No.
A scream tears out of me.
Please, no.
A heart rests in his bloody palm, its fleshy parts crushed while its metallic plates and delicate, interlocking parts continue to move in perfect harmony.
A mechanical heart that continues beating in my hearing.
Thud-thud. Thud-thud.
Slower and slower until the mechanism stops and then the metal becomes dull and lifeless.
A shriek of horror and rage and denial breaks across me. My scream, torn from my chest.
Because Galeia—my biological mother—had a mechanical heart. A heart that nobody else could have had.
My mother…My mother…
I’m suddenly aware that silence has fallen around me.
The dark sphere that surrounded me is peeling away, curling like paper in a fire, while the ropes that bound me are fraying and the pole that threatened to impale my throat is crumbling into ash that falls onto the pages. All of the dust and blood gathers together, reforming the book’s cover until it lies silent and still on the floor in front of me, leaving me cold and broken.
“Lies,” I whisper.
It must be lies.
The keeper told me he hadn’t tethered Galeia’s magic. He wouldn’t have lied about that, not when he knew the pain it would cause me.
My focus is drawn to him now.
He’s on his knees, his scales torn across his face and arms, his dragon wings drooping at his sides, his shoulders stooped so low that his fists rest on the floor in front of him, but somehow, his eyes are raised to mine.
My father looms over him, light flickering around his palms and making his skin glow. “You gave him the power in your heart, didn’t you, Daughter?”
The smile on Taiven’s face makes my blood run cold.
“Your heart is breaking now,” Taiven continues. “And thus, he too will break.”
Thisis what my father wanted.
To destroy me and the keeper of dark magic with me.
In the background, the light magic keeper has become visible again. She’s slumped against the stone wall, her eyes empty, golden orbs, her arms hanging at her sides, the weapon at her back scraping against the stone with every breath she takes, a horrible, rasping sound in the silence.
“Do you see now who your real enemy is, Daughter?” Taiven asks.
I drag a shaky breath into my chest, clinging to a shred of hope anchored in the beliefs thatTheBook of Dark Magicturns love to hate and only serves itself and is full of lies, so many lies.
“Did you do it?” I whisper, my focus on my keeper, willing him to tell me that he didn’t. That he doesn’t even know what I’m talking about.
His gaze doesn’t waver, his soft murmur barely audible. “Don’t break, my Veda.”
A little piece of my heart crumbles.
“Don’t break,” he whispers.
And then another piece, fracturing and shattering.
