ERIS
The word was a stone dropped into a bottomless well.
"What?"
My heart didn't just stop; it seemed to wither, a dried leaf caught in a sudden, killing frost. The world tilted, the grand columns of the palace entrance blurring into streaks of grey and blue. I couldn't breathe. The air in Nevareth was always thin, always sharp, but now it felt like glass in my lungs.
I looked at Rael. My son. My beautiful, golden-eyed disaster. He was pressed so tightly into Caelen's side that he seemed to be trying to merge with his father's shadow. He wouldn't look at me. Those eyes, my eyes, were fixed steadfastly on the stone floor, his small shoulders hunched as if bracing for a blow.
The shock passed, replaced instantly by the only thing that had ever kept me upright: rage. A cold, shimmering anger that acted as a shield for the jagged hole opening in my chest.
