For a moment, she just looks at me. Not with anger, not with pity, but with something dangerous.Understanding. As if she knows the feeling.
Then, her gaze shifts and darkens.
“And what of Nalya? Will you really leave her to rot in those dungeons all for the sake of this plan?”
The air rushes out of my lungs, and the dam containing my fury breaks.
“Everything I’ve done has been for her!” The words snarl out of me before I can stop them. “Every life I’ve taken, every battle I’ve fought, every godsdamned council meeting?—”
I’m breathing hard. Elyssara’s fingers tighten around her blade.
“Until you.”
The words leave me hoarse. Bare.
Elyssara stares at me.
Like she’s trying to hate me. Trying to hold onto her fury. Trying to ignore the way my voice just broke for her.
Then, slowly—too slowly—she steps closer.
“You should’ve told me,” she breathes.
“You think I wanted to keep this from you?” My voice is rough, edged with something I can’t smooth over. “You think I liked standing there, watching you put the pieces together on your own, knowing that at any moment I could just—” I exhale sharply, shaking my head. “That I could just tell you?”
I step forward, and she doesn’t move away this time.
“I didn’t want you to just hear it, Elyssara. I needed you tofeelit. To see it. To stand in these homes, to look into the eyes of people who have lost so much and know that you were the answer to their prayers—not because I told you, but becauseyoufelt your own power for once.”
I drag a hand through my hair, my restraint unraveling thread by thread.
“If I told you back in The Tannery, would you have believed me?” My voice is softer now. “If I said you were more than a street girl with starlight in her blood, that you were meant for something greater, that you could change the entire future of the fucking realms—would you have listened? Or would you have torn yourself apart trying to prove me wrong? Trying to hold onto all the reasons you don’t think you’re good enough?”
Her breath catches, but she says nothing.
“That’s why, El.” I look at her then, unguarded. Raw. “Because I needed you to know it before I ever said a fucking word.”
A tear tracks down her cheek, “What am I supposed to do with that, Kael?” she whimpers.
My jaw tightens, and I take a step, closing the space between us, “You tell me.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
ELYSSARA
I should walk away.Should still be furious. But Stars save me—the way this man is willing to break for me cracks me open and rearranges everything inside me.
You tell me.
His words reverberate in my mind, and I feel cornered by the truth. Cornered by his ocean-blue eyes that pin me in place with intensity.
“Why me, Kael?” My words come out desperate, but it’s all I can think to say.
“You’re Elyssara, the Lightborne,” he says simply, seemingly at a loss for words.
“So, I’m just a means to an end? A solution to your problem?” I seethe, composure breaking, and it feels like my heart is ripping apart. “Am I really so easily discarded? Just another life wasted in the name of your throne?” I can’t help the anger that re-surges through me.
“No! For fuck’s sake, El, no!” Kael’s voice is hoarse, his breathing ragged, and he throws his hands up in exasperation.
