I moved forward.
Each door I passed bore a mark—a sigil I couldn’t name. And behind each one, the sound of something breathing.
I told myself I would choose which doors to open. That I would decide. But at the corridor’s end, only one door stood ajar. The choice already made.
Inside, candlelight flickered against stone. A slab waited in the center, black and slick like oil. A body lay stretched across it—my own. Pale. Still. Lips parted like she’d just stopped screaming.
My stomach lurched.
From the shadows, he emerged.
Kaelith.
“You said you’d figure it out,” he murmured, circling the slab where my body lay. “But there is nothing to figure out. You were made for this.”
His crown was twisted up wrongly from his head. His eyes were pinpricks of silver, too bright to be human. He circled the altar, fingers dragging over my lifeless body.
“No,” I whispered. My voice felt brittle.
He looked up, smiled at me with certainty before handing me a blade. My hands—both mine and not mine—trembled as I took it.
“You came here to be saved,” he said, “but you already belong to the dark.”
The altar flared with light. Suddenly, the slab held another.
It was Lysara. Eyes wide. Lips trembling. Her pulse visible in her throat.
The hunger snapped through me. My jaw ached. My hands itched. I didn’t want this. But the hunger did. And the knife in my hand felt weightless.
I lunged?—
And awoke to shouting.
Hands dragged me back, strong and unyielding. Lysara’s scream tore the night. Santiago’s voice was sharp with panic. My throat burned, my jaw ached—gods, my jaw?—
The tent flap flew open. Blood slicked the floor where we’d been lying. Santiago crouched over Lysara, light spilling from his hand at her throat. Her throat.
Horror slammed into me.I did that.
I thrashed against Malachi’s grip, sobbing, snarling. But heheld fast. We stumbled into his tent. My breath tore ragged from me, everything rimmed in red. He didn’t speak at first. Just uncorked a vial and pressed it to my lips.
I hesitated, teeth bared. “Aurelia,” he said, steady, not unkind. “Drink.” I obeyed.
The draévinth cooled my veins. The hunger loosened its claws, but it wasn’t gone. It prowled at the edges of me, waiting. My thoughts moved sluggishly, my breath still ragged as I blinked up at him.
“Come,” Malachi said, gesturing to the pallet on the floor.
He sank down first, fingers working the buttons at his collar. I hovered where I was, unsure, my chest tight.Was Lysara safe? Had I truly—The memory of blood slick on the floor burned behind my eyes.
“It’s all right, Aurelia.” His voice was low, steady. “Let me help you.”
I didn’t move. He sighed, then reached forward and drew me down to sit folded in front of him. Our knees touched. The quiet press of bone against bone startled me more than any order.
“You can say no,” he murmured. “But this will help more than the tonic ever could.”
He shrugged his tunic from his shoulders, letting it fall. The firelight traced every line of him, the strength in his chest and arms, the scars that told his history.
My eyes lingered too long.