Valka
The first ti I t Thane was the first ti I died.
Not in the battle camps of Silvermoor. Neither was it on the streets of Voss, when I’d awakened and died in the body of a human infant. Neither was it when I’d fallen off the cliffs and died by Malachy’s spear.
The first ti I t Thandric, I was in Lucien’s arms, already dead.
What happens after death?
Stillness.
It was upon the floors of our private ho, hidden away in the hills, surrounded by the bodies of the servants who had beco family, who had attended and raised my daughter to her little age of six, that Thane had found .
I was long gone, the only thing keeping tethered to Earth being the bond between Lucien and I. The bond between Erasthais that transcended life and death. I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t rest. Because he wouldn’t let go. I didn’t want to leave, either. I wasn’t ready to leave. I had the rage of a thousand glaring suns in . I had pain to inflict. I had vengeance to gift. I had n to kill, their wives, their mates, their children to murder for taking mine from .
"Do you understand what it is you seek, child?" Thandric asked, a wind I could not feel ruffling his white hair. It was strange. I never realized how much he looked like Lucien.
Lucien could not see or hear us. He was far too gone in his grief to notice the shift in the air. It might have been hours since he found us. Days maybe. I couldn’t say. I no longer had a sense of ti. I’d sat by his side, watching him try to stitch my wounds together and roar whenever he failed.
The man had been a bastard. But I’d never seen him cry like a babe like he did when he knew my body had begun to decay. When he knew he’d have to set fire to my skin and collect my ashes.
"Yes," I said, rising to my feet. My gaze t ancient violet ones. "Bring back."
Thandric’s lips curled in mild annoyance. "Wanting it doesn’t an you deserve it. There is a trade to be had. A life for a life." His eyes dropped to my belly. And it was then I truly understood what else had been stolen from . "A son."
"Whatever it takes," I said. If the dead could feel, I might have burned with grief. For the child I never knew. For the child I did know. For the screams she gave. "Make it stop," she’d cried. "Mama!"
Thandric’s head tilts. "State your purpose."
My purpose. My purpose. My purpose.
I didn’t know it. All I knew was I had to co back ho. All I knew was I had to avenge the lives of those who tried to buy ti. To avenge my daughter. I had no answers for Thandric. I only had answers for myself.
War.
Whatever Thandric saw in my eyes, in my shredded garnts, on my soiled skin, my stolen dignity and the bruises that told a story of how they’d reveled in ripping apart piece by piece, it was enough of an answer.
"Then hear , and understand what you ask," he said, voice like stone sinking through water. "You will not awaken in your body. It is ash-bound and empty. I will cast your essence into the vessel of another. A child still soft and unford. Two souls in one shell. This is no rebirth."
"What is it, then?" My voice was faint, a distant echo in a void that didn’t exist.
"Possession," he said simply. "You will not own the body. Not yet. You will share it. Fight for it. Your will against hers, your essence against her essence. If your will is stronger, you will consu her, wear her bones, speak with her mouth, live her life as your own. If her will proves greater, she will bind you inside her soul like a chained wolf, make you a part of her, and force your power to serve her purposes. And in the case that neither of you wins, you will fuse. Permanently."
A chill moved through . "And if she dies before either of these happens?"
"Then you return to ," he said. "Only to be cast adrift once more. Forced to behind again. Again. And again. Until you succeed. Make no mistake, Ilya Blackspire. Should you consu them, you will have killed them completely. Their lives, their loves, their attachnts, all gone. You steal their chances to live here and in the After." He leans in. "Is that sothing you’re willing to have on your conscience?"
I do not miss a beat. "Yes."
******
The next ti I opened my eyes, it was in the body of a weak willed human. It was easily to take possession of her, but in the end, she was only human. We died the second ti from the plague in a flooded gutter in Voss. We were twelve years of age.
I t Thandric then, the second ti. The last thing I saw before he took was a scowl on his face.
The second ti I opened my eyes, I was still human. I began to think Thandric was toying with when I died again. I’d barely turned eighteen and I was struck by a stray arrow while being pursued by wolves dedicated to hunting down Lycans.
Thandric had co to yet again, and instead of that scowl, he’d been laughing at . "Oh, but you have the absolute worst luck."
But the third ti I opened my eyes, I was a wolf born to an Oga and a woman who never should have been on the wrong side of the wall. A woman who had been tortured for so many years, she’d only rembered who she was when she fled and stumbled upon a wood carver’s workshop.
The gods had smiled upon , I thought.
But I was wrong.
When the child was born, she was strange. Strange in the sense that she knew she wasn’t alone, and sothing older, sothing that didn’t belong in her resided in there. And Lyra Ironfang did not cry as a child. No. The first thing Lyra Ironfang did was wrap my essence in chains and expel from her mind.
She was only a few days old, but she was already one hell of a bitch.
It cost her gravely, that single action. The physicians couldn’t find her pulse by morning and she was proclaid dead. Her mother couldn’t handle it. She left. Margot Nythorn left and never returned, leaving Eldric Ironfang with the body of their dead child to bury.
But Lyra Ironfang awoke the next dawn like nothing had happened.
And I knew the gods hated . Truly. Because the child was a rebel. And would not be subdued.
This isn’t Valka speaking, as you must have realized. Whichever nas you choose to call her. It doesn’t matter.
I am Ilya. And I am fucking trapped.
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