My throat grows so thick, I’m certain I’ll choke if I open my mouth to speak.
I’ve spent two centuries alone. Two centuries of feeling like I was too monstrous, too broken to belong anywhere. I stripped myself of the parts society deemed unacceptable—shrunk myself and erased myself until I was no longer recognizable.
But every day I’m in Letum—even when it is hard and messy and heartbreaking—I have found pieces I thought were gone forever. Here, sitting beside a creature who smells of sea and blood, I find another. Why have I been atoning to a universe that would never do the same for me? Why have I not been tearing through it with my teeth and forcing it to give me what’s mine?
Yours is the darkness carved between the stars.
I have loved Niko’s cruelty and ruthlessness wholeheartedly, but hated the same things in myself.
No more.
Lisian is right. The Carrion King was drawn as much to my darkness as he was to my light, and so was the island. It’s time I stopped running in fear of what I could become, and embraced who I’m meant to be.
And when I open my fingers, it feels like the star itself has given me its blessing. Because in my palm lies a tiny golden seed.
“Chrys traded a truth to ensure that if all else failed, the last seed of hope would be entrusted to you. Guard it with your viciousness, and nurture it with your compassion.”
I don’t know what to say, but Lisian doesn’t appear to care. Her hand flutters at me impatiently, her eyes lighting with terrifying excitement. “If you could jump off my rock now, I’d appreciate it. I’ve just spotted one of my favorite playthings, and I can’t promise you’ll appreciate the song I spin.”
I follow her gaze to where Tiernan waits on the beach. “He’s mine,” I growl in warning. “And he’s off limits.”
Lisian scoffs petulantly, her expression the picture of simpering innocence. “I only wanted to drown him a little,” She makes a gesture over her heart. “Promise.”
“Not even a little,” I tell her with a stern look.
Lisian lets out a huff of rage. “Ugh! You’re as tedious as your consort.”
I let out a small laugh at the idea that Niko is anything near mundane. “Thank you for speaking with me, Lisian. There will come a time in the near future I am going to need you, and I promise it will be anything but boring.”
Lisian straightens, slightly assuaged. “I will hold you to that, Your Majesty.”
I give her a smile, and jump into the cool water of the lagoon.
Tiernan helps me up the sand a few minutes later. “Did you get what you needed?”
I nod, feeling lighter than I have in a long while. “That, and more.” I jerk my head in Lisian’s direction, where she’s taken to gazing lovingly at her own reflection in the water. “I’d watch out for that one. She seems pretty interested in you.”
Tiernan does not greet this news with the terror I expect. Instead, he tilts his head thoughtfully. “Interested, huh?”
“Oh my god, Tiernan! You aren’t seriously considering it, are you? She’ll eat you alive.” I shiver before adding, “Literally.”
Tiernan’s answering laugh is not reassuring. Neither is his irreverent shrug. “Life gets a little stale on an island, Willie. Could be fun.”
“Orit could kill you.”
Tiernan rolls his eyes. “You’re literally in love with the king of death, and you’re going to lecturemeon ill-advised romances?”
I glare at him, even as a laugh barrels out of my mouth. “You make a fair point.”
Tiernan grins, as we step off the beach into the shade of the canopy. I run my fingers along the multitude of flowers, their vibrant petals reaching toward my magic. I remember the first time I saw them—how their colors had lodged beneath my ribs and nearly made me cry, an appreciation of beautiful things honed by years of nothing but death.
Because that’s what makes life meaningful—it’s eventual end. Life is meaningless without death, just as death is meaningless without life.
Both are needed to lead.
Lisian’s words float through my mind, halting me midstride. Tiernan stumbles into the back of me. “What the hell?” he exclaims, steadying us both before we tumble into the dirt.
“He created something he couldn’t sustain,” I mutter to myself, staring at the incandescent flowers.
