Page 98 of Heart of the Shadow King

“This is not what I need. Never.”

Those golden orbs narrow. The pulse of power thunders around me, drowning out my voice. But I continue speaking. “I need you, Faraine. You are all I’ve ever needed. Your strength and your weakness. Gentle, kind Faraine, with your calming touch and your extraordinary empathy. The woman who never lets pain harden you, who fearlessly loves no matter what shocks wrack your body and mind. You are the woman I’ve craved since the moment I met you.”

I take a step nearer, reaching out to her through the mist, sending my spirit toward hers even as my physical body clings to the crystals that bind her. She might easily cast me out of this space with that tremendous power of hers. But for the moment, she lets me remain, and I must use whatever time she allows me.

“I was wrong. Do you hear me?” Urgency pours in a hot stream from my lips. “I was wrong about everything. I thought I must fight what I felt for you. I thought my heart led me astray. My kingdom, my people . . . I could not sacrifice them. Surely their needs mattered more than the cry of my soul.

“But I should have chosen you. That first night of our meeting, I knew it. I should have damned all fears and made you my bride then and there. No alliance, no trickery. No obligation. Just you. Always you.”

I’m close to her now. Close enough to almost discern her gentle features beneath the layers of shadow. “I believed I must choose between being a man and being king. Between saving you and saving my world. But I know the truth now. There is but one choice.”

She gazes up at me, those golden eyes too bright and too strange. But she’s still in there. I have to believe it. I have to believe she hears me.

“Youaremy world, Faraine.”

She does not flinch when I stretch out my arms, when I enfold her dark, pulsing form. Here in this place of spirit, standing between life and death, I press her to my breast and hope she hears the beating of my heart far away in the living world. “I choose you. Over Mythanar. Over the Under Realm. I forsake all other claims. Let the dragon have it, let all else crumble and burn! Still will I choose you. My love. My queen. My Faraine.”

A deep, terrible growl. In the real world, the ground shakes, and my body staggers, flung against the sharp edges of her form. I grip her there even as I grip her here, holding tight against all hope.

And I whisper into her ear: “I beg you now—choose me as well. Here at the end of everything, choose me.”

43

FARAINE

My awareness is split in a million directions.

I sense Maylin, breathing out her last, lying on the edge of that cliff as her blood feeds theurzul,her vicious journey finally come full circle.Elsewhere in the caverns, Prince Sul barks orders, commanding families to hold on to each other as another stirring brings rock crashing down on their heads. Troldefolk scattered across the Under Realm cling desperately to life, their emotions clamoring but unable to penetrate myjor.In the streets of Mythanar, stone men, women, and children feel nothing as their world breaks around them.

I see them. I am with them, all of them, simultaneously. As omnipresent as the gods who gifted me.

But I am also here. In the center of destruction. Face-to-face with Arraog.

She fights me, resisting in flame and fury. Her eyes blaze with white heat, melting each layer of stone I wrap over them. The rock walls melt, theurzulliquifies. Cracks form across the crust ofva-jorbinding her vast limbs. More of that white-hot heat shines through. Rage, pain, sorrow, all on a scale beyond knowing so that words lose their very meaning. Not all theurzulin all this world can give me the power I need to stop her. I have succeeded only in containing the pressure for a moment.

When it bursts, this realm will be obliterated.

But this is what I was born to do. This is the gods’ will for me, the very reason they gave me this gift. I will not back down. She breaks the layers ofva-jor, and I rebuild them, one after the other. Fighting because there is nothing left. Only this struggle, this final strife.

“Faraine!”

Vor.

How had I not felt him before? How had I neglected to sense his approach? Perhaps because I feared the very reaction which even now shoots through my soul, compromising thejorwhich protects me. I must stay here, stay present in this space. Just me and Arraog, my great foe. I won’t—

“Faraine, this isn’t you. This dark thing is not what you are meant to be.”

His voice, caught in the resonance of theurzul,reaches out to me from a hundred thousand different places all at once. It jars me, drags my focus away from where it needs to be. I see him. Standing there in theurzulforest. He’s found me. Or rather, he’s found the crystal cluster that covers that fragile form which once encompassed the totality of my existence. He stands with his hand pressed against what was once my chest, as though to feel a heart that no longer beats. What is he doing? Why is he wasting his breath? Can he not see I am not what I was? Can he not see I have transformed, transcended?

I must not let him in. I must not be weak.

I send a blast of resonance back through the crystals, strong enough to stun him, to break this connection between us. But it seems to pass over him like a wave, leaving him untouched. His voice is in my head, earnest and entreating, and I . . . to my shame, some small part of me listens. Listens as Arraog roars, and the world quakes. Listens as Vor pours out his heart, each word ringing out in a series of clear, crystal notes. Listens even as I know I should turn away.

“Faraine is all I ever needed. Faraine with her calming touch and her extraordinary empathy.”

He’s wrong. He’s so wrong! Pretty words, but so false, so foolish. That version of me was nothing. Pathetic, useless. A pariah.

But his voice persists. I hear him, though I cannot see his mouth moving. His words reach me from everywhere at once, filling my awareness.

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