A thousand thunderclaps. A roar from the bones of the world.
It wasn’t a whisper.
It wasn’t a plea.
It was a command.
One word.
Deeper than thought. Deeper than breath. It lived in the marrow of him, etched into the very stuff of his soul. A truth that had never stopped burning, even when he had.
Live.
Ashterion’s grip slipped.
The blade dropped. Not enough to draw blood, but enough to shake him.
The shadows surged. They wrapped around him, a memory long forgotten and desperately missed.
He gasped.
A torrent of voices braided together in song. Thousands of shadows, singing in unison. Ancient. Grief-struck. Glorious. Not begging for mercy, not urging surrender.
Commanding life.
Ashterion exhaled. A quiet sound. A cracked sound.
Not a sob.
Not yet.
But close.
The blade in his hand shook, fingers twitching as though unsure whether to hold on or let go. But the shadows didn’t flinch. They wrapped tighter.
The blade no longer promised relief. Only silence.
And he didn’t want silence.
The song pierced straight through him, searing down the old, rotting chains that had wrapped around his soul since the day he’d signed his life away. It reached into the part of him he thought long dead. The part that remembered who he had been. What this court had once stood for. Whathehad once stood for.
And still, the word roared?—
Live.
72
Live.
The world sung the word.
And my body moved before I even knew what I was doing. I spun. My grip shifted, my wrist snapped?—
The dagger flew.
It sliced through the air, a silver blur aimed straight for Xyliria’s throat.
For a single, frozen heartbeat, I saw her eyes widen, saw her lips part inshock.
