I wasn’t done yet, not by a long shot, my power still seeking and destroying, but his energy coiled around mine, crushing me beneath his iron fist.
“You caught me off guard,” he said, the promise of death swirling in his tone. “But I’m still stronger.”
A lie.
The only reason he bested me now was a result of the insidious vows I’d murmured all those months ago. Without the restrictions, I’d slay him.
As he would soon find out, with Adrik stirring behind him.
Because Adrik could absorb my powers, could use them where I couldn’t.
It might kill me, or deplete my energy for life, but both were sacrifices I was willing to make. For the betterment of the Underworld. To destroy the vile presence that was Necros.
“You’ll lose,” I whispered, smiling through the onslaught of his magical assault.
Life or death.
Love or fear.
Adrik or Necros.
There was only one choice in each.
I had made my decisions.
“You want to know who Adrik is? Then why don’t you ask him yourself?”
I rolled my neck, cracking it sharply in the cold room.
Ash swept across the marble floor, the bodies of former guards diminished beneath Valora’s impressive display of power. Only one remained—the one at my side. He’d helped me stand, his head bowed in reverence not to me but to his queen.
To the goddess rippling in flames.
Fuck, she was beautiful.
Even losing to Necros’s will, she resembled a being of pure light and power. Her husband’s hands were circling her neck, his biceps bulging as he tried to choke her out. I wondered if Valora even realized it. She hadn’t taken a breath in minutes, yet seemed to be overflowing with life.
I felt it humming through my veins, warming my skin, begging me to take over, to pull her energy into myself and use it to finish the King of Caluçon.
No, not her power… but Valora.
Her words were on repeat in my mind, telling me to absorb her gifts and finish him. She knew the costs, had accepted them, and was trying to convince me to take charge.
No.
We would find another way.
I picked up my knives from the casing on the floor, thankful to Necros for bringing them to me, and twirled the familiar weight between my fingers.
“Twenty-five years ago, you stole my kingdom,” I said, my voice deep and clear and filled with renewed life. “A prophecy told you the King of Shadows would take your life. I’m here today to see that destiny fulfilled.”
I threw a blade toward his back, only to watch a wave of power brush it aside. He tossed Valora to the side, knocking her into the sole remaining throne, and turned. “I killed the King of Shadows with my bare hands,” he seethed, coiling his dark energy around me in thick ropes of pain.
“You killed the former King of Shadows,” I corrected, using another knife to cut through the invisible strands. He hissed at the burn, then growled as I disappeared into smoke to return on his other side. “My father,” I whispered, directly into his ear, before shifting again to the corner of the room.
He spun, searching. “Impossible.”
“Is it?” I breathed, sending the words through the air on a wisp of smoke, curling it around his skin. “Lux raised me as her own, as a favor to King Maverick and Queen Soren. My parents. The ones you killed in this very palace before claiming it as your own.”