Nyaxia’s devastating face went thoughtful. Those night-hewn eyes fell to Raihn’s lifeless body.

“You grieve, my child.”

I could not tell if it was sympathy I heard in her voice.

I didn’t answer aloud, but she heard my response anyway.

“I know grief,” she said, voice soft. “I know what it is to lose half of one’s soul.”

Half of one’s soul. It did feel that way. He had taken more of me than I thought he would when he went.

Storm clouds swirled in the night of Nyaxia’s stare. “To have such a thing stolen from you is a great loss indeed.” Lightning faded as they turned back to me. “But perhaps, too, it is a blessing, my child. Such a pure love, distilled forever in its innocence. A flower frozen in bloom.”

Her fingers caressed my throat, drifted down to my chest, lingering there—as if feeling for my human pulse. “A dead lover can never break your heart.”

Was that how she felt about her dead husband?

If so, I envied her. Because she was wrong. My heart was already broken. It had cracked in a thousand moments over the last twenty years. The first blow came the night my family died. Only now, by my own hand, did it shatter.

Everything I had ever wanted was within my grasp.

Power. Strength. I could never be afraid again. I could make myself the predator instead of the prey, the hunter instead of the hunted, the ruler instead of the subject. I could make myself a monster to fear. I could make myself something to remember, instead of another fading mortal life to forget.

Everything was right here.

Two hundred years ago, Vincent had made this decision. He had sacrificed everything.

And so had Nyaxia. Her grief became her power. She forged it into a weapon sharp enough to carve a whole new world.

I understood now. It always happened this way. Love was a sacrifice at the altar of power.

My gaze found Vincent’s. He was not blinking, was not breathing.

My father who had taught me how to survive, how to kill, how to feel nothing. Perhaps I didn’t share his blood, but I was his child in every other sense of the word, and he loved me the only way he knew how. At the edge of a blade.

I swallowed the sudden, desperate desire to know how he had felt when he stood in my place, two hundred years ago. Did he swear that he would be better than the one who came before him?

Nyaxia’s smile rolled over my cheek like the cold light of the moon.

“They always have dreams,” she murmured, answering the question I did not ask. “And his were the grandest of all. Tell me, what is yours, my child?”

I cradled my wish in my weak mortal heart. Perhaps I was more human than Vincent thought, after all.

My father taught me to look them in the eye as I slid the blade into their heart. And so, I did not look away from his as I told Nyaxia, “I wish that Raihn had won.”

Vincent’s face went white.

Nyaxia’s laugh sounded like the shifting of fates.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Nyaxia did not ask me if I was sure. She knew my soul. She knew I was.

“As you wish,” she said, as if I had just done something very amusing indeed.

I wasn’t sure what I was expecting—maybe some dramatic flash of light or storm of darkness, or hell, maybe that I would disappear completely—but none of it happened.

No, it turns out that fate changing is a subtle beast. The air turns just a little colder, the direction of the wind just a little lost. You look down and suddenly your hands are shaking, holding the blade that, seconds and another reality ago, had been lodged in your lover’s chest.

I looked up, and Raihn was alive.

He sucked in a great gulp of air, his hands clutching at his chest—at the wound that was no longer there.

The crowd murmured and gasped.

I didn’t look at them. Raihn didn’t, either. Instead, his gaze shot to me. Only me. He looked at me before he even looked at Nyaxia.

The tears that pricked my eyes now were of relief.

It was worth it. I already knew it. Even if I never saw him again. It would have been worth it.

Confusion tangled in his expression as he rubbed his chest.

“Hello, Raihn Ashraj, my Nightborn son,” Nyaxia purred. “Victor of the Kejari.”

Raihn’s confusion turned to realization. Then turned to…

To…

My brow furrowed.

That wasn’t relief. That was anguish.

“Oraya,” he choked out. “What did you—”

“Rise,” Nyaxia commanded. “Rise, my son. And tell me how I may reward your victory.”

Raihn did not speak for a long moment. That silence seemed to stretch a million years. At last, he rose and approached Nyaxia. Her fingers stroked his cheek, leaving in their wake little paths of blood.

“My, what a long time it has been,” she crooned. “Even fate did not know if I would see this face again.”

“Likewise, my lady,” Raihn said.

Vincent’s jaw was so tight it trembled, his knuckles white at his sides, back straight. His wings quivered, as if he had to hold himself back from flying down here.

Nyaxia’s eyes danced with amusement—terrifying amusement.

My stomach clenched tight. I did not like to see that level of delight. The kind of delight that promised bloodshed.

Nyaxia likes her children squabbling.

Something… something was not right.

“Tell me, my son, what is your prize?”

The world held its breath. Raihn bowed his head.

In the crowd, I glimpsed Septimus pushing forward through the stands, a hungry grin spreading over his lips.

Why was Septimus looking so pleased, if his champion had fallen?

Raihn said, “Two hundred years ago, you came to this place and granted the winner of the Kejari a wish. You sealed away the power of the Rishan Nightborn King.”

The smirk on Nyaxia’s lips had grown to a grin, and with it, my stomach sank.

“I wish for that power, my lady. I wish for it to be restored to the Rishan Heir line. I wish for it to be restored to me.”

Restored?

Nyaxia laughed, low and silken. “I wondered when this might happen. Your wish is granted, Raihn Ashraj, Turned Heir of the Rishan king.”

What?

My eyes went wide. I took several steps back, towards the stands. Some spectators were laughing, soaking up the drama of it all. But others, mostly Hiaj, had started to uneasily back out through the crowd.

Nyaxia cupped her hands before her.

“Congratulations on your victory.”

Raihn looked only at me, dismayed apology over his face, as Nyaxia’s hands opened over his chest, her lips pressing to his forehead.

The burst of power rearranged the world.

Everything went white, then black. But the real force of the shift was deeper than that. At any given moment, one could feel Vincent’s power innately—the kind of power kissed by the Goddess herself. Now, two polar extremes yanked in opposite directions.

I lifted my hand to shield my eyes. When the light faded, Raihn was standing before Vincent’s box. His wings burst forth—a million colors, black as night, with one notable exception:

Red, painted at their tips.

I let out a strangled noise.

Because Raihn’s armor had been so badly damaged that when his wings flung out, most of the leather had ripped away, revealing the landscape of scars over his back. The scars from Vincent’s torture, yes. But also the older one, the one that started at his upper back and ran down his spine.

Now light burned through that scar tissue, streaks of red piercing the mottled flesh. It formed a design—five phases of the moon over the top of his shoulders, and a spear of smoke down the center of his back.

A mark.

An Heir Mark.

It bloomed to life as if awakened by a sudden burst of power. Even if its owner had once, long ago, tried to burn it off his skin.

Fuck. Fuck. What had I done? Goddess, what had I done?