Page 76 of The Panther's Price

“You broke the Balance?—”

Evryn stood.

And Lucien rose with her.

Back to back.

His shadows. Her fire.

Hers was primal. His was precision. Together, theybecame vengeance.

Selyne unleashed a torrent of spellfire, screeching in a voice not hers alone, Veil-cursed and ancient.

But it met a wall of darkness and bloodlight.

Lucien’s blade moved with deadly clarity. Evryn’s claws glowed with rune-fire, her panther form flickering at her back like a goddess unmasked.

They struck as one.

Lucien disarmed her. Evryn drove her hand through the Queen’s chest and whispered, “This throne never belonged to you.”

Selyne gasped.

Without a scream, without a curse—she crumbled.

Ash.

Gone.

The throne room went still.

There was no thunder. No final spell. No echoing cry to mark the end of her rule.

Just dust, swirling in the violet-tinted light.

Only the sound of their breathing remained.

Lucien turned to her—his chest still rising like he couldn’t believe he was alive. He pressed his forehead to hers, eyes dark and wide.

“You… you brought me back,” he whispered hoarsely. “You shouldn’t have.”

Evryn held him tighter. “I had to. And right now, I’d do it again, no matter the cost.”

Their shadows wrapped around them, bound now in more than magic.

In soul.

But even as her arms tightened around him, Evryn couldn’t stop her gaze from drifting back to the pile of dust where the Queen had once stood. Her body trembled—not with fear, but with power.

Surging. Coiling. Rooting deeper into her blood.

She felt it everywhere now.

Every heartbeat a roar. Every breath a warning.

Her vision wavered, the room shifting, and for a split second, she saw her own reflection in the glimmering shards of glass near the dais.

Her eyes—gold with slit pupils. Feral. Ancient.

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