“Do you ever fully heal?” I asked, and Brenna nodded for me to go on. “I have healed, yes. My spirit—well, it’s a lot fucking stronger than it once was. It’s being pieced back together after it was shredded. That’s definitely healing. But from what I’ve experienced, healing is a process. One step, one hurdle at a time. One demon slain each day. But the healing never ends. You have to continue to work on it, to fight.”
Brenna asked, “And is that something you are prepared to do?”
Yes. I was. I didn’t take that blade for Ophelia because I didn’t want to fight. I took it becauseshehad fought enough.
I sought peace, yes, but I would always be fighting internally. Even if some days were good and quiet, one day, my mind would get loud again. The scars would ache. The deceit would resurface. I’d have to work.
And I could do that, but…
“How do you just carry on?” I asked. If I was being honest, the prospect was fucking daunting. “If I want to, how do I?”
And Brenna grinned. “Look up.”
Look up. The words rang through my mind in another voice.
“If you are asking these questions, then I believe you are ready for your third Spirit,” Brenna said, drifting back beside Hectatios.
“Third?” I asked, looking between them.
A voice I never wanted to hear again said, “Malakai.”
Not him.
How—why? This was all such a fucking joke. Sacrificial love, healed spirits, and now…this. It made sense why the first two Spirits’ challenges hadn’t been that difficult. They had only been priming me for the third. Reminding me of how I got here and what I needed if I wanted to fight through what came next.
When I turned around, my father was there. Lucidius Blastwood, with the smoky-white form of the two Spirits behind me.
And when I met his eyes, my mind warred to retreat. Like a wounded creature who had been struck time and again, something within me cowered. It hid in the darkest parts of my chest, hoping the shadows would mask its presence before the man who had caused me so much pain.
But I would not shrink in the face of this man who’d sullied our name and began the chain of torture I’d endured. It took every ounce of strength I had left, but I pulled that damaged bit to the forefront and displayed it outright, let him see who he beat down time and again and who rose from it.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, voice lethal. “Forget it,” I added as he opened his mouth. I faced the other two Spirits, careful not to turn my back entirely on Lucidius. “I don’t want to talk to him.”
“Malakai—” he said.
“Quiet!” I barked. “How do I get out of here?”
“The only way out is through,” Brenna said, her voice still a melody.
“Not with him,” I argued.
“I’m not trying to win you over,” Lucidius said. “Stop being childish and listen.”
“Ah, there’s the loving father I remember.”
He ignored the heavy sarcasm layering my voice. “I am here for an explanation and to provide something you desperately need, son.”
I peeked at him. His voice was so much more level than when I’d last seen him. So much saner. And his last words echoed through my head, spoken in a cavern not unlike this one.There is so much you do not know.
I took a deep, steadying breath, and searched for thehealedpart of me I’d just claimed I’d found. “Explain,” I clipped.
“I have to go back far,” Lucidius clarified.
“I am dead,father,” I sneered. “I have nothing but time.”
His tongue dragged across his teeth in a way I so often did. But I shook away the wrench that realization dug in my gut as he began, “I knew what was meant for the Alabath girl.”
Surprise bolted through me. “How?”
