I loved her.
Probably had since the first night, before she’d even turned toward my sword. But when she had, I’d been her captive. Mind, body, soul, every part of me tethered to those fierce blue eyes. Her blond braid gleaming under green light, her face like the sun itself.
The sun.
I should move; I couldn’t. Caustrix’s words had entered my head, finally clear beneath the roar of blood in my ears. I hadn’t understood when he’d spoken them, but now with his tooth in hand…
To reignite a sun that has gone dark,you must become the conduit that empties itself.
A dragon’s riddle. Impossible to decipher until the moment demanded it.
That moment was now.
Memory crashed in: Eury’s desperate, terrified face, exactly as she’d looked in that cave outside the Kingdom of Storms. Her bloody palm had pressed to my body, dagger in the opposite hand.
Understanding slammed through me.
I fucking understood.
Power wasn’t just for taking.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Eurydice
Silence,total and absolute. Barefoot in a snow-covered field. Arms crossed over my body. A threadbare shift hung from my shoulders, patched and faded, as though I were a little girl again and preparing for sleep. A strange light suffused everything, like torchlight in mist, and endless gray silence otherwise.
No queens, no swords, no blood, no battle.
“You found your way back.”
That voice. The most beautiful voice I’d ever heard—the one I thought I’d never hear again.
I turned. She stood ten paces away in her own shift, her body unbroken, with that almost-smile on her face. My mother.
If I moved, she might disappear. If I spoke, all of this might evaporate.
“It will,” she said. “But not as quick asthat.”
She’d read my thoughts. “What is this place, Mama?”
The almost-smile didn’t leave her. “It’s a tomb, Eury. A place of death.”
My heart kicked in my chest, and I held myself tighter. The moment of my death burst in—the feeling of a blade sliding between my ribs and into my heart. A total and final darkness. For once, I hadn’t found a way through. I never would again.
Ash drifted down around me like snow. I knew this place. The first time I’d come, my mother had told me I wasn’t supposed to be here yet.
“I failed, Mama.” I met her eyes. My face crumpled. “I died.”
She came forward, and when her arms wrapped around me, they felt as real as in life. Here, nothing separated us. Her head touched my cheek, and she was her very best self—cooing, whispering words I couldn’t understand. Not the mother who lay in bed with the door shut, but the one I spent every day wishing for, even the days when I had her.
“You didn’t fail, my love,” she said into my ear. “You lost who you thought you were.”
I stiffened in her arms. Those words were familiar. They weren’t hers. I leaned back until I could see her eyes, searching her face. “What do you mean?”
Her head tilted to the side. She only smiled that secret smile I knew well, the one she wore when she expected me to understand.
“It wasn’t you who said those words.” The spiritstag, that was who’d said them. A god had spoken those words to me. “Mama, are you real?”