Page 14

Tears slipped silently down my cheeks without permission. They soaked the pillow beneath me as if I’d been shedding tears in my sleep.

I had woken up in a bedchamber, draped in white sheets that felt too pure for a place like this.

Helion sat on the floor with his back against a pearl-coloured wall, watching me while he chewed on his bottom lip. My heart squeezed at how much it reminded me of him sitting next to my bed in the infirmary, waiting for me to wake up.

But I was awake, and this time the thing inside me was broken beyond repair.

Instead of acknowledging him, I watched the gauzy curtains sway in the breeze. Ash clung to the glass like frost behind them, muting the world outside in a pale, ghostly haze.

A part of me, deep down, had known when the Commander had given me the journal that it was his. But I didn’t want to believe that someone who loved me so deeply could be the very weapon created to kill me.

Who had killed me, who knows how many times.

Every single bit of betrayal, fear and uncertainty that I’d felt since escaping Stonebriar crushed down on me, threatening to steal the air from my lungs.

I let myself feel for the first time since escaping Stonebriar and I had many tears to shed.

Orin. Bohdi. Roman. Hells, even Hadley. Dreya.

The people who died because of me.

The pain of loving Rythos only to be ripped away from him.

Sobs shook my body as I sucked in a trembling breath.

There was nothing but pain and darkness wherever I went.

I don’t know how much time had passed or how many tears I had shed, but the gaping hole in my chest was only getting bigger, eroding what was left of my fractured soul.

“Please…” Helion’s voice broke the silence, sounding the same as the man who I had grown to trust. “Stop crying.”

When I didn’t respond, he tilted his head back against the wall and shook his head back and forth. It almost looked like he was the one in pain.

His brown hair still dusted his strong eyebrows, and mischief still glinted beneath tears in his grey eyes.

“I hate that I hurt you, Princess.” His voice broke over the words as if he felt real emotion. As if I would believe him. “But… it’s still me.”

His words crawled under my skin, reaching for the dangerous thing buried inside me that wanted to believe him.

My power was still diminished, shoved down by whatever horrid magic Cerilla had tricked me with, but in its place was white-hot anger, and somehow, that felt more dangerous.

“Take a deep breath⁠—”

“Fuck you,” I rasped, venom dripping through every syllable as I blinked away another tear from my swollen eyes.

The corner of Helion’s mouth quirked into that stupid fucking grin as he lifted his head from the wall and leant forwards, arms flexing as they hung over his knees. “If you’d like to.”

I pushed myself up, bare feet touching the cool stone. My wedding dress trailed behind me, twinkling like dying stars in the dull light of the bedchamber until I stood above him.

The crack of flesh against flesh split the air as my hand lashed out against his face, sharp and violent. Pain bloomed across my palm, but it was nothing compared to the heat raging inside of me.

Helion’s head snapped to the side with the force of it, brown strands of hair shifting over his brow. For a heartbeat, he did not move.

My handprint bloomed red against his cheek, stark and defiant against sun-kissed skin.

His tongue pressed into the inside of his cheek as though testing the sting before slowly—achingly slowly, he turned back to face me.

Dark grey eyes crashed into mine, the amber flecks shifting with antagonising amusement, but beneath it was something unhinged.