or fight my way back.

The power coiled inside me, thick and intoxicating. It whispered of sovereignty, of eternity, of a world that would bow at my feet. I could remake everything. Tear it down and rebuild it in my image. The soldiers kneeling before me weren’t just warriors—they were mine. My will could shape the very bones of this world.

But Lena’s voice was still there, a fragile thread in the storm.

“Elias, please.”

She wasn’t begging. She wasn’t ordering. She ...