Page 65 of Too Dangerous To Die

I’m left kneeling in the ash, holding the woman I can’t let go of, the woman I may one day have to destroy.

“I won’t lose you,” I whisper, my claws curling into the dirt.

Not to them.

Not to Medea.

Not to whatever this world wants you to become.

As her magic thrums inside me, I realize—I don’t care if it damns me.

She is mine.

And now, we walk alone into the ruin and rage of what comes next.

31

NORA

The silence after battle is never truly silent.

It thrums in the bones. It whispers at the edges of the mind like breath against the nape of your neck, uninvited and intimate. That’s where she speaks from—Medea.

It starts as a hum. A tremor threading through the base of my spine as I lie on the cold, cracked stone of what’s left of the shelter Rhaegar built. My body is still mending. The magic I gave him hasn’t come back to me. I’m a shell of heat and bone and fluttering breath.

But she is whole.

“You don’t have to be weak.”

Her voice curls around me like smoke from a ruined altar. Familiar. Ancient. Mine.

“You could have destroyed them. All of them. They would’ve knelt to you if you just let me in.”

I clutch the blanket tighter around myself. It smells of him—ash and dark earth and something distinctly Rhaegar. I focus on that scent, willing it to anchor me to the now. To who I am. Who I’m trying to stay.

He’s not far. I feel him before I see him, pacing just beyond the ruined archway, his footsteps heavy, his presence louder than any noise. He hasn’t said much since the last attack. I know why. I see the guilt every time his gaze catches on me and lingers too long. He thinks he took too much. He thinks I gave too much.

But he doesn’t understand—it was mine to give.

When I finally stir, pushing myself upright with a grimace, he’s there.

“You shouldn’t be moving yet,” he says, crouching beside me.

His voice is raw, and there's something in his eyes—something fraying at the edges.

“I’m fine,” I lie. My limbs feel like lead. My head pulses with magic that’s not entirely mine.

Rhaegar looks at me for a long beat, then finally says, “She spoke to me.”

My blood stills.

I already know who he means. Medea.

“What did she say?” My voice barely carries, but the words cut through the cold like knives.

He hesitates.

“Rhaegar.”

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