Shadow Cursed by May Sage Page 0,21
in the Wilderness still retains his power, though he’s been in eversleep for thousands of years.”
“You decided to stop caring about your survival based on tales.” Never mind control. I’m shouting. She deserves to be shouted at.
She waves her hand. “So what? My life against that of thousands of folk? It’s not like many people would actually care if I wasn’t around. You would have forgiven me, eventually.”
I could throttle her. I want to. “They have to. I don’t.”
She seems amused, as though she knows I’m talking utter nonsense. As if she knows I’m twisted around her littlest finger. “You would have.”
That’s new.
Vlari has never given me a reason to think she was aware of her hold on me, not even once. Even when I was weak enough to let her glimpse just how deep my obsession with her ran, she’d gloss right over the knowledge, reading something else instead. Teasing, cruelty, indifference. She’s never acknowledged any awareness of my feelings.
Now she is implying she knew.
She knew I loved her.
“You would have understood I did the right thing. You would have admired me for it. And when Tenebris was ours again, you would have danced to songs about the sleeping princess at the heart of the ley lines. In a thousand years, you would have told your grandchildren you knew me.”
I’ve never known such fury. “Don’t.” I can’t deal with this. Her flippancy. Her indifference to death. “Don’t you dare do this. Don’t you dare give up on life.”
“I’m not. Obviously. I mean, it was the best solution at the time. I’m too far from fading away to consider it again. And you have come up with an alternative solution I like a lot better than turning into a statue.”
How can she be so very cavalier? “You’re a corpse. You can’t move. You can’t touch, or feel, or see, or dance in the rain. Why don’t you seem to care?”
She shrugs. “I’m a pretty corpse, at least. Mom’s brushing my hair every day. It used to be so dry. I doubt it’s ever been nicer.”
I think she’s doing it on purpose to provoke me now. “Why?” When she doesn’t reply, I clarify, “Why don’t you care at all?”
Her gaze evades me, gliding toward the fireplace. It’s lit up and burns bright green in this vision of hers. “I suppose because this isn’t much worse than what my life was before. I was going through the motions. I was powerless, frightened, and useless. Now I have a purpose I can embrace. I have little regret.”
My anger dissipates, replaced by something worse. I don’t think my heart can take more of this battering.
For so long I’d been intrigued and fascinated by her. I wanted to see beyond the mask, understand her, know what her life was like.
Now I find she had nothing. Nothing to hold on to, nothing to make her live.
My princess used to be a void.
“Please.” My voice is barely above a murmur. “Please, talk to someone before risking your life like this again. To your mother. To me. You matter, Nevlaria. You matter to this world. You are more than a power source to protect the rest of us. Don’t take it upon yourself to shield everyone. Not ever again.”
She doesn’t say a word, visibly disagreeing with me.
“You don’t need a purpose. You just need to exist. Life doesn’t have to have a grand meaning.”
“I know that. I existed for decades. Now, this is who I am. The shield of Tenebris. Just like you coined yourself the shadow, I found a role that suits me.”
“No one asked you to shield us. If you hadn’t, we would have gone to war, and we might have won. The usurper had fewer human forces on our territory at the time. Either way, this would have been over by now.” I don’t quite mean that, but it feels good to say it all the same. “Next time, let the folk decide what they want to do.”
“If I had, the folk could have tried to change my mind, and they’d be dead. I don’t have to give anyone a choice. I am the heir to the crown of Tenebris. This is my fight.”
I see it right in her eyes. What she is. What she may become.
She’s the true queen. It doesn’t matter that her mother wears the crown. She was the one who’d saved the folk, defeated our enemy, and brought us to safety.
The fact that she didn’t have to justify herself, and that