“I did,” replied the young woman. “Too bad I didn’t kill you.”

Ana stared in horror. She remembered that sort of burning pain, bubbling up like a fresh nightmare, the way it seared and boiled. How it seemed so deep in her bones that it felt like her soul was burning up, shriveling to ash and cinders. It was a feeling of a thousand knives raking across her skin, flaying it, drenching her thoughts in a single, unending scream.

The pain traveled with her everywhere she went, the memory like ash in her mouth.

“Now take the crown and open the door,” said Mellifare, and flourished her hand toward the tomb’s entrance. “You should do the honors. You did find it, after all.”

A key hidden in plain sight, so heavily guarded that only one bloodline could even touch it. A circular disk with prongs.

A crown.

She gritted her teeth. “I’d rather die than open that door.”

Mellifare tilted her head. “Very well.”

Di screamed louder, pulling at his hair. He thrashed, his body rigid and trembling. The sound made her heart shudder. Her fingernails bit into the palms of her hands. She wouldn’t—she couldn’t. If that crown opened that door, then she would unleash the Great Dark into the world. Mellifare would get what she needed to kill this kingdom.

Ana could not do that.

But then Di looked up at her, his red eyes wide and filled with agony. “Please—please help.”

It’s not him, the rational part of her head whispered, and she knew it wasn’t really him . . . but he was really hurting.

That wasn’t a ruse.

“You are making him hurt,” said Mellifare, and the edges of her words were sharp with impatience. “He is screaming in pain and it is your fault—”

“Okay, fine!” She gave in, her words like lead on her tongue. Her mind raced—even if she didn’t put the crown into the door, Mellifare would.

But if Ana unlocked the door first, she would be the first in. The first to the heart. The first to—to—

Talle’s grenade sat in the pocket opposite the one with Di’s memory core. Lenda had given it to her. Said it packed more of a punch. It wasn’t much, but these ruins were ancient and crumbling, and if she couldn’t destroy the heart—she could bury it.

“Then take the crown and put it into the door, and perhaps I will stop.” The monster’s eyes flashed red as her smile widened, and she offered the crown to her. “After all, the Goddess should open up her own tomb.”

She thinks I’m the Goddess, Ana realized as she took the crown from the ground at her feet, curling her fingers around the prongs. But the real Goddess was out there, somewhere. Maybe she was coming to save Ana. Maybe she had given up a thousand years ago.

Maybe she knew there was no stopping Mellifare, so she didn’t even try, and left Ana to fill shoes that were impossibly big.