Iwasn’t safe.
I shouldn’t have been here, waiting for her like this. Baiting her. But the alternative…
You know the alternative,came Lorien’s reply, his voice a soft hiss in the back of my mind.
I sank down on one of the thrones and tried to calm my pounding heart, focusing instead on studying my surroundings.
The ruins of the Palace of Midna looked oddly impressive in the setting sunlight. Interestingly, this middle kingdom cycled normally through cycles of day and night, despite the chaotic energy dominating the air here. The throne room I waited in seemed to have been positioned to embrace the fall of twilight, its arched windows catching the last golden rays and casting long shadows across the cracked marble floor. Tapestries of old battles and forgotten lineages looked less dusty in the fading light, their colors briefly revived by the sun’s parting glow. Partof the ceiling had caved in, but it had fallen in a way that framed the fiery orange and indigo-swirled sky like a painting.
One could almost forget this place was a crumbling echo of something far grander—at least until the wind slipped through its broken bones, howling in a way that was unmistakably empty and eerie.
My gaze slid to what remained of the doorway. After weeks spent without Nova, it was impossible to keep my eyes off it, knowing she would be walking into this room at any moment.
I knew why Lorien wanted her to see me. I was a tool he was using to bend her to his will, to his plans—plans I still couldn’t clearly grasp, despite the disgusting way we were twisted together.
I wasn’t sure which would be worse: Greeting her myself, or letting Lorien greet her. It was torture, either way.
She was in danger, either way.
She knew all of this too, surely. Not that it would stop her. For as much as she’d changed over the past months, some things remained constant: She was still my fearless, stubborn, chaotic little beast.
So, here we were.
Restlessness overcame me. I got to my feet and paced the room, kicking aside piles of dust and the tattered remains of rugs and fallen banners as I went.
My mind was the clearest it had been in weeks. My step was light, my movements smooth—because they were entirely my own. Lorien had sworn to stay dormant so long as I stuck to the script. Thus far, he’d mostly kept his word—slithering back into the recesses of my mind, a heavy, but silent, coiled presence tucked just beneath my thoughts.
It was tempting to believe I could make him stay there.
But how did you escape an enemy who had its claws in your very existence?
I couldn’t even focus on the question long enough to truly contemplate it; he would have known I was plotting.
After memorizing nearly every crack in the walls, every dip in the floor, and every cobweb spun between broken pillars, I sank back into the musty cushions of one of the thrones once more. I thought of heavy crowns and heavier choices, of the ones who had once ruled from these thrones—supposedly under the guidance of the gods themselves.
Midna was a place of desperate beginnings and violent endings.
I wondered which one we were on the brink of now.
Whatever was to become of us, the instant Nova entered this forsaken realm, I was aware of her. Her magic—her very essence—washed over me like a tide returning to a familiar shore; steady, relentless, ready to pull me under.
Desperately, I again tried to warn her through the mental bond we seemed to have developed over the past weeks. I didn’t understand how it worked, I only knew that I’d heard her voice, sometimes—even in my darkest, most fractured moments—and I hoped with everything in me that she could hear me, too.
Stay away. Please, gods, just stay away. I don’t want to see you. Not here, not like this.
I didn’t.
IswearI didn’t.
But then I caught sight of her stepping through the splintered arch of the ruined doorway. Her silhouette was sharp against the last flickering threads of daylight, her body haloed in gold and dust.
The way she carried herself—head high, shoulders tense—stole the breath from my lungs.
And I forgot, for a moment, that I didn’t want to see her.
I was on my feet.
I was across the room, reaching for her like the weak fool I was, my hand taking hers, pulling her close. She went stiff in my hold, hope and fear clashing in her gaze as she studied me. Faint shadows swirled on her skin as her eyes took on a darker shade of turquoise.
