It was quickly replaced by an icy dread as Kakias’s grip tightened.
“I should have known you didn’t have what this required,” she spat at her son. “You were never strong enough to support my cause, to serve in my house.”
“Because I didn’t let you sink your claws into me as you tried to for twenty years?”
As he said it, her nails curled further into my skin, but I remained silent. It was all I could manage to stay upright at this point, my knees trembling.
Barrett needed this. To confront her for the invisible chains she’d put around his wrists all his life and the future she tried to force him into. Tried to wring the good from his heart.
“No,” the queen hissed at her heir. “Because you speak of things like respect. You never learned that in our position, we don’t need such a thing. Power was born in us, strengthened through the dealsImade. Itbelongsto us. Yet you were born without the ability to remove your emotions from our goals.”
“Your goals. Not mine. You speak of sacrifice as if it’s a solution to all of fate’s challenges.” He sighed, reaching out slowly to grip his mother’s wrist. “No one else has to die.”
His fingers and jaw tightened, throat bobbing as he swallowed. Nerves slipped through his tense body.
But Kakias had frozen, seeming to actually listen to her son’s words. The son who had come after the child she lost savagely. Though her soul had already been given to darkness, maybe she could find a sliver that retained compassion.
Barrett’s other hand twitched, and for the first time, I noticed the sword at his hip.
Sword. Not an ax.
A Mystique sword, set with aquamarine stones that shimmered in the moonlight. Kakias’s eyes flicked to it, her sharp teeth bared, and any hint of softness left her.
“Not everyone gets to live,” she snarled.
“Where does this end, then?” Barrett’s voice was soft.
“With her death, and my eternal existence.”
Her words hit Barrett like a storm, and I realized he hadn’t seen the ritual. Hadn’t known precisely how far his mother dove into this ambition, this fear.
“What have you done?” the heir gasped, voice dripping with disgust. He shoved her wrist as if it burned him and stepped back, wrapping a hand around my waist and tugging me against him gently. Every facet of his body, from his hard stare to his hasty retreat, screamed with loathing.
But Kakias jerked me back toward her. My trembling knees gave out, and I crashed to the marble.
“I won’t lose anything else.” For a moment, she truly seemed a woman with an aching hole in her heart. It was the only sign that a sliver of humanity still existed within her. A desperate, small piece, barely acknowledged, but a piece all the same.
One my death would wipe from her, sealing her immortal fate.
As if hearing that thought, Kakias tugged me upward, her blade balanced below my chin.
The gash in my arm throbbed as I thrashed my weak limbs. Blood painted the marble, and I clutched it tighter to my chest.
That red warmth seeped over my skin, though, coating the emblem hanging from my necklace.
And a flare of golden light burst forth. Hot and burning and tinged with ancient power.
The queen shouted as it singed her, shielding her eyes and pushing me away. Two strong arms wrapped around me. Barrett tugged me toward the door, toward safety.
The blinding light continued to pour from my necklace—warm and protecting. Burning Kakias, but not me.
No, this blast soothed, its energy familiar and comforting.Emboldening.
It filled the room. I’d only ever experienced one presence like it. Ancient and all-encompassing, it pushed Barrett and I backward.
Sheltering me, he slid an arm around my waist. I latched on to his wrist, and when the blood from my arm fell freely onto his hand—onto his sigil ring—the power of the rays doubled, shooting out between the pillars and clearing the smoke.
Kakias screamed again.
