Maris could feel it, the power winding tighter in her chest, the voices of the gods like drumbeats in her ears. The Veil was warping under their presence. The air tasted like ozone and ending.
A streak of silver.
A rush of wind.
And Maris was slammed backward, her boots skidding through bloodied earth.
She caught herself with a grunt, blade up instantly.
A figure stood in front of her now.
Elenwe.
Bone-sharp and cold as ancient stone. Her hair was twisted in a knot of thorns, her face still beautiful, but expressionless, except for the rage.
And when she spoke, her voice was like splintered glass dragged across silk.
“You wear their favor like it means something.”
Maris rose slowly, blade steady. “I don’t wear it,” she said. “I earned it.”
Elenwe’s lip curled.
“You stole it. Just like you stole him.”
The battlefield fell away.
“Alarik?” Maris asked quietly.
A muscle twitched in Elenwe’s jaw. Her voice sharpened like a dagger.
“He was mine. My crown. My future. I died for kingdoms that forgot my name, and now you sleep in the bed meant for me.”
She stepped forward, power crackling off her in steady pulses.
“You think he loves you?” she hissed. “You’re a distraction. A replacement. A dream he’ll wake from the moment the war ends. Just like Kael will.”
Maris didn’t flinch.
But the words hit like stones.
Elenwe’s smile was ice.
“They’ll forget you. Just like they forgot me. You’ll die for them, and they’ll let it happen. And the world will go on without your name ever spoken again.”
She drew her bow.
A single arrow appeared, made of glowing Veil-glass, humming with death.
“I was mercy,” she whispered. “Now I am vengeance.”
And then she fired.
Straight for Maris’s heart.
Chapter seventy-three
Not Again
