“Zalel is right, though,” Kori says softly, placating. “No one should think less of you for it. And I don’t, Adria.”
“My people treat spoken vows as legal, binding. I made you a vow that I would protect you here … that the shadows were mine to direct or dispel.”And you watched them nearly kill me, I mean to say, but damn it all, the words that actually come out of my mouth are “And they could’ve hurt you.”
Kori extends a gloved hand again, moving to rest it on my forearm, but I bat the touch away. I can’t bear the gentleness, the compassionate concern, the overwhelminglightof her when my very blood feels this rancid with hopeless rage. She persists anyway; the sun does not ask the planet for a preference before it continues endlessly, painfully beating down upon the scorched earth.
“But they didn’t,” she says.
I swallow hard through a dry, aching throat. “They hurt Aspect.”
“I’m their engineer. Maybe even their caretaker,” Kori protests. “Any injuries they suffer can be blamed on incomplete programming, which means this is my fault. I’m supposed to equip them and, failing that, protect them. Right now, their babysitter is a three-headed dog, and their entertainment is fixing their own mangled knee, so I think it’s safe to say I could do better.”
“I made avow, Kori,” I say in a rush. “Supposed to keep you safe.”
“Long enough to return me for ransom and finally have the resources to crush this resistance?” Kori takes several slow steps back, but her gaze pins me in place. “If you’re so concerned about the going market price for a runaway princess, maybe you should’ve sent me home sooner.”
“You’ll be lucky if I send you home at all, heiress.” My chest feels hollow as a forgotten skull, stripped bare by the elements. “Twice now, you’ve seen me at my weakest. What would you report … to your mother? That my legend is just that—a story? That there are swords … that could fell … even the most grossly mutated of our kind?”
I want her to cower. I want her to shrink back like anyone else would, like my parents did, beholding my empowered form before it brought them to their end. But she meets my glacial words with equal fire, hands curled into fists now at her sides.
“Don’t pretend to threaten me, Adria. I’m the closest thing you’ll ever have to seeing the sun again.”
“If I wanted to … I’d have my fangs at your throat.”
“Now you’re just teasing me with a good time.”
I hope to the Beyond that the heat in my face isn’t as visible as it feels. I sit fully upright now, wanting to rise to my feet altogether but finding my head still swirling from the sudden motion (and Kori’s unbearable, unflappable boldness, too).
“I’ll drop you … and your annoying robot … back in the Daylands. Food for the sun serpents. Never think of you again.”
Arms crossed, jaw set, Kori has the audacity to reply, “Iknowyou won’t.”
“Like hell you know. You don’t know me … at all.” Hands drawn into fists, I press my knuckles into the stone bed below me, hard enough for the gravel on my skin to hurt. “You want to stay … because you think the Shadowlands are nothing compared to the family you fled. Let me tell you something, Princess: Your waking hours … arenothing… compared to the nightmares you’d encounter here, the moment I withdrew my protection.”
“We’ve established your ’protection’ nearly got me killed.”
“And yours nearly obliterated your only friend.”
Kori drops an ugly curse under her breath. “Do you even have friends, Adria, or only subjects? Would Thaane still follow you without a crown, without a title?” She advances on me like a predator, and I’m sitting down, so we’re almost the same height for once. It makes even the dead, dusty air in this underground chamber crackle and sizzle between us. “If you lose this war, will any of your friends wonder what becomes of you?”
With a final furious huff of breath, I force myself to stand. Pain shoots through my stiff body from the nape of my neck to the arches of my wings to my boots. I tower over her again now, her body so small and breakable below me, but her chin held defiantly high.
“How long before your precious sun reduces even the recollection of you to ash,” I say, daring her to shrivel, begging her to shrink, “and your mother finds an heir who doesn’t run into the dark at the first sign of responsibility?”
Kori swallows hard. Silence stretches between us.
This girl. Obstinate beyond belief, hopeful beyond reason, looking at me even now with sincere concern, as I lie at my weakest and boil with rage. Already my future hung in a perilous balance—but ever since thisgirlplummeted into my universe,everythinghas been falling apart.
With every reset of the torch, more of the Shadow Court’s trust in me dwindles. Azarii’s army simmers further in their self-hatred, projected into hatred of myself and my kingdom. And my people suffer. As consumed as I’ve been with my own suffering, my guilt, my fury, I know my peoplesufferfrom this civil war.
General Isek’s son is dead, the body mutilated and lost to time. Zalel and the others with healing gifts are overwhelmed, constantly maintaining bruised, broken, bleeding soldiers from the front. Thaane reports the word of my spies: The ordinary citizens are afraid of my dynasty falling, after which Azarii’s rebellion would surely condemn any and all access to the Diakópsei’s gifts. But they are perhaps equally afraid of my continued rule—a monster queen like they’ve never seen, terribly young but already burdened with a lifetime of grief and pain, my self-hatred amplified by power beyond their understanding.
I swore to keep my peoplesafe, helmed by secure authority that would never lead them into needless war. But we are at war all the same, and here I am, my thoughts overwhelmed with Kori’s laughter and her kindness and the unquenchablesunlightof her, when I should be fully focused on the bloody trenches where my soldiers bleed for me. Is this really what I murdered my own parents for? Reckless distraction by a foolish, foreign girl whose only purpose ought to be her ransom?
The best time to end this childish dalliance was the moment her sunlight memory brought me to my knees.
The second-best time is now.
My wings sprawl wide of their own accord, casting Kori completely into darkness. “You think I can’t ransom—with a corpse? I’ll have what’s mineandyour body twelve feet under before your mother has any idea.”
