With my mouth open, I look around. It seems like everyone is accounted for, though we’re all bleeding from various scrapes and cuts. I take two steps, nearly tripping over the rubble, but Nadir is already behind me. I cling to him, my head spinning.

The Heart Castle is gone. I blink and blink, staring at the spot where it stood a few seconds ago. I can’t look away.

“Do you think . . . that’s a bad omen?” I ask.

Mael strides up next to me, his thumbs tucked into his belt loops. He’s limping, and blood coats the side of his face.

“Well, Heart Queen. It definitely isn’t a good one.”

I glance up at him.

“But look on the bright side. You were going to have to rebuild it all anyway.”

I choke out a sound that is half laugh, half sob.

Great. Just great.

But that’s it.

We’ve held Zerra off for now.

We destroyed the arks.

Four down.

Two to go.

CHAPTER 51

RION

THE AURORA—PRESENT DAY

Rion paced the length of his study, running his hands into his hair. They snagged on the greasy, limp strands. He hadn’t been eating or bathing.

He was consumed with thoughts of his failure.

Of that girl who had fucking evaded him again.

How did she keep doing that? He knew who and what she was. Cloris had never been lying, and Rion had been too full of his own arrogance to see what had been in front of him the entire time.

But right now, she was still just a Fae girl with a tenuous grasp on her magic.

And somehow, she kept escaping him.

He’d had her under his nose for twelve fucking years. She’d been right there.

Through his hubris, Rion had assumed that she was expendable. When she’d failed to demonstrate any source of magic, she had become useless to him, or so he’d believed.

He recalled the moment he’d tracked Nadir to Aphelion, before securing a reluctant invite to the bonding. She’d saved him from Rion in Heart after Nadir had hidden her right under his nose. He’d been clinging to her, holding on as he’d encouraged her to find her power. He was the traitorous weasel he’d always known him to be. A disappointment before he’d ever drawn a single breath.

Something in their expressions—the way they looked at one another—told Rion she was special to her son. And that had made Rion’s chest burn with a sour twist of envy. So he’d gotten into her head. Or at least he’d tried to by thanking Nadir for his help, hoping to drive a wedge between them. He didn’t know if it worked. They escaped him together, but he also hadn’t been with her in Alluvion.