I try to think about power and greatness. I try to think about the way my blade felt piercing the heart of Neculai Vasarus. I try to think about the weight of this crown upon my head for the first time. I try to think about the dead body of the father I hated, and my satisfaction when I spat on his grave. Something powerful, she said. These are my most powerful moments.
But I cannot tear my gaze away from her mouth, or the speckles of dust across her nose, or the little scar on one of her eyebrows.
“Come here,” I say, before I can stop myself.
No one disobeys me when I make a command. Not even her. The smile fades. Brief uncertainty glints in her eyes.
She steps closer.
She smells so wonderfully human. Sweet and savory and complex. Flowers and the earth and cinnamon. She tilts her head back slightly.
“Yes?” she murmurs.
Her heartbeat has quickened.
Strange, that mine has, too.
It is exhausting to desire. I can no longer remember when this set in, how many days passed with her in my presence before it became maddening. I despise it. I cannot think when she’s near me.
It makes me feel powerless.
My right hand is still pressed to the stone, my blood now dripping over the edge of the wall. But my left comes to her face, wiping away that smudge of black with my thumb, leaving a smear in its wake.
Her skin is so unbelievably warm.
Her mouth is warmer.
I staggered back, clutching my hand, which was now covered in blood. Vincent’s memories and my own tangled. The image of my mother’s face—Goddess, my mother—was seared so clearly into my mind, I could still see its outline when I closed my eyes.
I was so disoriented that I didn’t even feel the ground trembling until I heard the grinding of stone. I blinked away the remnants of Vincent’s memory to see the wall before me lowering, inch by inch, until it was flat against the ground. The carvings on the stone beneath my feet and that of the wall’s lip matched up seamlessly, all pulsing with faint red light, still stained with the remnants of my blood.
The realization of the vision settled into me.
This was a lock.
Each wall was a layer, a phase, like the pins within a padlock. And the column in the center was the final piece—the turn of the key.
I drew in a shaky breath and let it out. I took several careful steps to the second ring of stone. The magic in this room seemed to grow thicker, more noxious, than it was minutes ago. My head pounded. My stomach threatened to empty. My limbs shook.
But far more pressing than any of that was the thought of Raihn, fighting for his life above.
I didn’t have time for this shit.
I pushed myself through it, half-stumbling to the next wall.
This time, I didn’t hesitate. I opened the wound in my hand again, urging forth a streak of fresh blood, and pressed it to the stone.
My hand is already bleeding.
Rage. Utter rage. It’s raining outside, one of those rare, powerful monsoons that occasionally roars over the deserts. My hair drips rainwater onto the carvings. She had finished these not long ago, the dust still settled into the rivulets, collecting with my blood into a black sludge as it pours into the divots.
I hate them.
I hate her.
I shouldn’t have come here in this state. This is not the mark I want to leave on something so important. This was supposed to be a thing to make me powerful—instead, it is becoming a monument to my weaknesses. But I needed to come here tonight. Needed to know that she had not betrayed me with her final slight—needed to know that I had enough power to finish what we had started together.
Did she really think that it could end here?
Did she really think that it would stop me if she left?
She called me power-hungry. I called her weak. What right did she have to speak to me that way? She came from nothing. I gave her everything.
I was ready to give her eternity.
I was ready to give her all of it, and she looked into my eyes and spat in my face.
Did she know how many women would have died for such an opportunity? How many humans would kill to be made into vampire royalty?
Did she think I wouldn’t smell my own child on her?
With that thought, fear spears my chest. It is difficult to breathe.
My child.
A threat. Not just a threat, but the greatest threat. How many kings die at the hands of their children?
If she had stayed—if she had listened—
We could have dealt with that.
But now, she is gone, and I will have a child out there in the world, and I am—I am—
I sink to my knees, my forehead pressing to the sharp edge of the wall. My chest hurts fiercely. I stand on a blade’s edge between two emotions, neither of them pleasant, and I hate her for making me feel this way.