Page 236 of Mother of Death and Dawn

Meajqa’s voice, that night in the pub.I don’t ask those types of questions.

Nura.Whatever magic your precious king used to create you, it is just as dark as mine.

And then, immediately after, came the image of the corpses attacking my kingdom.

There is nothing more dangerous than life that should not exist,Caduan had said.

You knew from the beginning that you should not be alive,the voice jeered at the back of my mind.

Me. He used it to make me.

“So no one knows,” I choked out. “No one knows how you made me.”

Caduan took two steps forward, as if he couldn’t stop himself. “I didn’t make you. You were already there. I simply made you whole again.”

“I—”

Whole? Is that what you are?

I approached him, so I could look at his body up close. The darkness looked like veins, or spiderwebs. They pulsed slightly beneath his skin as if in time with his heartbeat. Merely being close to them felt sour and wrong, just as I had felt when standing in the presence of the living dead.

It hurt to think of something as beautiful as Caduan’s heartbeat marred by this… this… corruption.

I touched it with my fingertips, and Caduan flinched.

Do not ask,the voice whispered.You do not want to know.

But I said, “What is this?”

The seconds before Caduan’s answer were excruciating.

“Mortals were not intended to do such things,” he said, quietly. “Not intended to channel such forces, especially not those powerful enough to…”

His voice faded, and his knuckles brushed my cheek—such a light, tender touch. My eyes flicked up to meet his.

Look away.

“I don’t understand.”

You do understand.

“I did not bring you back to be a weapon, Aefe. I brought you back to be everything you could have been, if you had lived. To be everything I should have been, once I run out of time.”

No.

“I do not understand,” I said again, almost a snarl.

“I am dying, Aefe.”

How weak a mortal heart is. The words cut deeper than any battle wound.

“No.” I shook my head, hard. “No, that is not true.”

Caduan’s eyes shone. “I have always known the dangers. I knew what I was doing. But that night… the night I needed to make more shades. I pushed too hard. I knew that night, it was going to be the end.”

That night. The night the earth seemed to tear apart, when I found Caduan in that circular room, when he could barely stand, and I walked with him through the forest—

“No,” I choked out.

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