Nova took another step back before abruptly halting, forcing herself to stand her ground, her back straightening, her chin lifting. “You bastard.” Her hand went to the hilt of Grimnor, hergrip trembling but sure. “You monster. You thief. You…you…curse.”
Lorien smiled, his gaze sweeping over her sword. “If I am a curse, then it’s only because your predecessor made me this way.”
“Blaming someone else for your crimes,” Nova snarled, withdrawing Grimnor and holding it threateningly between us. “How predictable.”
“Yet painfully accurate.” The words hung in the air, inviting questions—another trap laid. “The part about her cursing me, that is.”
After a long pause, she asked, “What do you mean?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“No. Could you speak plainly foroncein your miserable existence?”
He bared his teeth in a smile. “As you wish,” he said, walking to what remained of a window that looked eastward, out over the bridge that connected this throne room to the Aetherstone’s chambers.
Nova kept her distance, but I could feel her watching us, Grimnor’s power pulsing eagerly in her grip.
“I thought this particular curse would end after I managed to access the legendary chamber,” Lorien said, nodding toward what we could see of that battered place. “That’s where I assumed she’d buried things. So, you can imagine my disappointment when I didn’t find what I was looking for, even after you opened the last of the chamber’s sealed compartments.”
“What are you talking about? You were looking for nothing except power and control within that chamber.”
“Wouldn’tthatbe the easier narrative? The simpler one, most certainly. Light versus dark. Life versus death. The heroine overcoming the villain.” He chuckled darkly. “But no—unfortunately, I was looking for more than that. I was looking formyself.”
“…Yourself?”
“A seemingly impossible thing to find, after whatshedid.”
Another long silence stretched between us, until Nova said, “Whatshedid…you’re talking about Calista, aren’t you?”
His anger rose in waves at the mention of the former Shadow Vaelora. The feeling was so intense, it swallowed up all other sensation for a harrowing moment, eating away at the line I’d been trying to keep drawn between us.
The waves calmed quickly, though his fury continued to smolder just below the surface as he quietly said, “I would have moved on from this world long ago, had Calista not been such a sadistic, vengeful bitch. Every bit of instability this world and its magic have faced is because ofher.”
“You lie,” Nova snapped.
“I don’t. Myself, there’s nothing I love more than a painful truth. But do you know whodoeslie? Everyone in that infernal palace of yours. Your brother. Your advisors. The ones who want to keep yousafe, even if it means keeping you in the dark about some of the more unsavoryparts of our world’s collective histories.”
Nova averted her eyes.
“…But your magic won’t lie, will it?” Lorien closed the space between them, taking hold of her chin and forcing her gaze to his.
She winced at his grip, and I wanted to break my own fingers to make him let go.
“You’ve gotten very talented at divining the past from things, haven’t you?” Lorien murmured. “Talented enough to make an entire room reveal its secrets to you, I’d say.”
A muscle twitched in Nova’s jaw.
Don’t listen to him,I thought.
She blinked, looking confused for an instant—as if she’d heard my voice, somehow.
Before I could try to reach her again, Lorien asked, “Do you know why I asked you to come to Midna?”
“Because you’re a coward who was too afraid to face me in my own kingdom, I assumed.”
He laughed, the sound low and dark. “Not quite.”
She scoffed, but curiosity shimmered in her gaze. “Why, then?”
