“Don’t make me do this, Aimee,” I plead with her, but it’s no use. Whatever ancient magic wrapped itself around her mind like chains is not letting go. She summons her black shadows and blasts them at me, forcing me to unleash mine in defense.
“Aimee, please, I love you,” I say, hoping the truth behind my words will be enough to break the spell. “You love me too, my umbra, you just need to remember. You just said it too, a few minutes ago.”
“And you’re so gullible to eat up any meagre promise of attachment I made. You’re nothing but a tragic waste of a creature.”
“I don’t believe you,” I grit, fighting the grief that threatens to swallow me whole. This is not her; I have to cling to that, repeating it obsessively in my mind.
“And that will be your downfall, Vampire King. Killed at the hands of yourlove.How poetic.”
“Nobody will die here,” I answer with conviction. This damned mountain will not destroy us. I will not become the monster this place wants me to be.
Fuck Ereshkygall and her stupid, idiotic challenges.
“That’s where you’re mistaken, vampire. One of us dies now. If you don’t kill me first, I’ll end you,” she says in a rageful fit, forming a swirling sword from her shadows and attacking.
So that’s what this trial is about. A test of weaponized devotion. Kill or be killed.
I rein in my crimson power and open my arms wide in acceptance. I’d rather die at her hands than lay even one finger on her. If this is my cursed fate, then so be it.
“Then slay me, love; I won’t defend myself. If one of us has to perish, let it be me.”
I half expect my sacrifice to shatter the magic, but it doesn’t. Her shadow blade goes through my chest with vicious precision, and I slump to the ground, blood spilling from my mouth. She wrenches it free and brings it down toward my throat with unrestrained fury.
The killing blow.
I close my eyes, and images flash behind my eyelids. A rapid-fire recollection of my indeed tragic existence.
My mother. Drusilla. Drovillan. Dying and being reborn as a vampire.
Being crowned King. Ayana. The Fae wars.
The onpyr attacks. The prophecy. Blaise and Leilah, and Marhus.
Meetingher,falling in love for the first time. The only time.
The kiss of steel touches my neck, and I brace for true death.
When no pain explodes in my mind, and no darkness takes over me, I open my eyes to the same empty chamber.
Aimee is slumped against the far wall, breathing erratically and clutching her chest.
“You—you tried to murder me,” she whispers raggedly.
The pain in my chest and side has vanished, and my hands are no longer coated in my own blood.
“I did not. But you tried the same,” I answer between bated breaths.
“No, I didn’t. I…” she heaves, emptying her stomach on the stone floor. “I could never.”
It was all a fucking illusion; I realize with a start. We were not pitted against each other, but against chimeras wearing our skin.
I crawl to her on my hands and knees, gathering her into my arms as she cries despondently.
“It was not real, my love. Just these fucking trials playing mind games with us.”
“Oh, Killian,” she says between gut-wrenching sobs. “It was so awful. The things you—that thing said. That my sister was right all along. That I was nothing. Deserved nothing. That you couldn’t wait to finish me so you could be with her instead. You—it said I had it coming all along, the abuse, the rape, that it was all my fault.”
“Shhh, umbra, it’s over now. We passed the test.”
