The shadows rippled behind him with a presence. No one ever dared come here. He turned with a snarl, half-expecting an intrusion or a threat.
But it wasn’t either.
The shadows parted like silk being drawn aside, revealingher.
Rune froze.
Utterly speechless.
She threw her arms around him and pulled him into her. Into the shadows.
The world twisted as the ground vanished beneath his feet. And they landed in his chamber. The doors sealed. The shadows fell still. Alora looked up at him, breath ragged, furious.
Rune forgot how to breathe. He sank to his knees.
She stood before him remade, and yet unmistakably Alora.
The ends of her hair rippled as divine flame. White light caught within each strand, before darkness threaded through like living ink, shadow claiming what light could not hold alone. Her eyes glowed red and far more terrible, with a power that did not demand obedience, only recognition. Shadows leaned toward her without command, flowers bowed and withered in her wake, and the world went still, waiting to hear what she would ask of it.
Her gown seemed woven from the night sky, kissed by starlight. It fell in soft, fluid layers that caught a pearlescent sheen, neither wholly white nor silver, as if shadow and radiance learned to coexist in its weave. It was held in place by delicate constellations of silver that wove around her neck and her bodice.
Rune’s chest tightened.
This was not the girl he had stolen from an altar, nor merely the queen he had crowned. This was more than a goddess standing at the edge of her becoming. The power in her blood sang to him, holding a strength far beyond his understanding. She had reclaimed her magic and awoke as she was always meant to be.
The Sovereign of the Netherworld.
Rune’s mouth opened, but nothing came out.
“No.” She lifted a hand. “You will not speak yet.”
Rune snapped his jaw shut, obeying instinctively to the thrall in her voice, to the power surging around her. And the shadows that once obeyedhimwrapped around her instead.
Alora reached for his face, gently now, clawed finger delicately brushing across the burn on his jaw. “Why?” she whispered. “Why would you punish yourself for wanting me when you could have simply come to me?”
Rune’s hands trembled at his sides. He realized his glamor had fallen, unveiling the scales on his cheekbones. But Alora didn’t flinch. She looked at him with those soft warm eyes now churning with gentle flame.
“You know not what I am,” he said.
“I do.” Alora cupped his face, her fingers falling over his scales. “Even when you hide behind your glamor, I have always seen you, Rune.”
Rune didn’t move.
Didn’t breathe.
His throat worked around a thousand unsaid things.
Standing, he backed up a step.
“You don’t understand,” he said quietly. “We already lived this life, Alora. And you died from utter terror at the sight of me.”
She reached for him, but he backed further away.
“I felt your soul vanish from this world when you died. I heard your heartbeat stop. And it was the last thing I ever heard from you.” Rune’s hands clenched at his sides, claws sinking into his palms to regain his composure.
“Rune.” Alora lifted his chin. “I have already seen who you are and I am not afraid.”
Rune froze.
