bChapter /bb216 /b

    Eryx POV

    The chains scrape against the stone wall as I shift and re through the bars. She’s still here.

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    Her eyes are swollen, wet with tears, her lips trembling as she clutches her stomach like she can shield the life growing inside her from me. For one fractured moment, when I first saw her, I felt something real. I held her, I whispered her name, and for the briefest heartbeat I was myself again.

    But it’s gone now.

    That fragile warmth has been smothered under the flood of hate pressing against every nerve in my body. My hands curl into fists until my nails cut my palms, and I taste blood where I’ve bitten my tongue. I don’t want her warmth. I don’t want her forgiveness. I don’t want her child.

    I want to hurt her.

    “You really think you matter?” My voiceshes out before I can stop it, sharper and darker than it’s ever been. It’s mine, but it doesn’t sound like me anymore. “You and that thing inside you, both of you are nothing but dead weight. You’re a mistake, a fucking curse.”

    Her mouth falls open, and the sound that leaves her is small and strangled. “No,” she whispers, shaking her head violently. “Nob, /byou don’t mean that. Please, Eryx, don’t say that.”

    Iugh. The sound scrapes up my throat, raw and broken, echoing in the cell until it feels like the walls themselves recoil from me. “Don’t I? I meant it when I rejected you. I meant it when I told my parents to let the rogues tear you apart. You think I regretted it? You think I ever wanted you? You’re pathetic, April. Weak. And that bastard child will be nothing but

    another burden I never asked for.”

    Her whole body shudders. She drops to her knees, her arms wrapped around her stomach like my words are des that could cut the baby from her. “Stopi,/ii” /ishe begs, her voice catching. “Please stop. You don’t mean this. I know you don’t. It’s

    her, it’s the Queen twisting you.”

    The way she says it, so desperate, so certain that I’m still buried in here somewhere, it almost makes me falter. Almost. For a fleeting second, I see her as she once was. Her smile soft and unguarded under the stars. Herughter when she teased

    me, when she leaned close and whispered she thought the thing she’d always been missing might have been me.

    It flickers in my chest like an ember trying to burn through the ck. I clutch at it, desperate to hold onto it, but the darkness surges harder. The hate inside me swallows it whole, leaving nothing behind but ash.

    I lunge against the chains, the metal biting deep into my wrists. My snarl fills the space between us. “You’re wrong. I meant every word, I’ll never want you again. I’llnever want that child. Cry harder, beg louder, it won’t bring me back. You’re nothing to me now.”

    Her sob rips through me like thunder, but instead of breaking me, it fuels the fire. Her tears disgust me. The sound of her begging makes my teeth clench in rage. I want her to break. I want her to understand there’s no hope left, that whatever

    man she loved is dead.

    “Eryx!” she cries, her hands gripping herself like she can pull me back through sheer will. “Please, fight it. Just for a

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    09:33 Sat, 30 Aug

    moment,e back. I know you can. You’re stronger than this. You promised me-”

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    “Promised you?” I spit the words back at her,ughing again. “What did I promise? To protect you? To keep you safe? Look at you! You’re broken and ruined. I should’ve let Rnd finish the job, should’ve let him shred you to pieces until there. was nothing left but blood.”

    She recoils as if I struck her. Her sob turns into a sharp cry of pain, her hand clutching her stomach tighter. For a breath, guilt twists in me, sharp and unexpected. I don’t want her to hurt. I don’t want to hurt the baby. I want…

    The thought dies before it finishes.

    “I’ll watch you burn,” I say coldly, my lips curving into a grin that feels alien on my face. “You, the brat, everything. Fire consumes weakness. And you’re nothing but weak.”

    She breaks in front of me, and this time there’s no flicker of light, no warmth trying to w its way through. There’s only the satisfaction of watching her fall apart, of knowing she’s finally hearing the truth of what I am now.

    Behind her, my father’s voice cuts through the chamber. “Enough!”

    His roar shakes the walls, his power vibrating through the stone. He shoves her back from the bars more, his arm shielding her as if I might tear through the iron itself to reach her. His eyes burn into mine, fury and grief twisted together.

    “You really feel nothing?” he demands, stepping closer until his shadow blocks my view of her. “Not for her? Not for the

    child she carries?”

    Ltilt my head, smirking through the strands of hair falling into my face. “Nothing. I’d sooner spit on her grave than call her mine again.”

    He steps closer, his fists clenched, his voice dropping low and dangerous. “What if she’s taken by someone else? What if another man ims her,ys with her, raises your child as his own? Does that not stir anything in you?”

    Theugh that leaves me is jagged, humorless. “Let him. Let them both rot together. I hope he touches her, I hope she lets him. She deserves nothing better.”

    April cries harder behind him, her muffled voice begging me to stop, but I can’t. I don’t want to. The venom feels too good,

    the fire too strong.

    My father leans closer, his eyes locked on mine, his tone cutting like steel. “And what about the child? Your blood, your bond. April is pregnant, Eryx. That’s your child growing inside her. Does that not make you want to fight through this? To w your way back from the dark?”

    The words m into me andfor one heartbeat, something inside me breaks. I feel it, the tug, deep and raw, like a chain snapping taut between me and something fragile and small. A pulse of warmth floods through me, crashing into the ck like sunlight through storm clouds. It’s real. It’s alive. It’s mine.

    I gasp, the sound torn from my throat, My knees nearly buckle as the image shes through my head, April holding a tiny bundle, her smile tired but soft, mynd resting against bhers /bas we protect what’s ours.

    “April…” I whisper, my voice trembling. My hands strain against the chains, desperate to reach her, to touch her belly, to feel that connection again.

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    For a moment, I’m myself. For a moment, I remember everything.

    Then the darkness strikes back like a whip.

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    The warmth shatters, and the fire floods in harder than before, choking me with rage. iMy /ismile twists into something cruel, my voice dripping venom again. “That child will die before I ever call it mine. I’ll burn it from this world, burn her with it, and watch them both scream.”

    April’s scream echoes through the cell, a sound so sharp it pierces bone. My father pulls her further back, his power crackling as he shouts for the guards.

    I throw my head back andugh. The sound is hollow, broken, but it’s all I have left. Thest trace of who I was is gone,

    drowned under the dark tide that owns me now.

    And I don’t even try to stop it.

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