The hand inside Simon's stomach had almost stopped hurting, but that was worse than the pain.
His bloodline was yielding beneath something it recognised as superior. Here, stronger muscles would not free him. The strength he could force through his body on a battlefield meant little on a road built from ancestry.
His Will, Fearless, and experience had carried him past the earlier bloodlines. He had refused submission, endured what should have broken him, and exploited the Ithravel's arrogance.
This was different.
The six-eyed Daemon carried the weight of a history older than anything Simon had known. His decades of war barely touched what that blood remembered.
Even the resentment pouring through the ritual could only help his bloodline resist. It could not make the difference disappear.
The fingers around his throat tightened.
"Have you decided?"
