Chapter 90 — Daelan POV
I've always hated this part of myself.
Not just the power.
Not just the hunger.
But the hair.
This stupid, vivid red that marks me like a curse. No matter where I go, no matter how long I try to live as something else, someone else—it glows like a wound. A flag. A target. An inheritance.
I stand before the throne again.
Only this time, it doesn't sit empty.
The blood on the floor—thick, sluggish, ancient—twitches.
It gathers like it remembers me. Like it's missed me.
It rises.
It begins to form him—me.
A perfect mirror of myself, down to the shape of the scar under my lip, the angle of my jaw, the tension in my shoulders. His eyes are the same too—but emptier. Deeper. More red than violet. Like they've soaked in blood so long they forgot there was ever anything else.
He doesn't smile.
He just waits.
I swallow hard.
I've always avoided this part of myself.
