Page 51 of To Vanquish Darkness

The vision fractured, and Amalie stumbled back, knocking into Theo’s writing desk and sending his glass bottles crashing to the floor. “I—you were there. I saw you in a different time—a different place.”

A muscle in Theo’s jaw flinched. “You need rest.” He put out a hand and grasped her elbow.

Amalie yanked her arm away, but instead of ripping her arm free, she lost her balance and snapped against Theo like a cracked whip. His scent filled her nostrils. Jasmine. Citrus. And suddenly she remembered it. Not from the courtyard. Not even from her bedroom. From a place so deep in her soul, she couldn’t sense the bottom.

“I know you.” Speaking the words sent an ache thrumming through her, gripping her throat and searing her insides.

“You’re mistaken.”

Amalie’s eyes snapped open and she reached up, catching his face in her hand and forcing him to look at her. “I’m not. Don’t lie to me, Theo. Not about this.” Theo’s cold expression softened for a split second before he tried to pull back, but Amalie held tighter. “Why didn’t you ask my mother to help you? Or my uncle, my aunt, someone else in my family line?”

He opened his mouth, then shut it again.

“Answer me!” Her voice was hoarse, her breath coming so fast, she was becoming faint.

“Because the ancestor I needed wasyou,” he rasped. The room seemed to swirl around her. The tips of her fingers turned white. “You’re a guardian, Amalie. Guardians are reborn.”

The word pounded against her skull.Reborn. She couldn’t make sense of it. What she was hearing, what she’d seen. Sheknew him. She’d been with him, somewhere. Hundreds, possibly thousands of years ago.

Theo didn’t bend to comfort her, didn’t wrap an arm around her shoulders. He stood there, stiff and cold, even as she dropped a hand to his chest. Felt the beating of his heart. Amalie squeezed her eyes shut as her world fractured into a million pieces. “You believe I was the one who took the sword.”Stolen.That was the word he’d used.

Theo shook his head. “I don’t believe anything. I saw it firsthand. You found it, Amalie. You were drawn to it.”

“That’s impossible.”

“It’s not.”

Her eyes flew open. “I’m not a warrior.”

Theo scoffed. “The stake to my heart begs to differ.”

Amalie’s eyes narrowed. “That was self preservation.”

“Do you know how few humans and guardians alike are willing to fight to protect themselves? Since you seem to have forgotten every last scrap of the last two thousand years, let me give you the answer. Not many.” He finally pulled away from her, and Amalie curled into herself.

Two thousand years. The numbers stamped themselves across her consciousness. Reborn. Warrior. She strode toward the door, a sob building in her throat.

“I tried to wait. To make this gentle for you.”

“Don’t say another word.” Amalie hissed. He’d lied to her, they all had. Was this what Uncle Oren had planned to tell her on her birthday? That she’d lived before? That there were creatures who walked the earth who’d known her as . . . as what? A warrior?

Theo had known her. He’d seen it with his own eyes.

She grasped the handle and pulled, but the door didn’t budge. Amalie yanked again, and that time she saw Theo’s palm pressed against the wood.

“You need to listen?—”

“I’m done listening for the moment,” she whispered. “Let me out.”

“Amalie—”

“You knew who I was. You’d been watching me since when? Since my birth? Plotting this moment? Wondering how old I’d need to be before you could use me?”

Theo shook his head. “No. I made a promise. I watched your family, made sure they were safe?—”

“A promise to who?”

Theo’s eyes darkened. “Amalie?—”

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