Page 6

But some things, it would appear, did remain the same.

Because each time, no matter how hard Elyria pushed or how deeply Malakar prodded, she could not relinquish her shadow.

It didn’t matter how hard she pulled at it, nor how deeply she dug. It didn’t matter how much blood was drawn from beneath her skin, nor how many tears ended up falling from her emerald eyes.

That fragment of Malakar’s power was buried deep in her chest—deeper even than the rattling box of emotions that still lived somewhere down there.

Well, it wasn’t so much rattling anymore.

It was screaming.

A tidal roar.

A tornado.

A burning wave.

It was the culmination of every thought she’d tried striking from her mind, every pulse of longing in her head.

Every ounce of pain and every fear that crawled through her mind when she shut her eyes at night.

All the things she never let herself dwell on when she was awake. And especially ones she would not dare think on while she was here.

With him.

So each and every time one of those pesky thoughts, one of those heartbreaking feelings, clawed its way up from the deepest pit of her soul, she tried her very best to smash it back down.

Granted, it didn’t work most of the time, but she tried anyway.

Elyria didn’t want to feel.

Most days, it was all she could do simply to not wish it would all end.

That internal war had raged since the moment Malakar had commandeered her shadows and sliced away her wings. Her weakest moments had her longing, begging, fighting to give back his final kernel of power if only so he might finally let her go—one way or another.

But the cost . . .

What would happen to the world—what would happen to her friends—once his power was fully restored? What would she be unleashing?

It wasn’t that long ago that she might have insisted she didn’t care.

Wasn’t that long ago that it might have been true.

But every time she thought maybe she could bury her feelings, could seal the lid on that box of emotion, that stubborn, immutable, undeniable spark of light buried right alongside it would flare. A visceral reminder of the fact that there just might be something worth trying to survive all this for after all.

It was ironic, really.

The very thing that reminded Elyria of why it was so important that she survive, that she continue to live, was also the reason she couldn’t get away.

Because relinquishing Malakar’s shadow—her shadow—simply was not possible when it was so thoroughly entwined with that spark, that speck, that kernel of sunfyre burning at her very center.

And so, despite everything, Elyria Lightbreaker could not help but cling to that spark. Could not help following it to the spot where she used to feel a golden thread curled around her ribs.

She couldn’t sense it anymore—couldn’t sense their bond, couldn’t sense him. The sanguinagi blood runes and layers upon layers of spells pulsing from every inch of this place made sure of that.

But she remembered.

And the singular spark of Cedric’s power that lived inside her—that, she could still sense.