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“Ah. She’s not going with you.”
“She wants to. But... no. Not this time.”
“Just who are you taking along? Or are you going on this romantic redemption quest solo like an utter fool?”
I had been tempted. But in the end, common sense had won out.
“I won’t take risks with my person if I don’t need to. Not yet. Not if it means I risk not getting to Morgan,” I said quietly.
Lyrastra was watching my face like a hawk. “And when you reach her? What then?”
“I stay by her side,” I said automatically. “Whether she wants me there or not. She’s not getting away from me again.”
“If she’s even alive,” Lyrastra said brutally.
My nostrils flared. “She lives. I know that much.”
Lyrasta’s expression turned curious. “You feel her then? The bond... She rejected it but it still tells you that much?”
“She didn’t reject it. I don’t think she even knows how to do that.” If Morgan truly wished to in the first place. And I hoped she did not. “But yes, I can sense it.”
“And if she’s in danger...”
My senses roared as I imagined it. “If she’s in danger, I slaughter everyone who stands between us without hesitancy. The trials were a mere preview of what awaits those who dare to make an enemy of me by laying hands on my mate.”
Lyrastra smiled. “You’ll do all that single-handedly, will you?”
“I’ll do what needs to be done,” I said, my patience snapping as I imagined the worst-case scenarios, the ones I wouldn’t let myself play out in my head but which ran in my dreams every night. “Shattered or whole. Kneeling or standing. I’ll get to her, and I won’t ever leave. This time, I’ll make her understand what we are, together. And if anyone dares to hurt her, I’ll burn them to the ground without a second thought.”
“Burn them, will you?” Lyrastra’s eyes were shrewd.
“You know the potential of the bond,” I said, my voice lethally soft.
“Oh, I’ve seen the bond’s potential firsthand. But doesshehave any real idea?”
“She’s seen a preview. You know what we did in Noctasia. We did it together.”
“I’ve heard the stories. Even if I had no wish to, the chattering of the servants was unstoppable. The Flame Empress, they’re calling her.” Lyrastra gave a short laugh. “She ran from them, but most of the commoners in the palace love her already. She ran from the big, bad, dark prince.”
I was taken aback. “Is that how they see it? Is that what they’re saying?”
“The prince who murdered his brother, his stepmother, and countless others as an assassin in exile? Yes, some of them. Others see it as romantic. After all, you chopped off pieces of yourself for her.” Lyrastra rolled her eyes.
My horns. My heart. There was nothing I would not have done.
Lyrastra was nothing if not direct. She smiled wickedly at me. “Well, youarebig and bad, aren’t you? Isn’t that what you were just saying?”
I leaned towards her. “And you’re cool and cruel and sharp as a razor, and you’re going to be the most efficient damned regent that Myntra has ever had.”
She smiled, finally. “It’s true. I will.”
“That said... Be cruel to those who deserve it and only those. I don’t want to return to a repeat of my father.”
Lyrastra looked sick at the thought. I found this heartening. “Fae forbid.”
“Faedon’tforbid,” I said sourly. “That’s the problem. We don’t forbid ourselves anything.”
“Hmm,” she said. “You still haven’t told me who will be going with you.”
