Page 127 of Daughter of No Worlds

So easy to forget that hours ago, I had listened to her live my most terrible memory.

To call it strange would be an understatement. To hear fragments of the worst day of my life whispered back to me from the lips of someone who had become so precious to me. To be reminded of everything I had already lost with while looking into the eyes of everything I had left to lose.

I dreaded morning.

How would she look at me, I wondered? Now that she knew about what I had done, and about the monster that now lived inside her? That thought scared me.

But not as much as my next one: The creature that had ruined my life now lurked behind those captivating mismatched eyes. I was scared of how she would look at me, yes. But I was terrified of howIwould look ather, and the things I would feel when I did.

And so, for now, I was alright with this — the silence.

I wasn’t sure how many hours had passed when I felt her shift against me. I prepared to slide myself out from under her. I could only assume that the minute she was awake, this was about to get incredibly awkward. And we had damn more than enough to worry about already without addressing… whatever this was.

Tisaanah lifted her head and looked at me, and I froze.

I knew right away that it wasn’t her.

The eyes moved too much. Tisaanah had a steady, piercing gaze, but this was all over the place, jumping from the ceiling to the floor to the blankets to me.

The corners of her mouth lurched into something only vaguely resembling a smile.

“Hello, Maxantarius.” She had no accent. The sound of her voice without it sent fire spiraling up my spine.

“Reshaye.” The word came out in a low, choked snarl.

That lurching gaze settled on me, and the way it suddenly went steady was somehow even more unnerving. “I have missed you,” she whispered, rough and gasping. “I always knew our story was not…complete…”

She —it— had to force out the final word, as if it were already losing its grip on control. And before I could react, the expression fell away, her eyes rolling and fluttering closed. She went so still that I found myself questioning whether she had even moved at all.

I pushed strands of black-and-silver hair from her face. Out. Totally out. Somehow, she lookedmorepeaceful than she did before.

I let out a sharp breath and slumped back against the headboard, my heart pounding. Of their own accord, my arms tightened around Tisaanah’s shoulders.

Perhaps this could have been the part where I realized I’d made a terrible mistake.

Instead, I felt a different kind of fury scorch my veins, setting me alight.

Maybe Reshaye was right. Our story, apparently, was not complete. And I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t afraid. But I was alsoangry.

My fingers wrapped around Tisaanah’s. Squeezed.

If this wasn’t the end, then I was ready to write a better fucking conclusion this time.

Whatever it took.

Chapter Forty-Four

Tisaanah

My eyes were crusted shut when I woke up, and I nearly panicked in the darkness, terrified of what I might see or hear within it. But there was still no sign of Reshaye, to my relief. Piece by piece, it all came back to me. My dreams — my memories. Sarlazai, and what came after. Every dead Farlione face. And…

I forced my eyes open (crack!)to blinding brightness, and to the sight of Max pacing the length of the room, looking as if he had been doing so for a long time. There was something about his demeanor that was so different than the intimacy we shared last night — even compared to the typical, everyday intimacy of our friendship before this terrible week began. A certain removed, focused intensity.

He looked terrible. And yet, he was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. This second thought felt slightly traitorous, as it flitted through my mind.

I shouldn’t be happy that he was here. He was, after all, sharing a room with the same thing that had killed his family.

The thing that now livedinsideof me.

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