The Kiss of Deception

She commanded, and the light obeyed. The sun, moon, and stars knelt and rose at her touch. Once upon a time …

Journey’s end. The promise. The hope.

Tell me again, Ama. About the light.

I search my memories. A dream. A story. A blurred remembrance.

I was smaller than you, child.

The line between truth and sustenance unravels. The need. The hope.

Today was the day a thousand dreams would die and a single dream would be born.

Rafe got to his feet. He looked at me without acknowledging Kaden. He surveyed my filthy bandaged fingers, my torn shirt exposing my shoulder, my bloodstained clothes, and certainly the grief that still lingered in my face. His eyes searched mine, questioning me silently, and I saw his worry that I had been harmed in ways that he couldn’t see. I saw that he had ached for me as much as I had for him.

The good ones don’t run away, Lia.

But now, with a new burning passion, I desperately wished he had.

I looked ahead at the growing monster. Like the day I had prepared for my wedding

I wasn’t that girl with a dream anymore. Now, like Walther, I only had a mounting cold desire for justice.

“It’s half-assed!” Sven shouted as I slid my foot into the stirrup.

“I know,” I said. “That’s why I’m counting on you to figure out the other half.”

It’s insanity,” Sven balked. “It will never work!”

“It has to,” I argued.

“Your father will have my neck!”

Orrin laughed. “I wouldn’t worry about the king. Rafe’s plan’s going to kill us all first.”

When the arrows were drawn and aimed, for a moment, I had prayed a soldier would shoot. And then the others. It wasn’t pain I feared, but no longer feeling it—no longer feeling anything.

Sven started to protest, and I shoved the strap back into his mouth. He would rather suffer infection that see his precious spirits spilling from his cheek to the ground.