Page 116 of Daughter of No Worlds

“You and your bleeding heart, Max,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I really am.”

I choked out, “I need you to tell me that this wasn’t why you brought her to me. I need you to tell me that I haven’t beengrooming herfor this.”

Silence.

“Nura—”

“It’s obsessed with you. We thought that a connection to you would make it easier for her to control it. Make it more likely to accept her.”

I let out a strangled sound that was something between a bitter laugh and a grunt, as if I had been punched in the stomach.

“But I meant what I said, that day. I thought— I thought it would be good for you, to have something to do with your life.” She tilted my chin towards her. “Help us help her, Max. You can guide her through this.”

I pulled away. “Like hell I can.”

Not after what that thing did to me. Not after what I, however unwittingly, did to Tisaanah.

I shot Nura a glare. “I’m sure you’re about to tell me it isn’t a request.”

A little smile flitted across her mouth. “It has to be a request. Tisaanah wrote it into her pact.”

“She— what?”

She strode back to her closet. “She was smart. Very specific her in requests. We couldn’t get out of our promises if we wanted to. And one of them was about you.” She selected another one of her identical white jackets. “That you’re released from all Order obligations. Fresh slate. Congratulations. You’re a free man.”

Words abandoned me.

I didn’t deserve her. No one deserved her.

Nura slid her jacket over her shoulders, covering her burnt skin with spotless white. It hung open as she turned to me once more, pausing.

“I did try,” she said. “I tried Wielding it. It wouldn’t accept me.” She said this as if it were some great shame, some terrible failure. “It wouldn’t accept anyone — and we tried so many. But… then she showed up. And it was really just a hunch, at first. Maybe because she’s Threllian. Maybe something else, I don’t know. But the minute it tasted her blood, it liked her.”

Her brows lowered over those sharp eyes, mouth tight. I recognized that look. She was jealous.Jealous– but not because of me. Because ofit. She wasjealousthat Tisaanah got to have this thing tear her apart.

My anger devoured me so completely that it burned itself out, and suddenly, I was numb — like every emotion became the deafening ringing left behind after a loud noise.

I couldn’t. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t watch this thing destroy Tisaanah the way it had destroyed me — and it would, even though she was better than I was in every way, stronger, kinder, more deserving. Still just another light to be snuffed out. Another tool to be wielded.

And I, however unwittingly, had fed her right to them.

Nura buttoned her jacket, sealing away her scars and with them, that brief glimpse of human vulnerability.

“She’s made her choice, Max. Now you just have to make yours.”

“There is no choice,” I spat, and started for the door.

“Where are you going?”

Anywhere. Wherever was the farthest from here — wherever was the farthest from this damned tower and these people and thatthing.

“I will not be a part of this, Nura. I won’t do it.”

I can’t. I can’t do it.

I threw open the door and started down those oppressive, winding hallways — hallways that drowned me in open space. It was silent save for my rapid footsteps, a reminder of everything I couldn't outrun. But all I could hear was Tisaanah’s lilting voice, from our day in the city all those months ago.

I heard it over and over, following every step:

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