CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Astra

The darkness lifts slowly, like fog dissipating at dawn. I surface from sleep with the strange, disorienting sensation of being somewhere between dreaming and waking—caught in that liminal space where reality feels fragile and breakable.

My body feels foreign. Heavy. Like I’ve been sleeping for days, or maybe weeks. The bed beneath me is soft, real, nothing like the cold marble of that throne room where—

The memories crash over me all at once.

The whip. The pain tearing across my back. Lady Zari’s cold smile as she watched me bleed. The King’s voice echoing through that vast chamber, calling Lucian “son.”

My eyes snap open.

I’m...