He didn’t warn me.
Did he mean to? Did he set me up?
Fingernails scratch at the walls of my mind, seeking, searching, forcing a way in.
“Get the fuck out of my head!” I rasp, throat raw.
“I’ve given you chances, Princess—somany chances,” he mocks. “But you will not come to heel. Kryntar Castle is a place of obedience, my queen. A good queen obeys her king,” he lilts, the fingernails of his magic looking for the cracks of my mind. And I know—he won’t have to search for long to find them. My mind was fractured from the moment Maldrak’s Arcanist opened the Gateway of Threads to Kryntar.
“I willneverobey you!” I screech, desperately trying to build a fortress around my mind.
“Oh but you won’thavea choice, darling,” he sings. “You will simply be the puppet while I pull your strings.”
My chest tightens and the air rips from my lungs.
No.
NO.
FUUUCCCKKKK.
My mind splinters, nails scraping and skittering through memories.
“GET OUT!” I howl like a beast, but he doesn’t let up.
Insidious magic coils through the labyrinths of my mind like a hunting serpent, twisting and constricting until I can’t locate my own thoughts. He is so thoroughly consuming me, it’s as if I cease to exist.
His magic hunts and finds its prey, weaving through the cracks in my mind to chew on my memories, my heartbreak, my pain, my grief.
He laughs. Sick and sadistic. As if he’s feeding on my torment.
My head splits in agony, and I clamp down on the screams that build in my throat.
I can’t break now.
I can’t let him win.
I suck in a sharp, hungry breath.
I press my feet into the onyx floors, anchoring myself to the present.
I will not lose myself.
Through it all, my bones hum a melody only I can hear.
It reaches for me through Maldrak’s magic like the sun cutting through fog.
So I call.
“Duskae, grant me your power,” I breathe.
She answers instantly.
Duskae’s magic hurls Maldrak from my mind. Walls of molten gold wrap around my memories—protective, alive, responsive to my very will.
Because it is.
Duskae is the Goddess of Choice. Unfated. The one they never saw coming.
