And now, despite the constant tending of the fire...she knew it wouldn’t warm her, wouldn’t erase the chill from her bones. She feared nothing ever would again.

BANG.

Nor flinched, remembering the sound of the gunshot.

BANG.

She would never forget the horrific, muffled cry that had come from Zahn, the blood that had sprayed as the bullet hit him square in the chest and he toppled against her, falling to the city streets.

A queen was not supposed to feel such weakness.

And yet here Nor sat, feeling as if she were weakness incarnate.

Her heart, gone. Her kingdom, frozen, as she awaited the arrival of Androma Racella.

And her brother, her greatest ally in Mirabel, was the cause of Zahn’s death.

Nor closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the cushions. Grief was a tricky thing, a rocky sea she had been forced to navigate many times before. She’d learned to turn grief into something different. To twist the sadness into hatred, a burning desire for revenge against whoever had caused the feeling in the first place.

But how could she hate her brother?

The doorway between their minds was as cold as her bones. Empty of Valen’s presence, as if he were too afraid to even approach it.

I saved you, he’d whispered, as he fell to his knees before her in that loading dock.

And he had. That, Nor knew, was a fact she couldn’t ignore. Valen had made a snap decision to save his queen, as any of her subjects would have.

Yet a part of her wished he hadn’t. For what was life without Zahn?

It was all she’d ever known. Zahn at her side, Zahn guarding her back, Zahn curled up beside her in their bed...

A knock on her door pulled Nor from her thoughts.

She didn’t answer, willing whoever it was to leave her alone in her misery, but the door opened anyway, a sliver of light from the hallway accompanying the new arrival.

“My dear niece,” Darai said softly, shutting the door behind him as he swept inside. “I cannot bear to see you in such pain.”

Nor sighed deeply. “I didn’t give you permission to enter. I said I wanted no visitors, and that includes you.”

But Darai simply frowned, looking about the room. “It’s dark as pitch in here.”

“I don’t want the light,” Nor said.

She wanted darkness, embraced it.

An atmosphere to mirror the emptiness she felt inside.

Her uncle tsked in response, gingerly taking a seat beside her on the couch. “The Exonians would disagree with that statement. Such darkness, always. They long for the light.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m not in Exonia right now,” Nor said coldly. “What do you want, Darai?”

“I came to check on my niece, who is grieving.”

She froze at those words. The sudden softness in his voice.