Level mountains.
Boil seas.
Unmake anything that stands against me.
For a heartbeat—one endless, crystalline heartbeat—I finally grasp why Morrigan wanted this. Why she destroyed our family, killed an innocent girl, allied with monsters. For this feeling. This intoxicating, addictive, seductive rush of limitless possibility.
I see why Ulrik would destroy kingdoms to claim it. Why the Shadow Clan has been hunting Relics for centuries. Why anyone with even a taste of this power would burn the world to hold onto it.
More, the Crown whispers. It doesn’t speak in words—it speaks in sensation, in the promise of what awaits. Take more. Be more. You were made for this. Why would you ever let it go?
My fire flares higher. The corona above my head blazes brighter. The stones beneath my feet begin to glow with heat I’m not consciously producing.
Somewhere distant, I hear voices. Calling my name. Concerned. Afraid.
Why would they be afraid? I can protect them. Shield them from any threat. Make them untouchable, invincible, safe in ways they’ve never been safe before. All they have to do is let me?—
“Tamsin.”
Auren’s voice. Not shouting—he doesn’t shout. But cutting through the roar of power with the precision of a blade, finding me in the inferno I’m becoming.
“Come back to me.”
The words hit somewhere deep. Pierce through the Crown’s seductive whisper to the part of me that’s still Tamsin. Still the woman who woke in his arms this morning. Still the princess who chose her side and refuses to break.
I reach for my witch magic. Not the amplified version—the original, the root, the control my ancestors cultivated specifically for this purpose. The ability to seal what Fire-Bringer flame has opened.
The Crown fights me.
No—that’s not quite right. The Crown doesn’t have will. It’s just power, ancient and vast, and power doesn’t want to be contained. Doesn’t want limits. The magic surging through me resists compression the way water resists being pushed uphill.
I push anyway.
My witch magic wraps around the Crown’s energy, containing it, compressing it, forcing it back into the crystalline prison that held it before. The process feels like shoving a hurricane into a bottle. My muscles strain. My heart pounds. Sweat breaks out across my skin, immediately evaporating in the heat rolling off me.
Come back to me.
I hold onto those words. Use them as an anchor. Something worth returning for. Something more important than all the power in the world.
Inch by inch, the corona contracts. The geometric patterns fold inward. The light dims from blazing to bright to merely brilliant.
And then the Crown seals.
The sphere sits in my palm again, beautiful and harmless, as if nothing happened at all.
My legs give out.
Cold arms catchme before I hit the stone.
Auren. Of course, it’s Auren. He’s there before anyone else can move, gathering me against his chest, his chill cutting through the residual heat still radiating from my skin. I press my face into his neck and breathe—cold air, cool skin, the faint scent of winter that clings to him no matter the season.
“I’m all right.” My voice comes out hoarse, scraped raw by power. “I’m all right.”
“Your hands are shaking.”
I look down. He’s right. My hands tremble against his chest, fine tremors running through my fingers. The Crown rests in my palm, dormant, innocent, giving no indication of what it nearly turned me into.
“That was—” I swallow. “That was more than I expected.”
