And so am I.
And that’s when his mask of control snaps.
“You fucking bitch,” he snarls, recoiling from me. “You can’t fight me forever, Lightborne. I’ll starve you. Isolate you. Fuck you. Breed you. Torture you until you hand me the keys to Virellin Castle and all of Dravara like the common-born rat you are.” He stands, hands clenched at his sides and teeth bared. “No wonder Kael handed you over—he’d had you on your back enough times and discarded you like the filth of the slums we always knew you to be. Your parents would be disgusted at the whore you’ve grown to be—falling to your knees for a cock but not a crown.”
My stomach churns at the truth in his words and it swallows my defiance whole.
Because I did—I acquiesced.
I allowed my heart to blind me from my mission. My vengeance. My vow for retribution.
And it cost me everything.
My own magic flares to life, drowning my veins in fury, and drenching the room in golden light from my fingertips. Maldrak has already taken so much—my friends, my destiny, my strength.My love. He doesn’t deserve another breath in his lungs.
My hands buzz with the crackle of raw, unfettered magic that begs to be unleashed, clawing at the confines of my control. And that’s when I catch my reflection gleaming off the onyx walls.
Blinded by rage.
Possessed by fury.
Ravaged by the seduction of violence.
I am no daughter of Duskae, Goddess of Choice—for I am not choosing. Rage has chosen for me.
I’m meant to be the spark that awakens when the world is on the edge of collapse—but I look possessed of the sort of magic that ends worlds, not saves them.
I look like a beast of brutality.
But light unbound can blind the land,
A ruin born from an open hand.
The prophecy slices through my rage, cutting it down to nothing.
I fall to my knees.
Not in obedience.
In defeat.
Wherever I go in the known realms, they will try to control me—forever a weapon to be commanded. Used.Abused.
The protective walls around my mind crumble. Useless.What am I defending?
“Good girl,” Maldrak croons, reaching again for my hand, but right before he reaches me?—
My darling. A voice whispers through the jagged cracks of my mind, so faintly I question its existence.
I’m coming, my love. The voice grows louder, and I whimper at the sound of it.
Because I know, in every tendon and sinew of my body, that it cannot be what I wish it to be.
Another illusion.
Another warp of reality.
Another false hope to contradict my despair.
