And what I had believed to be solely my curse, the thing that had hunted me, haunted me, was her.
“The only reason the Viper hasn’t devoured you whole,” Isolde hissed, “is because you are already filled to the brim with forces much rarer, keeping you balanced.” Movement slithered behind her eyes. “But even your blood won’t save you once we have that stone.” Her eyes shot to my dagger, the onesheathed at Reve’s hip, landing on the ruby. “Do you know what that makes you, cursed one?”
It began low, quiet, learning its shape again, rebirth a holy ache beneath my skin. Then it burned. Not to destroy, only to remind me what I was made of. Two forces moved within me—one a hymn, one a hiss.
But then Ronan said, “You forgot one.”
Isolde turned, the edge of her grin faltering. “Forgot what?”
His eyes were on me, unwavering.
Verena.It slid down the bond, smooth smoke over open wounds.Don’t hold it back anymore.Don’t suppress it.If you’re lost to the darkness, I’ll find you.Every time, in every life, my soulflame.
Something inside me snapped in release. The tension I’d carried all my life splintered. And from those fractures, power bled out. Because the divinity stone wasn’t something I held—
Ronan turned to Isolde, eyes like cataclysmic fire. “Verena Vyratheon—” His voice carried a command to the universe. “The risen Goddess of Selvarra.”
I bore it in my soul.
Isolde went still, her face blanching.
And then I broke open.
Light and darkness collided in my chest, a shockwave ripping outwards through the air. The Viper recoiled, hissing inside me, overtaken by something older, something Primal.The ground trembled. The palace shuddered. The stars themselves leaned closer. Because I wasn’t the curse any longer.
I was theorigin.
My veins lit with new power, liquid divinity flooding through my blood, my bones, my very breath. Euphoria and agony braided together until I didn’t know which I was feeling, only that it waseverything.
My head fell back. My lips parted—
And I screamed, soundless and infinite.
It was all too much. Too much force, too much fury, too muchtruth.My bones threatened to splinter as my muscles stretched against themselves, blood burning in liquid fire. Centuries of suppressed power poured through me, no longer chained, no longer asking permission. And for the first time, it wasn’t the Viper, it wasn’t the curse—
It was onlyme.
Heat grew beneath my skin, prickling, as gold light sliced through my veins, mixing with the crimson and onyx, living lightningdancing together.
I watched it move in a terrifying charge as the first crack split across my arms, down to my fingertips. For the first time, power didn’t consume me, it completed me. Divinity and darkness merging into one.
A laugh tore free from my throat, building into something hysterical and triumphant, the cry of something ancient remembering itself. If they wanted a nightmare, then I would show them Godhood wearing its face.
Energy erupted from my palms in streaks through the air, the force circling my feet as it lifted me, inch by inch, until I hung suspended above the floor. My hands spread wide; palms open to the world as a web of electricity leapt from my fingers. It struck the chains binding my friends, splintering them to dust, breaking metal ringing in the air.
Ronan’s head tilted back, his throat working as he drew a breath. Then, slow, he touched three fingers to his lips before holding them against his heart.
The gesture hit me harder than the power ever could.
It shuddered in my chest, love and pain and the remembrance of every life and lie that led to this moment.
A whisper swept down the bond, his voice quiet and wrecked. At that moment, I knew. The way he looked at me, the words he spoke, I had him. Entirely.
Ronan bowed his head in devotion, and the dragon prince fell to his knees before me.
And I smiled. Because this is how kings break.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
