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“Oh, you’re awake.” The chamber catches Kelaros’s greeting and multiplies it, echoes closing around me from every direction.

He steps into view, his transformation complete now. Crystal has claimed all of his flesh, his skin transparent enough to reveal the network of Opal veins beneath. His movements produce musical tones as crystal joints flex and bend.

“Can you feel it?” He circles me with predatory grace, one finger trailing along the shard embedded in my side. “The court is accepting you as a sacrifice.”

A fresh wave of agony courses through me as the shard responds to his touch, its edges grinding into bone and tissue. I bite my lip to keep from screaming, unwilling to give him the satisfaction.

The crystal floor vibrates, dust rising to catch in my hair and eyelashes.

“So stubborn.” Kelaros crouches beside me, savoring my resistance with fascination. “Still fighting when you should be surrendering.”

My fingers scrabble blindly for purchase, for a weapon, for any means of escape. “What do you want from me?”

He laughs, the sound splintering into harmonics that pierce my eardrums. “Nothing you haven’t already given, cousin. The court fragments you carry will return to me once your body fails.”

With a flick of his wrist, the shard pulses, drawing a gasp of pain. The wave of agony lifts me off the ground, invisible strings seizing my limbs and suspending me at his command.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs, studying me as I hang helpless before him. “Did you think I wouldn’t understand what you are? What you could become?”

The shard tugs me forward, dragging my body through the air until I hover before him. The wound in my side stretches, flesh tearing wider as gravity pulls me downward while the shard holds me aloft.

“The court needed a vessel to incubate.” His fingers trace the air along my jaw without touching me. “I planned to take it from the Silver Prince before he completed his transformation, but then you interfered. Why would it decide that you’re worthy? You’re not even a pure fae.”

With a vicious twist, he plunges the shard deeper.

My lungs seize as my vision whites out. The pain transcends physical boundaries, becoming a realm unto itself where I exist as nothing but agony given form. A scream builds in my throat but finds no release, my throat paralyzed by the shock.

“You should be dead already,” Kelaros whispers, the sound buzzing against my skin. “Why won’t you die, darkling?”

The agony surrounding the shard gives way to heat. It blooms where crystal pierces flesh, then spreads outward, molten and thick, mapping my veins.

The fragment pulses in response, sending waves of counter-magic to meet the intrusion. Where they collide, transformation occurs.

My blood crystallizes around the shard, forming a barrier between it and my flesh. The wound edges glow with opalescent light as cells knit together faster than they tear apart. The shard’s power, meant to destroy, feeds my healing instead.

“What is this?” Kelaros stumbles backward, and his concentration breaks.

I drop toward the ground, the invisible strings holding me aloft suddenly severed. My knees hit crystal with bruising force, but I remain upright, one hand covering a wound that should have killed me.

Under my palm, blood hardens into crystal scabs, and the pain recedes to a dull, manageable throb.

Kelaros stalks around me, his movements less certain now. “You are a healer.” The word leaves him as an accusation. “Keeping secrets, Wolf?”

I test my strength, fingertips scraping for purchase as I gather myself. “I play my cards closer to the vest than you do.”

He kicks my shoulder, sending me sprawling across the ground. “No darkling can heal.”

“Yet here I am, still alive.” The declaration leaves me with more strength than I thought I had, echoing off the crystal surfaces. “My blood isn’t yours to take.”

Kelaros tilts his head, curiosity replacing some of his rage. “We shall see.”

As he circles me, ripples spread from each footfall. The cage around us contracts, spikes lengthening to pin me in place. The court bends to his will, reshaping itself into my prison.

But beneath my palms, warmth gathers in the crystal, recognizing my touch as it did before. The court remembers me, acknowledges the fragment I carry, the sacrifice I made to protect Elionn.

The wound in my side continues to heal, Opal light pulsing beneath my skin in patterns that match the crystal architecture surrounding us.

“I’m what you can never be,” I say.