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‘Don’t talk to me like you’re leaving—’

‘I’m not. I’m here. But I’m weaker without that and—’

I gasped when his elbows gave and he toppled down, pinning her with his weight, but no longer holding her wrists.

“Voski—!”

But before I could grab him—or her—she whipped one hand free from underneath him, pulling a blade, and laid it at his throat.

“No!” I gasped, twitching, desperate to put myself between them, but he didn’t fight her. He shouted a warning in my head.

‘Let me keep her attention. Let me… take this.’

‘NO!’ I returned emphatically.

But then the true battle began.

I was overwhelmed with power. Holding on to it by my fingernails. I couldn’t move or I’d be scoured away. So, I knelt there, dumbly, overwhelmed, while Voski stared at his mother, and she held that blade against his skin—but growled at me.

“Give it to me. All of it. Everything—including the mark. Or I swear to your God, I’ll kill him,” she hissed.

I gaped at her, still digging my fingers into the dirt to ground me, as Voski scrambled in the link, shoveling every final particle of power to me, while his body and strength deflated in the wake of the loss of it.

Fear rose to choke me.

No. No. I wasn’t losing him for this!

So, I met her gaze, prayed that the plan would keep him safe, and shook my head at her.

The last of that power dripped into my veins and I shuddered, barely managing to scramble back when she tipped Voski aside as he toppled, dead weight.

Inferno

~ GRACE ~

For a moment I panicked, but I could still feel him in the link, still glowing with life. Just… utterly spent.

He’d given me everything.

My heart swelled with love and hope. Yet, I couldn’t intervene as she kept her knife to his throat, while he rolled onto his back, his eyes closed and face pale.

Please, keep him safe. Keep him safe!

My body shook with the rush of power I tried to contain.

“You’ll only hurt yours-self if you k-kill your son,” I said through chattering teeth.

“He’s not my son if he won’t use what he was given—if he won’t embrace what he was born to be!”

“Oh, he’s embr-braced it,” I breathed, clinging to the bond, pressing him to breathe, to fight. “He embraced everything you gave him. Every ounce. He t-took it, and used it, examined it… and turned it under the light and realized how sick you are. Then he took everything you g-gave him and made it good. Strength. Stealth. Selflessness. Love.”

That word echoed.

Lady Ashford blinked, but gave no other indication she’d heard it. Yet, I felt it. The surge of power.

The thing I held that she wanted so desperately. Even more than she wanted her own son whom she’d desperately tried to position as a king.

I grieved for him as I realized, once again, that no one ever saw him. He’d only ever been valued for what he could do. They didn’t see who he was.