id not feel

like d

thing that would make me feel like a goddess reborn. Instead, I felt cold water filling my lungs

s were frozen. I tried to breathe, but there was no air, only the weig

n the darkness, I hea

little st

ands were

ed. All I knew was that one moment I was drowning in darkness, and the next I

s jaw tight, his skin pale. There was blood on his hands. My bl

me?" My voice was ra

e and sat back on his heels. "The magic was

thin and precise, still weeping blood. But beneath the

s were

e a heartbeat. But as I watched, it grew brighter, spreading up my arms, a

terrified. I should

something I had

ol

ening to me?"

xpression I could not read. Wonder. Fear. Hunger. All

sed. One of the last of her kind. The power in your veins is older than t

lowing hands. "W

"It can heal. It can destroy. It can bind and it can sever. And

and for a moment, the glow in my veins flickered, as if

have to d

ce was soft, almost gentle. "You have to

ren

t five years fighting. Five years surviving. Five

know how,"

ned around mine. "Th

ter of the chamber a

alms. The candles had been extinguished, and the only light came

eyes," Doria

bey

illing your lungs, the beat of your hear

side me, curious and cautious, like a wi

ate most. The thing that makes you burn with

ands. The way he had laughed when he gave me th

an feel it. The anger. The ha

from my chest to my limbs, from my limbs to my fin

ou love most. The thing you lost. The thi

The way she used to braid my hair and tell me stories

to heat. The hea

he fire co

remember

remembe

s of glass raining down like diamonds. I felt the moonpetal inside me writhe and burn, felt Alaric's tether snap like a rope cut in t

hat was ent

reeling. Dorian was beside me, his face singed, his coat smoking. He had throw

spered. "You could

had met him, he smiled. A real smile. A smile that re

ied doing something

respond, the

nobles who had been roused from their beds by the explosion. They stared at the shattered wi

gods happened here?" one

g me up with him. His hand rema

Isles," he said calmly, "ha

m went

no longer just the traitor's daughter, the murdered wife, the rescue

ng they

f the crowd, a voice I ha

eres

rowd

f frost, her face sharp and beautiful in a way that made my skin pri

e haired

n from t

I bre

was the smile of someone who had been

" she said. "I have

his hand going to his sword.

what I have always wanted, Dorian. I want

him, her pale ey

id. "A bargain that cost her her lif