Page 112 of Rise of the Siren Queen
She touched my arm, grounding me with one firm squeeze. “You need rest. And I need to decide how to deal with Lord Thalor.”
“I alreadyhavea plan.” The words burst out like an exhale I’d held too long. “Let me do this, Grandma,please.If not as your granddaughter, then as the Crown Princess. The heir to the throne.This is my duty.”
Something flickered in her eyes, not fear, but understanding. Pride, maybe. A queen recognizing another queen in the making.
“Very well,” she said, voice cool and resolute. “But you’ll keep me informed. Ofeverything.Every movetheymake. Every moveyoumake. No exceptions.”
It wasn’t a suggestion. It was an order. She wasn’t my grandmother at that moment. She was the ruling queen of Aetheria. I dipped my head, accepting her terms.
“Yes, my Queen.”
Before I leave, her voice stops me in my tracks.
“What I meant, child,” she said more gently now, “is that itisn’timpossible for a hybrid to rule beside you.”
I didn’t turn around. “I know.”
But what I didn’t say… what Icouldn’tsay… was that it was too late. He was back at Nyssaion. Far from me. Far from the danger I was.
Far safer that way. I can’t see a future for us.
“It’s over,” I whispered, more to myself than to her.
Her voice followed me like a haunting. “Is it? Or are you just telling yourself that because you’re afraid?”
“Is it or are you telling yourself that because you are afraid?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.
Her words stay with me all the way back to my chambers, wrapping around my throat, threading into the spaces between each beat of my heart.
Even when I lay in bed, they wouldn’t leave me.
Not her fury.
Not my failure.
And not the truth I couldn’t bury any longer.
I want him to rule with me.
Goddess, help me, Ineedhim.
He was mine.
The thought of a future with Adrian curled like a shadowed whisper in the corners of my mind, unbidden and persistent. I yearned for something I hadn’t dared touch in four years. Something softer than revenge, but infinitely more dangerous.
Hope.
23
Not again
Iryen
I tried to control my powers, tried and failed, again and again. Every time I reached for them, they lashed out like wild currents, unpredictable and violent. So I stopped wasting time and focused on what Icouldbend to my will. Water. Ice. Shields.
I crafted barriers so precise, so cold and dense, they shimmered like obsidian in the water. Layered ice reinforced with tightly compacted bricks of frozen current, a wall no blade could pierce. If I couldn’t tame the chaos inside me, I’d make sure no one else could reach it either.
