The emptiness in his eyes started to fill with emotion, color coming back to his fair cheeks.
“I love so many people in this world. Not just my family and my friends and the dragons, but my people. The pirates of the Brigandine Empire, the elves of Riviana Star… There are a lot of good beings in this world. Why would I want to risk all of that, just for myself?”
His chest rose and fell at a quicker rate, but he didn’t share his thoughts with me. Continued to observe me behind the pained look in his eyes.
“I have to do this.”
His eyes never left my face. He didn’t blink once, just took in my stare with a swirl of emotion I couldn’t identify. “Then I’m coming with you.”
“They didn’t ask for both of us.”
“Where you go, I go,” he said quietly. “As long as we’re together, I don’t care if it’s in eternal darkness. We can’t build the life that we want, but we would still have each other.”
I pictured us walking down that forest road together, him holding a torch above his head as he led the way into the darkness, both of us in our armor like we went to war…when we went nowhere at all.
“That’s enough for me.”
After hundreds of years trapped in that dark prison, he finally had his freedom, but he would trade it to be with me instead. To experience death as a hallucination of life. To forfeitanother chance to live, to love someone and have a family, to feel joy in the sunshine.
No other man would ever love me as much as he did.
And in that moment, I realized nothing else mattered except the two of us. That our differences weren’t important, that his betrayal was inconsequential. It was as if it never happened. “What if we did both? What if I return and kill Leviathan? Then move on to the Covenant? If you really think I’m strong enough.”
His eyes changed their expression as he considered my words, his eyebrows furrowing slightly as he became lost in thought. “I have no doubt you can defeat Leviathan. An even match between gods, but I know you’re the more talented swordsman.”
I felt a rush of warmth in my belly, those words meaning everything to me.
“Even I couldn’t defeat the Covenant at the height of my power. They’re demon lords, far more powerful. But their energy and strength wane as they continue to fuel the destruction of the portal. If we return at the right moment, they’ll be at their weakest state, and you’ll increase your chances of triumph. But there are three remaining demon lords in the Covenant, and you couldn’t defeat all three on your own. Even with my aid, we would be outmatched. We would need more people, more people to isolate one at a time for you to defeat.”
I envisioned all of that in my mind. “The occult felt my powers the second I was in their presence. If I defeatLeviathan, there would be no god of the underworld…so would I replace him?”
Callum shifted his stare between my eyes.
“And perhaps…all those servants and monsters would follow me?”
Callum still didn’t say anything, thinking it all through, his face handsome when he was deep in thought. “Perhaps. The situation is unprecedented, so I’m not sure. But if they witnessed you defeat their king, they would absolutely fear you.”
“Then I think that should be our plan. We should speak to my father and decide who will accompany us.”
“There’s a chance he won’t support your plan at all, Lily.”
“I’m going either way, whether he supports me or not,” I said. “I know he wants to protect me, but he can’t protect me from this. Either I take the battle to them, or they bring the battle to us. I can’t be shielded or spared, and it’s time he accepts that.”
Despite the late hour, I called the meeting in my father’s study.
Aunt Eldinar and Uncle Ezra attended in their battle armor. My brother was also there, in his special armor that denoted him as the general of the Southern Isles. Callum was in armor that was nearly identical to mine, and if our situation were less dire, I wouldn’t have been able to stop staring at him. I loved seeing my family’s crest on his chest, loved seeing aversion of him that I would want to see every day for the rest of my life.
My parents were the last ones to enter, and my father deliberately gave Aunt Eldinar a look, a scowl so deep it had to be intentional. My mother was in her armor, something she rarely wore, but we didn’t know when the war would arrive on our doorstep.
My father turned to me. “Lily, what news do you have?” He stopped at the table across from me, still looking as pissed off as he’d been hours earlier.
“I have a plan,” I said. “And I know it’s going to sound crazy at first, but hear me out.”
“Good ideas are few and far between,” Aunt Eldinar said. “Share your thoughts, Princess.”
My father looked at her with the same viciousness, his eyes pulsing in his face when he stared at her.
What had happened between them to spark this forest fire?
