“That sounds like him,” I say wryly.

Nadir tips his head. “That was where I met Mael and Etienne, too. We were chained together, and there’s nothing like suffering as one to form a bond. One day they brought in a new batch of prisoners, but they didn’t have enough arcturite to chain us all, so they bound only those they believed to have magic. Of course, they knew I did, but they assumed otherwise of Mael because he let them believe he was a mere foot soldier.

“Well, that was a mistake on their part.” He stops and winces as if the memory hurts and explains how Mael helped free them all using that deadly violet power I witnessed in Heart.

“I left Atlas alive,” Nadir says, shaking his head. “I had him right there, but I just couldn’t do it.”

He bites his lip and looks at me. “It’s funny, though, isn’t it? If I’d killed him that day, then he would never have schemed to get you out of Nostraza, and you and I might never have met.”

I nod. “Maybe. But none of this seems bad. You did what you had to.”

“No,” Nadir says. “It’s what came after. I returned to my father, half-starving and weak. He blamed me for getting myself captured and, as punishment, sent me out to destroy a blockade that was preventing supplies from coming to our camp. I could barely move. I never slept. I was a wreck.”

Nadir sucks in a sharp breath as his hands tighten against my hips.

“It was inside a village, and he promised that everyone had been evacuated. I took him at his word, and we set it on fire,” he says, his voice rough. “By the time we realized there were innocent people—whole families—still living inside, it was too late.”

He swallows, and his distant gaze returns to me.

“I spent a lot of years hating myself for that. I still do. The screams . . .” He shakes his head. “I still hear them.”

With my hand against the back of his neck, I lean in and kiss his cheek, pressing my nose against it. I don’t tell him it wasn’t his fault because I know it will make no difference. Only he can decide that, but I want him to understand that it also changes nothing. We’ve both had to make choices against impossible circumstances. We’ve both been manipulated and abused by the Aurora King.

“I love you,” I say. “I will never stop.”

“Thank you,” he says softly as he wraps his arms around me and holds tight. We stay like that for a while, feeling each other’s heartbeat. Eventually, I pull away to study his face, tracing the contours of his cheek. I press my thumb into his bottom lip and lean in, our mouths hovering an inch apart.