Page 138 of Of Iron and Moonlight

“You must,” his father said. “Do some good in this world to balance the harm I have done.”

With slow effort, Loken pulled Njall’s hands down from his face, revealing the tears now plain. He did not rebuke Njall for them. He only smiled, thin and tired, and motioned him closer.

Njall pressed his forehead to his father’s and sobbed until Loken’s breathing softened, grew lighter. Until Loken drifted into sleep.

You’ll recognize the line and make the right choice when it matters.

He saw the line clearly now. Oorlon had crossed it long ago. Njall had simply been foolish enough to pretend otherwise, too blinded by his shame to admit it. And he understood what he must do.

He might never see his father again, a truth that hurt to accept. But he would not lend his strength to Oorlon’s cruelty any longer. Would not avert his eyes while others suffered.

If he must become hunted, so be it.

Njall kissed his father’s temple farewell. The gesture was awkward and boyish. Long overdue.

Then rage and sorrow burned side by side in his chest as he tore through Selenar Castle’s deserted corridors once more, pulse roaring in his ears.

He reached the laboratory in a breathless rush and shoved the door open so hard it struck the wall. Glass chimed across the shelves. Simmering vessels trembled.

Elara and Kalaetzu both startled.

They had not been idle. The room held the restless tension of preparations made while waiting too long. Kalaetzu’s travel satchel stood packed near the table. By the door lay a bundled pack of food that smelled faintly of bread and fruit.

Elara’s doing.

Njall took it all in with one sweep. “Good,” he said, chest still heaving. “You’re ready.” He grabbed the pack and slung it over his shoulder.

Elara stepped toward him first. “Njall… did you find him?”

Kalaetzu did not ask. His look said he already understood more than he wished to.

Njall met their eyes, one after the other. “We’re done waiting.”

Elara’s breath caught. “Done waiting…?”

“To the goddesses with exact timing,” Njall growled. “We leave now.”

Chapter 66

Elara

“Wait,” Elara hissed after him as loudly as she dared without waking half the castle.

Njall took several long strides deeper into the corridor.

“Slow down,” she pressed from the laboratory door. “You’re walking like a madmale racing toward his own execution. We need you alive. And thinking.”

He stopped. His shoulders rose and fell once before he turned slowly. “My Aurumierran heart is too much for you now?” His expression was wild, violet eyes snapping left and right as if tracking the fragments of his life falling apart around him. “Once you called it my finest quality.”

“It is,” Elara said immediately. She glanced down the hall to confirm it was empty, then stepped toward him. “That’s not the problem.”

She rose onto her toes and framed his face with her hands. He inhaled sharply, and every raw emotion flashed across his features. Grief. Fury. Terror.

And a deeper pain that broke her heart.

“We need your fire,” she said, softer now. “And the part of you that sees every angle before anyone else does. Together they make you unstoppable. Separate…” She met the violet storm in his eyes. “Separate, they get us killed.”

His jaw tightened beneath her palms.