He looked down at me with Chandra’s face, his expression soft and resigned. He reached up to caress my cheek lightly.
“Get off her, you dirty bastard,” Blue snarled.
Mizikiel ignored him, his gaze fixed on me. “The night I claimed your body was the first time I ever felt alive. When we joined, when we were one for that moment, I felt…time. I felt…real.” He blinked, and his eyes darkened, blooming with galaxies. “I felt…love.”
My stomach twisted in revulsion. “Love? It wasn’t yours to take.” I wanted to lash out. To bury my axe in his throat. To end this.
“You violated her, you bastard!” Blue snapped.
Mizikiel blinked. “I suppose it might seem that way to you. But I gave you the body you wanted. The pleasure you desired. Was it so wrong for me to taste it too?”
“Yes!” Blue yelled.
But he didn’t get it. I could see that in his alien galaxy eyes. There was no point in arguing with him. There was no fighting him. I’d come here with the misconception that I could beat this being. That here, in his home realm, with Vritra’s power inside me, we would be equally matched.
I’d been wrong.
And now I’d die.
He gripped my wrist and brought my hand up slowly, so that the blade of my axe was at his throat.
What was he doing?
His gaze dropped to my torso. “Every living thing has an end so a new beginning can take root and bloom.” He sliced my blade across his throat, and blue light burst from his form, blue fractures forming across his face.
He smiled as he released me and stepped back, blue light pouring out of him and streaming toward me to slam into my chest. The stars in his eyes gleamed, and his shoulders sagged as if in relief.
My insides quivered.
A flutter low in my belly.
“It’s inside you now,” he said softy, and then he exploded into starlight and eternity.
Epilogue
FOUR YEARS LATER
There was a figure on my bedchamber balcony, but there were no alarms going off inside me. No power rising to defend me.
Whoever was out there wasn’t a threat.
I slipped on my fancy slippers, carefully clutching the pleats of my sari as I crossed the room toward the gauzy drapes blowing in the breeze.
Moonlight kissed my skin as I stepped outside, breath snagging at the sight of the woman standing and looking out at the palace grounds.
It had been years since I’d seen her.
She was taller, somehow, dark hair now streaked with starlight. Her body had filled out and become more athletic, but…it was her.
“Priti?”
She turned slowly to face me, a slow smile blooming on her lips. “Look at you,” she said. “You look so regal.”
I glanced down at my cream and gold sari, the royal colors. My colors. “I suppose I do. It still feels surreal, though.”
“Good,” she said. “That means you’re still grounded. That means you’re still one of the people.”
She tipped her head to one side, moonlight glancing off her cheekbones. “It’s good to see you again, Leela.”
