CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Death by Her Hand
LUCIAN
Seraphine’s eyes turned white.
For one second, the world stopped.
Then she screamed.
The sound came from more than one throat.
The Warden poured into her through the moon mark, smoke folding beneath skin. Black veins spread over her neck.
I reached for her.
Malrec struck me with a blade of blue light.
I hit the floor.
“Do not interfere,” he said.
I looked at Seraphine.
She clawed at her own chest as if trying to tear something out.
The prophecy.
Death freely given by the crowned to the marked, and life freely returned by the marked to the crowned.
We had wanted another way.
There was no time left to find one.
I stood.
Malrec lifted his hand.
I threw my dagger first.
It struck the silver charm at his throat.
The charm shattered.
His command magic vanished.
Darius crashed through the upper door with a squad of royal guards.
Nyra came behind him, blood on her sword.
“Go!” Darius shouted.
He met Malrec before the priest could recover.
I ran to Seraphine.
She turned on me.
Not her.
The Warden.
Her face remained hers, but white eyes stared through me.
“Crown,” thousands of voices whispered from her mouth.
I caught her wrists when claws formed from her fingers.
“Sera.”
She threw me ten feet.
I hit the base of the broken crystal.
Pain exploded through my spine.
The Warden advanced.
Behind it, Malrec fought Darius with a crescent blade while Nyra cut chains from the prisoners.
The chamber was collapsing into chaos.
I saw the heart of the binding beneath the shattered crown stone.
A circular altar.
Two handprints.
A narrow channel shaped like a dagger.
The old rite.
Of course it waited there.
King after king must have known.
King after king had chosen power instead.
I thought of my father.
Aldric would have killed Seraphine and called it duty.
I would not.
The Warden lunged.
I let it catch me.
Seraphine’s claws sank into my shoulders.
I pulled her close despite the pain.
“Sera.”
Her teeth lengthened.
“Listen to me.”
The bond was buried beneath noise.
I searched for her anyway.
Fire in snow.
A sarcastic smile in a map room.
Her hand in mine beneath Mirror Lake.
Pear trees she had not planted yet.
I pushed every memory into the bond.
Choose the living.
Her white eyes flickered amber.
“Lucian?”
There.
I almost broke.
“Yes.”
“Get away.”
“No.”
Her claws trembled inside my shoulders.
“It’s inside me.”
“I know.”
“Kill me.”
“No.”
“Lucian—”
“No.”
I dragged us toward the altar.
She fought both me and the thing inside her.
Malrec saw.
“Stop him!”
Darius drove a shoulder into the priest and bought us seconds.
I reached the altar.
The prophecy runes ignited.
Seraphine read them through tears.
“No.”
“Sera.”
“No.”
“You said choice mattered.”
“This is not a choice.”
“It is mine.”
Her face broke.
I took the ritual blade from the stone.
Black metal. Silver edge.
I put it in her hand.
She tried to drop it.
I closed her fingers around the hilt.
“I will not.”
“You can.”
“I won’t.”
“You are not killing me.”
Her eyes widened.
“You are breaking the crown.”
The Warden surged.
White swallowed her irises again.
I held her wrist with both hands.
“Find me.”
“Lucian.”
“Find me after.”
“There might not be after.”
Fear moved through the bond.
Mine.
Hers.
Honest at last.
“I love you,” I said.
The words had waited too long.
Her breath shattered.
“I love you too.”
“That is enough.”
“No.”
“It has to be.”
Behind her, Malrec screamed as Darius cut his arm. The prisoners were almost free. The Warden pushed against Seraphine’s skin like smoke beneath glass.
I guided the blade to my chest.
Directly over the old consecration scar.
Her hand shook.
“Choose,” I whispered.
Not obey.
Not submit.
Choose.
Seraphine closed her eyes.
Then she drove the blade into my heart.
Pain was bright and brief.
The crown stone screamed.
Every silver chain snapped at once.
I fell backward onto the altar.
Seraphine caught me.
Her face was the last thing I saw.
Then I was nineteen again in Ashen Vale.
Snow under my boots.
Fire in the houses.
My father’s order in my hand.
This time, I tore it in half.
The scene changed.
I was sixteen beneath the palace, kneeling while Malrec raised the consecration blade.
This time, I stood.
Changed again.
My father sat on the throne.
“You are nothing without this,” he said.
I looked at the crown.
Perhaps he was right.
Perhaps that was the gift.
I turned away.
Darkness opened.
Somewhere very far away, Seraphine screamed my name.
I wanted to answer.
I had no body left with which to speak.
For the first time in my life, there was no crown, no command, no duty holding me to the world.
Only choice.
So I chose her.
And began the long fall back.