I pick up my pace, my skirt twisting around my ankles. The shoes I’m wearing are useless, so I kick them off, ignoring the stabbing in my feet and their stinging slaps against the stone. Morana and Khione let out soft yips as they follow ahead, guiding my path.

“Willow!” I come to another branch and stop, checking over my shoulder for Nadir.

“Nadir?” I call up, but the tunnel remains empty.

Cold dread trickles through my chest, turning my toes and fingers numb. He must have just fallen behind.

“Nadir?” I call again. “Where are you?” My voice sounds even more hollow. The silence more dense. The hairs on my neck rise in apprehension.

When he still doesn’t appear, I head back up the tunnel. Maybe he hurt himself, and I ran away from him like a jerk. Please let that be it.

“Nadir!” I call, winding up the pathway with the ice hounds trotting on my heels. The tightness in my chest eases when I finally see him standing in the middle of the tunnel, violet light filtering around his frame, obscuring his face in shadows. “Nadir, what are you doing?”

Morana and Khione start barking furiously as I trip up the path before a beam of emerald light falls over his face.

But it isn’t Nadir.

The Aurora King stares down at me, his glittering eyes as dark as midnight pools.

A breath wheezes out of my chest as I grind to a stop.

“Rion,” I whisper. “Where is he?”

He tips his head and arches a brow. A silent, weighted exchange passes between us. We are two opposing sides, pushing and pulling over the years. He tried to break me, but I survived, and now, only one of us will come out of this alive.

He advances a step as I shuffle back. Morana and Khione howl and bark, their panicked sounds vibrating through the enclosed space.

Rion sneers as he approaches. “This time, there is nowhere for you to run, girl. Finally, you are mine.”

And then he blasts out a wave of pure, dark magic that fills my nose, mouth, and lungs before everything goes black.

CHAPTER 60

RION

SOMEWHERE UNDER THE MOUNTAINS

The girl lay at his feet, her hair spilling over the tops of his shoes, her eyes closed, and her jaw slack. He noted her red dress. The heart-shaped jewel on the dagger strapped around her waist winked in the dim light.

The Heart Queen.

Finally. After months of frustration and losing her at every turn, he had her. This girl who he’d captured and tortured a decade ago on an ephemeral promise that failed to manifest would now become his salvation.

He bent down and hauled her up, tossing her over his shoulder before he spun around to face his son. Liquor flowed through his veins, and he blinked as everything around him tilted. He waited in a staggered stance until his vision returned to normal.