They all are.
This—this hurts too much. It will hurt forever.
My pain is infinite.
And from that day on, so is my power.
Sorsa finds me on the floor, covered in ash, trembling, hours later. That burst of power has left me hollow and cold. She slowly lifts me up and wipes my face. She gets me new clothing.
She leads me to the kitchens.
I’m shaking. I can’t stop.
There is a slight clanking as she moves around, but I barely hear it. I barely register her at all until she’s in front of me again, trying to hand me something. A mug.
At first, my shadows lash out, sharpened into talons, but she just leaves the cup in front of me. I hear the soft whisper of the door closing.
I’m about to shatter this mug into a thousand shards, but then the smell reaches me. Sweet. It’ssweet.
That fact alone makes me hate it, but I’m cold and empty inside, so I take it, against my better judgment.
I drink.
Chocolate. It’schocolate.
I take another tentative sip.
The pain doesn’t stop. Not at all. But it helps, just a little. It keeps me conscious. It keeps me tethered here, when all I want is to leave this world and my father behind.
The drink becomes my only balm against pain I funnel into power. I hate my father, but he’s the only person I have left, so thathatred turns into wanting to please him. Wanting all this to be worth it. Convincing myself that it had a purpose.
Because if it didn’t ... they died for nothing.Shedied for nothing. The pain of loss becomes too much, so I fold my emotions away. I harden my heart.
I become what Laila wanted for herself.
I become my father’s greatest weapon.
FURY
TWENTY YEARS LATER
My blade is covered in blood. Nothing new—at least, not since my father waged war against Lightlark five years ago.
I wipe it against the grass, my expression blank as I charge forward. Someone at my feet begs for mercy. He says he has children.
I put my blade through his throat before he can say anything else.
Fool, I think. Only a fool would have a family, as a warrior. Only a fool would do something as stupid asloveanything or anyone, when life so predictably turns to death.
Pathetic, all of them.
The first time I stepped onto a battlefield, I was met with an unyielding wall of fear and panic andpain. The emotions nearly suffocated me.
So, I had to learn to block them out.
Just as I’d already learned to block out my own.
Merciless, they call me. Cruel. A monster. Death, itself. They’re right. I don’t show mercy. I don’t hold hostages or leave bodies.
