She’s your enemy, I say.You’re going to kill her.
Her tears mean nothing. Theyneed to mean nothing.
“There is a celebration on Creetan’s Crag in two weeks,” I say, having a hard time finding my voice. “That’s when I’ll return.”
I fight every urge to stay as I portal away.
The hearteater is going to die.
That is the ideal ending of this scenario. We find the sword. She unlocks it. The power it takes harms her—maybe even kills her.
It is inevitable.
The fact that those words produce a flicker of regret in me is exactly why I need to stay away from her, outside of our search for the sword. In truth, this time.
I am stronger than this. Some woman isn’t going to break through hundreds of years of resolve. She is nothing.
So, I stop going to her room at night. Instead, I visit the scar, which has torn open again and again. I find myself relishing in the fight, for it is the greatest distraction. All this tension, thisfeeling, this fury—I channel it into my powers and fight and kill until it is gone.
Until my body gives out, and there’s no time or energy to visit her. Sometimes, I fall asleep right on the dirt, by the scar.
Days pass without her, and relief rushes in. She was just a momentary temptation. Nothing special.
To prove it to myself—that she means nothing, that she has no control over me—I tell Astria to call for another Covet.
The women line up, the same as before. All wearing red on their lips. All in slips of fabric. I walk in and am met with their unfettered excitement. They’ve volunteered to be here. They know what it entails.
They might as well be faceless. I can’t focus on any of them. Itry. I force myself to look at each one.
Judging by the flare of desire from my guards stationed at the end of the room, they must be desirable.
But not to me.
My emotions remain as flat as a lake.
Good. I’m not supposed to feel anything.Good.
I just have to choose. It can be any of these women. It doesn’t matter. This is my duty. It means nothing.
Choose.
Eyes, staring me down. Inviting me in. Desire, from them. Forme. It should be enough to just choose, to just go, to just revel in the momentary release and distraction.
I blink—and all I see is green.Green eyes, glaring at me. And red.An aura so sharp and saturated, it bleeds into my dreams. Every shade of everything I’ll never have.
Every shade of everything I suddenly need.
She means nothing. Let me prove it. Let me have all these women, one after the other, and not think about her once.
I step forward.
Then turn around and slam the door behind me. One of my guards is there. “Is something wrong? They all agreed, they all know exactly what—”
“Send them away,” I growl.
I portal back to the scar.
The dreks aren’t even there. I’ve closed all the openings. Still, I rage, roaring, shadows flaring in all directions.
