“That explains why everyone at school is an ass,” Teller muttered. “Why isn’t Lily like that?”
“Luther trained me,” she answered with a proud smile at her brother. “He started before my magic manifested to make sure I was ready.”
Luther nodded. “For most Descended, even a few days without a release can be dangerous. If you’ve been suppressing your nature all these years…” He gave me a slow, appraising regard. “You’re a walking explosive.”
FIGHT.
I certainly felt like an explosive. Preferably one aimed in the general vicinity of his head.
I wondered if I’d said that aloud, because Luther uncrossed his arms and shifted into a battle stance. His gaze on me was purely tactical, a soldier assessing his foe.
“You need to burn some of it off. And you two,” he shot a hard look at Teller and Lily, “should be far away when she does.”
“Could I hurt them?” I asked.
“Possibly, until you learn to control it. Frankly, the fact that your brother’s heart still beats is owed only to his impressive ability to avoid pissing you off.”
“Then how are you still alive?”
That had definitely been aloud.
Luther’s joyless smirk rang with the promise of a battle. It was equal parts thrilling and immensely unnerving.
FIGHT.
“Leave us,” Luther ordered. Lily grabbed Teller’s hand, and they quickly scurried up the pitch-black staircase and disappeared.
I considered some horribly vicious jab about Luther’s commands, his titles, his very life being worthless under my new reign—but if I was being completely honest, all this talk of release had cracked open a tiny window of hope in my aching soul.
Once upon a time, I had been a person of happiness and joy. I’d laughed as deeply as I’d loved. I’d made lighthearted jokes instead of cruel insults or threats. I’d been patient and compassionate, quick to forgive.
This woman I had become now… I despised her.
She was strong, undeniably so, but in all the wrong ways. Strength could be fueled by love just as easily as hate. I had known that once, and I desperately wanted to find that part of myself again.
I wasn’t sure where that would leave me with my plan to tear down the Descended world, but I knew if I kept going like this, I would destroy myself before I could ever defeat anyone else—or end up losing myself to hate like Vance and the Guardians.
Luther and I glared at each other in wordless tension. His potent magic danced in his eyes, light and shadow twining like lovers embracing under the moonlight. Strands of darkness curved like barbed wire around his arms and chest while light slithered down the rippled planes of his torso, spiraling around his muscled thighs and leaving him encased in a glittering suit of armor.
Something stirred excitedly in my chest at the sight.
FIGHT.
“Why do you hold it back?” I asked, watching the magic pulse around him like a sentient force. “The Descended rarely use it when mortals are around.” My upper lip curled. “Afraid we might spot your weaknesses?”
“Our weaknesses,” he corrected. My throat burned with the urge to deny it. “We don’t like for mortals to see our magic, if we can avoid it. It can be… disturbing for them to witness.”
“Since when do the Descended care about disturbing mortals?”
He began to circle me in a smooth, predatory pace. “Do we not allow the mortals of Lumnos to live undisturbed? The Descended keep to our own cities and palaces.”
Something about his voice sounded false. Rehearsed.
I laughed harshly. “How very kind of you to allow us to live on land that was ours in the first place.”
FIGHT.
A low rumble that sounded suspiciously like Sorae’s growl shuddered through the thick stone walls.
Luther continued his path behind me and moved out of sight. I stubbornly held my stance.
“The mortals are free to live as they please, subject to the laws of the realm.” Again, his words sounded hollow.
“There’s nothing free about a life under laws we had no say in writing and have no real power to change.” I scowled. “Perhaps it’s time for the Descended to learn how it feels to lose everything they value for a change.”
I knew instantly I’d gone too far. Revealed too much.
Luther went preternaturally still, every muscle taut under the strain of his power. When he finally spoke, his voice was deadly soft. “You would be wise, Your Majesty, to keep those thoughts well-guarded. Even a Queen can bleed.”
Fight.
Kill.
Destroy.
The voice had changed.
Focused.
As if it sensed a threat and was protecting its host. It prowled inside me, infecting my veins with a searing heat. My hands twitched with an ache to give in to its ruthless call.
Far away, Sorae was downright apoplectic.
“No,” I said quietly, pleading with the voice, the gryvern, and my own feral wrath to curb their bloodthirst. I couldn’t kill him—not now, not yet.
“Enough talking, Diem,” Luther stalked in front of me. An orb of pulsating light formed in one palm, a barbed knot of shadow in the other. “Use your magic, or I attack.”
My own fingers contracted at the sight of his, yearning to respond in kind.
Destroy.
“You don’t get to use my name, remember?” I hissed. “I’m Your Majesty to you.”
“Make me, Diem.” He flicked his wrist and a spear of darkness launched in my direction. I barely lunged away before it sliced into the wall behind me.
“You could have killed me,” I shouted.
“So defend yourself.”
I reached to my thigh to pull my blade. A thorny black vine whipped at my hand, sending the knife tumbling out of my reach.
“No weapons. Only magic.”
“I told you, I don’t have m—”
A cloud of glowing scattershot rocketed toward me. I yelped and fell to my knees just in time for the sizzling points of light to sail above my head.
“Stop pretending. Get up and defend yourself.”
“I’m not pretending. I—shit!”
I rolled on my hip a split second before a shadowy axe sliced through the space I’d been sitting, leaving a jagged crevice in the stone floor.
“So many lies,” Luther tutted. “Next, you’ll try to claim you didn’t kiss me.”
“I didn’t,” I snapped. “You kissed me. I was an innocent bystander.”
“There was nothing innocent about that kiss. From either of us.” He wet his lips, and heat coursed through my blood. “I think I’ve still got a few traces of your bloody handprints on my skin, if you’d like me to prove it.”
Destroy.
I lunged for my fallen dagger and hurled it at his chest. Luther sighed and twitched his wrist. A wall of pale blue light appeared around him, the blade bouncing harmlessly off its edge.
“This is beneath you,” he muttered, rolling his eyes.
He rolled his fucking eyes.
Destroy. Destroy.
I climbed to my feet, grinding my teeth nearly to dust. “I’m done with this conversation.” I started to stomp past him, but an explosion of glittering sparks sent me stumbling back with a shout.
“Use your magic. I know it’s there, I can feel it building around you. The light burns and the darkness bites—call to them, craft them into the weapons you need.”