A moment later, the light vanishes.
Darkness falls around us, so suddenly oppressive that my eyes burn.
Damn.
Now my chest hurts again, fresh blood wetting my palm when I press my hand to my heart. I swallow my groan of pain. I’ll get past it. This wound will heal.
It’s time for me to go. I have what I needed from Maxim, and I have my purpose. The sooner I start hunting Hadrian and his followers, the better.
Just as I take a step toward the tunnel’s mouth, Azul makes a nuisance of himself again, stretching his wing and blocking my path.
As I veer to the side, Maxim’s footfalls sound behind me. From the corner of my eye, I catch sight of the new bundle he’s carrying, wrapped fully in the dragon’s hide.
It’s a much larger bundle than I was expecting, and it’s shaped like a?—
I stumble backward, knocking into the tunnel wall with athump.
One end of the dragon’s hide is slightly open and from that spot, light flashes, cutting across my chest. Lighting up the bright blood and the painful wound.
Except now there is a gentleness in that narrow beam that I never expected. Never thought I’d feel again…
I try to breathe as a flood of boyhood memories rushes over me.
Starlight playing across a kind smile.
A gentle hand holding mine, picking me up when I fall, brushing the dirt off my knees.
Warm arms hugging me…
I can’t move because I know this light.
This light that has been growing more ferocious since my fight with Maxim began, maybe even before my fight with Stellen began, and has now become as clear as the memory of the hand that once held mine.
“No.” My denial is strangled. “It can’t be.”
My mother.
Chapter Thirty
Antony
What grace is this?
After everything I’ve done. The blood I’ve spilled. The lives I’ve taken. The hurt I caused Thyra.
How can my mother be alive?
How can she be here?
Maxim draws to an abrupt stop opposite me, his arms closing more tightly around the fae-shaped bundle he’s carrying.
But I need proof. I need to beat back the sudden fear that I’m wrong.
“Show me her face,” I demand. “I need to see her.”
Even if her light scorches my vampyric flesh.
I’m prepared for Maxim to fight me, but his response is quiet. “It’s her, Antony. It’s Aeliana Vividari.”
