Page 22 of Too Dangerous To Die

"I’m making you stronger," he corrects. "And soon, we will take that strength andunleash itupon those who deserve it. The dark elves, our enemies. The hunters."

I inhale sharply.Unleash it.

He meansdestruction.He meansvengeance.

Andpart of me wants it. It uncoils and welcomes the idea of starting chaos and destruction.

The dark elveshunted me. They poisoned me, tried tobreak me. The purnaabandoned me, turned their backs when I needed them most.

Maybe it ismy turnto make themsuffer.

A sharp ache pulses in my core, like somethinginside me is shifting, stretching into something new.

I look down at my hands, at thetendrils of silver magic curling between my fingers.

I don’t myself. But Rhaegar does.

He seesthe monster forming beneath my skin.

And I think helikes it.

10

RHAEGAR

The mountains loomlike broken fangs, jagged and hungry against the sickly pale glow of the twin moons. TheAshen Wastesstretch before us, an expanse ofcracked obsidian ground, pitted with veins of glowing magma that snake through the desolation like open wounds.

The air isheavy with sulfur and old magic, the kind thatlingers in the bones of the dead.The sky above is a swirl ofashen clouds, streaked with lightning that flickerswithout sound.

I know this place, and I loathe it.

It is a land thatdevours the weak.

The kind of place wheremonsters are born, not made.

Fitting.

I glance to the side.

Nora stands on afractured rock ledge, her dark hairwhipping against the wind, strands catching on the faint glow of her newly awakened magic. She has been silent since we left the ruins, since I told her what we must do.

Since I promised hervengeance.

She hasn’t questioned me, not yet.

But shewill.

And when she does, I will remind her thatmonsters do not get to choose their fate.

Theybecome it.

"You brought us to the Wastes," she says finally, her voice even, but I hear theunease beneath it.

She should be uneasy.

The Ashen Wastes are agraveyard of forgotten wars, the ruins of ancient cities buried beneath layers of soot and decay. The air itself istainted, saturated with the remnants of old,forbidden magics.

"We needed distance," I say, stepping closer, my boots grinding against thecharred earth."The dark elves will come looking for us. Your own people might as well."

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