His lips twitch, and he nods once as the shadows dissolve, revealing us to everyone in the room.
The Idols are angry—nothing new there. But they haven’t made a move. They can’t. What would be the consequences of killing your maker? I suspect it would unravel their entire past and set fire to their future. But if they have someone else do it? Then we just become part of that story.
I turn, sliding one hand into Nash’s and grasping Gwyneth’s with my other. This time, there is confidence in my words. They tried using their biggest weapon, and it didn’t just misfire—it never even set off. “Here’s my demand,” I call out. “You will stop gathering power and restricting freedom, and you will return to your true purpose of fueling fantasies and futures, keeping them uncertain and exciting, but never predetermined.”
The man with the split crown curls his lip. “Never. And if you try to force us, we will let it be known that you are responsible for the misery unleashed on the realm.”
“You are utterly clueless to reality,” Gwyneth chimes in. “The realm is already miserable. Only a very few find happiness. That knowledge won’t fuel hate for us; it will fuel the revolution you are so terrified of.”
“You will be hunted,” he volleys.
“No, we will be revered. The majority of the people are already ripe to hate you. We will be sheltered and supported. Every time you think you are closing in on us, you will be met with whispers and shadows of false trails,” I reply.
The female laughs. Even that’s attractive. I hate her. “You are acting as if you will be leaving here alive.”
I quirk a brow. “I’m not naïve. You set a trap, and we walked into it.”
The smile she gives is one of pure condescension, her mind resolute in her superiority. But she hasn’t had to problem-solve anything in an eternity, and that breeds laziness. “You knew it, yet you still walked in, and now your knight is hanging on by a thread as I feed him just a sliver of my power.”
I tilt my chin and tighten both hands. “Stop, accept the new way, or cease to exist.”
A heartbeat passes, and another. And then all Blazes breaks loose.
Chapter Forty
Daphne
The female Idol doesn’t hesitate. Her power lashes forward, invisible but crushing, slamming into Nash with enough force to drive him back a step. His body jerks, shoulders locking, jaw clenching so hard I hear the grind of his teeth. Shadows pour from him in thick, violent waves, crawling across the marble like something alive and starving. I clutch his hand tighter, grounding him in the here and now. He wants to run, but he is everything we need.
“Complete your purpose,” she commands, her voice threading through the space and straight into him.
“No,” he grits out, but the word sounds dragged from him, forced through something that is trying to claim him from the inside out.
Not yet, Nash. Hold off. Don’t give in yet.
Her power, thick and undeniable, saturates the air. The strength that lives beneath my ribs surges through the bond between us, colliding with the command, splintering it just enough to loosen its hold.
His gaze snaps to mine, wild and sharp, but present.
“Stay with me,” I whisper, holding him there, anchoring him in something that belongs to him, not them.
The Idol’s gathering wrath swirls in warning. The floor shudders beneath our feet, a low crack splitting through the marble as the veins of gold flare bright and then fracture. Above us, the painted ceiling shifts, the stories twisting, figures moving where they should be still, endings unraveling and reforming, restless but ready.
The Idols stop pretending and show their true monstrous selves. Forms stretch and distort, edges slipping as though the shapes they wear can no longer contain what they are. The man with the splitting crown rises, his height doubling as the gold fractures and reforms in sharp, jagged bursts. The woman draped in silk lifts from her throne, the fabric around her shifting with a restless, deliberate motion, her gaze no longer amused but cutting.
At her feet, something dark coils into existence. A serpent forms from the space itself, its green body winding around her ankles before sliding outward across the marble, scales catching the fractured gold light as it circles her in a slow, tightening loop. Its head lifts, tongue tasting the air, waiting.
The Idol wearing a thousand different cutting faces levitates from his throne, his form shifting as he rises, features sliding and reforming with each breath. One moment a stranger, thenext someone almost familiar, until it settles just enough to make my chest tighten.
Mirrored.
Eron.
Not whole. Not him. A reflection dragged through too many versions of itself and forced into one shape. His face stares back at me, but it is wrong. The lines are sharper, the expression colder, the warmth stripped out and replaced with something that only knows how to cut.
My cracked mirror is here, but not.
His head tilts as he studies me. The surface of him flickers, other faces pressing beneath his skin, fighting for space before snapping back into that almost-familiar shape.
