire army of darksouls.
They were all around him. He almost yelped, until he remembered he was in a vision. They could not reach him here. Everything shifted, zeroed in on the image of a man upon a dark, shadowy throne.
A man without a face, for it was wrapped in slithering shadows, but Kinlear could sense what his future self was seeing.
He could feel the terror in his bones, as the darksoul crowd roared, and shadow wolves – enormous, larger than he’d ever seen – howled as they lifted their dark snouts to the sky.
The Acolyte.
It was the Acolyte, on his throne, the shadowstorm swirling in a pillar above him, and Kinlear and Ezer were edging towards him, nearing their destiny...
He saw who got there first.
It was him...a blade in his hands, glory about to be crowned alongside his name.
Kinlear Laroux.
Slayer of the Acolyte. Savior of Lordach.
A prince who was destined for so much more than the grave.
He woke up just before he thrust the blade into the shadow bastard’s chest.
20
He’d been out forfive days.
It was too much time. He’d missed so much, and he hated his illness all over again, wished it were a living being so he could drive his Veilblade into its chest.
