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I enjoyed it.
Did I?
Did I enjoy taking her life?
I close my eyes and picture Elodie’s face. The way her skin broke open as I sliced through it, and the glint of her thick, silver blood as it trickled down her throat onto the stone below her breathless body.
I did that. I ended her, and I didn’t use my magic to do it. I didn’t need magic. Which surely means I am so much more than they think I am?
Even Eldrion didn’t see it coming. He would never have expected me to do it. He was shocked. But he was also turned on; the way he fucked me proves that.
Behind me, I hear his footsteps, slow and measured. “Alana,” he says, his voice barely audible over the wind. “We need to talk. You took it too far.”
I whirl around, my eyes blazing. “What do we need to talk about? Finn has an army of shadows at his command, an entire legion of darkness that will stop at nothing to see us all destroyed. And you stood there, doing nothing, willing to let them walk away.”
He takes a step towards me, his hands held out in a placating gesture. “I was not going to let them walk away. I was going to?—”
“What?” I square up to him, power quivering beneath my skin.
I adore the way he is looking at me right now, as if he wants to tame me and worship me at the same time.
He shakes his head and looks away from me. “Trust me,” he says. “It’s a slippery slope. Once you begin the slide into darkness, it’s very hard to claw your way back.”
“You would know.” I follow him to the edge of the roof and look down on the citadel.
“Yes,” he says, turning to me. “I would.”
I press my lips together, holding in the anger that flutters in my heart when I look at him and think of Kayan.
Kayan, who was so appalled by me that he has vanished. Perhaps never to return.
“It is done now.” I fold my arms in front of my stomach. “There is no use wishing I could take it back.”
He turns to me and cups my face in his hand. “Do you wish that?” he asks, studying my face.
I inhale slowly, holding the breath in my lungs for longer than usual before shaking my head. “No,” I say firmly. “I do not. It worked, didn’t it?”
Eldrion lets go of me and scrapes his fingers through his hair. “It did,” he says. “But you acted on impulse. It may not have done.”
“Everything you’ve done was calculated?” I ask, my thoughts returning to Kayan.
“Everything,” he replies. “Every evil thing I have done has been the result of careful consideration.”
I frown at him. A laugh swells in my chest. “I think that’s worse.” I smile. I can’t help it. “Choosing those things after weighing your options... having the chance not to do them and then doing them anyway? That’s?—”
“What being a ruler means.” He draws back his shoulders, and for the first time in days, I see him as he was. Without his fading wings and his lack of power. Lord of Luminael. All powerful. “It means making hard decisions. Something you’ll have to get used to if you’re going to take my place.”
“Take your place?”
Eldrion shrugs. “You have power, Alana. I don’t. It’s gone. It makes sense that you would be the one to rule if I cannot.”
For a moment, just one fleeting moment, a pang of sympathy settles over me. But then it is gone.
And in its place, I feel . . . excitement.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO
“It’s beautiful.” I stand on the sheepskin rug, staring at the fire in the grate.
