“As much as I’m flattered, I’d like to keep my internal organs internal.” Calvin shot a questioning look at Noctis, who only glared back in a mix of rage and confusion.
My hands skimmed Calvin’s shoulders, reached around to his back and ran across his shoulder blades. Steel pressed into my palm, and my hand closed around it as if it had been waiting there just for me.
It hid partially underneath his shirt, the forked edges peeking out, but I needed to feel it. The fabric tore easily under my ravenous hunger to find what entranced me.
The trident.
Calvin and Zahara stole it back, and I needed to touch it. Needed to beinsideit. Needed it to be a part of me.
“You could have just asked to hold it,” Calvin quipped, but Zahara quickly shushed him. Their eyes devoured me, but I didn’t care as I took the forged trident in both hands.
My hair whipped around me as energy erupted outward at the first touch. Warmth flooded my veins, raw, intoxicating, alive. It filled every hollow part of me with terrifying ease, seductive in its strength, impossible to resists. For the first time, power did not feel borrowed or wild.
It felt like it belonged to me.
“You cannot take that,” a familiar voice rang through the corridor.
Duscharne.He looked like he wanted to run and stay all at once—breath uneven, gaze strained, but his stance still braced for impact.The Varaxis no longer carried his leisurely swag and prideful demeanor. Instead, he looked as if he knew that death watched him closely, waiting to seep into his bones.
“I’ve been looking for you,” Noctis growled.
A laugh escaped me, something unimaginable only moments after enduring torture. The trident piece rose overhead and came down in a swift, precise strike, aimed directly at the man. Nothing remained in my mind but the urge to erase him from existence.
Onyx tendrils erupted from all three spires, swallowing him whole. They swirled viciously around his body as if even they wanted him killed. When the smoke cleared, Duscharne was gone. Only charcoal, chalky ash lingered in the air where his body had been.
In that silence, the reason the Royal Vanguard wanted me became unmistakably clear.
I could wield the trident.
Mers stumbled from the front entrance of the facility, battered and barely vertical; however, they were heartbreakingly excited to make their way back to the ocean. They wrapped their arms around each other, tripping on their unfamiliar legs. I counted each one, knowing the vast majority of my people did not and probably would not emerge alive after Jun’s healing—some beaten beyond repair. Nor would he have the abilities to heal them enough to escape.
I desperately watched the door for Evelyn, hours passing agonizingly. Struggling to breathe, my knees dug into the grassy embankment of the pier outside of the Royal Vanguard facility.Noctis cleared the building and was checking again to make sure there were no more survivors.
I felt his strength return with the lifting of the curse, our souls intertwining in mind and body. It was an intimacy that I was glad was private, but I also relished in its closeness. I could feel him—his emotions felt like mine, our heartbeats fell in sync, his breath warmed me, his blood surged through my veins, full of power and life. He made me feel stronger. And something dangerously close to loved.
Is Jun okay?I sent to Noctis through the tether connecting us. My soul wanted to ask about Evelyn but knew my Blood Tie would have told me if she awoke… or if she never would.
He’s done. It’s not something you should have had to see. Stay outside. Please.Devastation lathered his voice, and my heart sank, my head finding its way between my knees.
Calvin and Zahara rested in the cool sea breeze with me, a calm and necessary peace to my storm.
“Jun is done,” I told them. They both sighed in relief.
The front doors burst open, and we all jumped to our feet. Noctis helped carry Jun around the waist, Jun’s arm wrapped over the god’s shoulders who slumped in exhaustion.
Over Noctis’s other shoulder draped Evelyn. She was still unconscious, nearly sending me back to the floor in devastation. Noctis must have immediately felt my despair.
She’s alive, love. Because of you.
She’s nearly dead and tortured because of me.
He wouldn’t understand the guilt I carried for the things that happened to Evelyn. The weight of leaving my younger sister behind still crushed me, even knowing I’d gone after Noctis because staying would have killed us both.
Do you regret us?Noctis asked, clearly saddened by my thoughts.
Get out of my head.
Make me.A small lilt accompanied his words.
