Page 134 of Crown of Wrath

“Shut up,” I say through a sand-filled snarl. I push myself to my feet and look at Casimir, who’s begun watching me as I train each day.

“I’ve never seen something like this before,” he says. “Three powers all working together. Two was always difficult for most people to manage. Three… Three would be incredible.”

I huff. “Four. I’m going to learn to use all of them at once.”

Casimir shakes his head. “It’s impossible to hold that many different emotions in your mind when they fight each other. Much less use them for any actual combat. Revulsion and joy do not mix. Pride and anger do not mix. If you were to use them simultaneously, they would simply dissipate.”

I stopped listening to people tell me what I could do a long time ago. “Casimir, that mentality is why the Shattering happened.”

A shadow falls over his face and he turns away from me, but he doesn’t stop talking. “I have lived a very long time, Maeve, and I won’t live much longer. Now isn’t exactly the time for me to embrace change.”

There’s a sadness in Casimir’s voice, but I know it’s not because he’s going to walk into the void. He was supposed to be happy to pass his Throne to Cole. He was supposed to feel safe in his House’s future in the hands of the only person he trusted to be strong enough to hold it.

Instead, we need to have a conversation that I really do not want to have. “And who will take your place when you go?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “There isn’t anyone. Sure, I could pass the Throne tosomeone, but none of them are the kind of people that should ever become the Conduit for a Great House. The House of Flames has become just as corrupt and broken as Steel has. Cole would be able to fix it, but no one else…”

I take a deep breath and scrub the sand and sweat from my cheeks, wishing I could ignore this topic and go back to training. It’s the only thing that still feels right. It’s the only time I feel and hear Cole anymore.

Training is the only time that I don’t feel the need to carry that piece of burned wood with me because he’s here with me on the sands. This, more than any other place, was where we built our bond. Our night in that cave made us realize things. The mornings when I woke up to his beautiful body and smile were where I lost myself to lust for him.

But here, on this sand, is where I became an Immortal that he could trust. I became an Immortal that could wear the Painted Crown and take control of one of the Great Houses. This is where I learned I was far more than a stupid Wyrdling.

It’s where he learned it, too.

“Then why do we have to decide right now?” I demand. “Cole has been dead for barely more than ten days, and I’m still struggling to believe it. I still wake up and call his name. I still…”see him out of the corner of my eye.I don’t say that last part. I don’t let even Casimir know that I’m embracing the fact that there are torn pieces of his soul woven into mine, that he’s not gone to me. At least not completely.

I’m supposed to let go. Over time, I’m supposed to let those pieces wither and die. I refuse. These glimmers of him are all I have left, and if anyone were to try to force me to let them die, I would extinguish that person on the spot.

“I know what you mean,” he says, and it’s his time to be frustrated. He runs his hand through his dark hair that’s sosimilar to Cole’s. It’s grown far longer and less kempt than the night I met him, the night he burned Cole as punishment for… existing.

“But Maeve, I’m tired. I’ve been tired for hundreds of years. I shouldn’t have been the one to receive the Painted Crown two hundred years ago. It should have been Cole, but Gethin refused to walk into the void with me. He’d said that Rhion wasn’t ready, and I knew Cole wasn’t ready to deal with Gethin. This is two hundred years overdue, and the void calls to me.”

I shake my head. “You’ve lived this long. Live a little longer, Casimir. Give me a month to mourn my husband before I’m forced to help you decide who will take the Throne that should be his. Embrace the pain of survival for just a little while longer, King of Flames.”

Casimir sighs deeply. “A month. I can survive another month, but that’s all I have left, Maeve. The weight… is exhausting.”

I nod to him and turn back to the dummy. “Good. Now that that’s settled, I’m going to learn how to wield all the powers the dragons gave to the Great Houses.”

A third arm grows from my body to hold the Burning Brand while I command the Steel Gauntlet to surround me with a second skin made of metal. Shadows flow through it as easily as water through a sieve, and I hear Cole’s voice.

Try it again. But this time, stop thinking.

I let out a snarl and leap into the air.

Chapter 67

It is important in this day and age that we stop letting the beliefs of our past decide how we approach the future. We cannot solve problems with the same mindset we had when we created them.

~Maeve Arden, The Future of Magic and Dragons

Maeve

I sit all alone in Valinar as my mother and Da dance the Bramble along with countless others. It’s been fifteen days since the day of the battle. Fifteen days. That’s all.

It feels like a lifetime. The piece of burned wood in my left hand is still cradled softly between my fingers. They’ve rubbed the ash and soot from the wood, and now instead of a blackened piece of wood, all that’s visible of the fire are thin streaks ofblack. Every time my fingers touch it, I’m left with ash on them, and that ash makes me smile.

Pain races through my body as my soul feels ripped apart again. My heart is whole, but it feels like someone is taking a razor blade to it every few minutes. My body doesn’t tense anymore. I’ve learned how to control myself enough to keep anyone from seeing the weakness in me. No one can tell that it’s just as painful as the first day.

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