The Beginning of the End
Madeline
Lilitha lay crumpled where she’d fallen, her signature green dress was smeared with ash and blood, her flaming red hair tangled around her face like a veil that had failed to hide the truth. Her eyes were still open wide with confusion, mouth parted as if the question she’d asked was still echoing on her last breath.
It was clear even from here that she was gone.
I didn’t move. I didn’t cry, not for her.
She didn’t deserve my sympathy. Not even a fragment of it.
She had offered me up to him like a weapon to be forged, not a daughter to be loved. She’d designed the collar that choked the breath from Alaric’s lungs and chained Lucien to a fate that he had never wanted.
She hadn’t been coerced. She’d gone to the Savior willingly, bright-eyed and tr
