Then Amya and I turn to leave.

As the door closes behind me, I feel so many things I can’t begin to put into words. As children, we’re taught to believe that good will win over evil. That there is always sun after the storm. But those are fairytales meant to keep us warm.

I couldn’t free my mother from this pain while she lived. There will be no justice for her in this life, but I have to believe that once she crosses over, she will be at peace, and only my father will feel the retribution of his sins. Inside this Keep, evil has won out over and over, but this story isn’t quite finished yet.

“I wish we could have had more time,” Amya says, looking at me. “Why couldn’t we have had her like that? Why did she talk to us now?”

Still holding the handle, I allow my head to drop against the door. Taking in a deep breath, I blow it out slowly before I look at Amya. “I don’t think that was who she is anymore, and I suppose she understood this was the end, too.”

Amya folds her arms and scrubs a hand across her cheek. “I guess.”

“She found the strength she could never offer us and gave us that last moment at least. Now we can remember her this way.”

“Yeah.” She nods, and we share a look.

Then I reach out and take her hand before my sister and I walk away from our mother for the very last time.

CHAPTER 57

LOR

That night, I dream of Nadir in the Aurora Keep throne room. He sits with a sword, the point digging into the ground and his hand gripped around the hilt. He wears a pair of fitted black pants and nothing on top, the bright swirls of his tattoos illuminating the dark.

I tiptoe across the cold tiles, wearing the nightgown I fell asleep in. As I approach, I stop, contemplating the lines of his face. The arch of his brows and the curves of his lips. The inky pools of his eyes reflecting with flashes of violet and emerald. My gaze travels over the contours of his stomach and his chest, the aurora borealis from outside gilding him in bursts of color.

He lifts an eyebrow, and he leans back, spreading his legs.

“Hi,” I say, and he tips his head.

“My queen,” he answers with a growl that makes a needy pit in my stomach quiver.

“Are we dreaming?” I ask. “Or is this real?”

“I’m not sure.”

“We were lying next to each other in bed. Is this the mate bond?”

“I think it might be. Do you remember when this happened in the manor?”

“Of course I remember,” I say. “I remember everything.”

With his mouth crooked, he taps his thigh while his eyes spark with mischief.

“Care to join me?”