Page 73 of Taloned Heart

“I am what you made me,” Lore replied, accepting the term goddess in a way he hadn’t expected.

What game was his elf playing?

Arching a brow, he folded his arms over his chest to watch what happened between two old elves who had seen far too much.

“I’m glad you have not forgotten who made you a goddess.” Margaret’s words sliced through the air. A band of elves moved forward from behind pillars, all standing behind her while wearing ancient regalia. They were clearly from individual clans who had all come to support Margaret’s claim to the throne.

They looked like the elves of old. Smooth faced and wearing clothing that Abraxas somehow remembered. Clothing that was equally lovely and terrifying in the runes that were stitched across each of them. He’d forgotten how terrifying the elves could be.

Half of them were soldiers, the other half nobility who were here in the castle. Where they had always wanted to be. Where they thought they were owed an audience with whomever sat upon that throne.

Lore tilted her head back and laughed. “Oh, you did not make me a goddess! You threw me to the wolves. Your plan was never to keep me around for very long, now was it? Margaret, you think I do not know that you would have fed me to death itself, even if you had to cut up my still warm body?”

“I knew who you were, and I made sure you became what you could become.”

“You guessed.” Lore bared her teeth. “You sacrificed me at an altar of war and then you left me to rot. You thought it was over when I died, but it wasn’t. I returned and then you sent me away on an impossible mission to save a dragon on an isle that should not exist. And then you defiled what I won for you. This is not how my kingdom should be led!”

“Your kingdom?” Margaret barked out a laugh. “This is not your kingdom, little girl. We have been here for much longer than you have and we have been fighting for this kingdom before you even drew breath.”

“Oh, but this kingdom is my home and I don’t think it’s ever been your home. Has it?” Lore’s entire posture changed. Suddenly she was more aggressive, larger, her whole body tense with the need to fight. “You have forgotten much as well, Darkveil. Though perhaps you put me on this path, you were not the one to give me any of this power.”

“Power I have yet to see.”

Margaret was baiting her. Margaret wanted to see what they were dealing with and if Lore was actually the half elf from the prophecies. Abraxas almost whispered for Lore to stop moving, to do nothing in response, but he didn’t need to.

His starlit beauty merely shook her head in disgust. “You don’t get that answer.”

“I will have it. Prove that you are who you say you are.”

“You will stop what you’re doing. You will let the humans go, and they will elect a leader to meet with you. We should work together in building this kingdom to the glory it deserves.”

But Margaret had to push. Of course she did. “I will do no such thing. And you will crawl back to your little hovel and keep your nose out of the business of the full-blooded elves.”

Right, well. He wouldn’t be able to hold her back now if he tried.

Abraxas sighed and looked up at the glass ceiling they’d fixed. Apparently, he’d thought the same direction as Lore, because she lifted her hands and gestured for the elves to look up as well.

And then she pulled the moon in front of the sun.

The light turned red. Her power crackled in the air and every breath fogged as sudden icy rage flowed out between them all. For the first time, they were catching a glimpse of Lore’s true power. And it was utterly terrifying.

“You will stop what you’re doing.” Lore’s voice snapped through the air like a whip, and a few of the elves even flinched away from her. “Or I will return and destroy all that you have built.”

Margaret tried her best not to look frightened, but even she had gone pale in terror. “You would go against your ancestors? You would go against all who gave you breath?”

Lore shook her head. “My ancestors gave me this power to stop you, Margaret. I am the arrow they created to pierce your wicked heart.”

She dropped her hand, and the moon moved back into place, shaking the very earth as it did. And then she turned toward him and Abraxas knew she wanted to make one more display of power.

So he surged forward into a dragon, all the elves tumbling away from him but her. She climbed onto his back, and he shattered the glass ceiling as he launched them into the sky.

CHAPTER28

Lore gripped onto the spines of Abraxas’s back and tried very hard not to cry. The wind whipped at her cheeks, dashing away whatever liquid might fall from her, anyway. It didn’t matter. None of this mattered.

It didn’t matter that her own people still looked at her as a half elf even though she’d become something out of legend. It didn’t matter that Margaret had gathered up the elves and made them think of Lore as lesser even now.

She had her family. She had people she cared about. They were waiting for her, healing after all that she’d done to let them down. And Abraxas had stood there beside her the entire time. With pride and joy on his face because he knew she wouldn’t let them walk all over her again.

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