Chapter 73

Drake’s POV

They called me traitor. They called me mad. If anyone had listened to me before, the world would have bent differently. It would have been kinder to me, kinder to my grief. Instead they crowned a man who stole what was mine and called it order. They placed a curse on a life that deserved to breathe.

I stood alone on the cliff above the river and watched the moon smear itself across black water. My hand brushed the mark on my wrist. The Demon King’s seal still throbbed faintly beneath the skin, an ember that whispered when I pressed my palm to it. It had not been a gift. It had been a transaction. I had bargained with a thing older than mercy and older than regret because I was tired of being small.

Power did not erase grief. It sharpened the memory of Lena until her face cut like glass every time I slept. She had been kind. She had been stubborn and fierce in the way that made me think of storms. Lucas had taken her because Lucas had been entitled and smiling while he sto