I recall the way it looked as it landed in my outstretched hands. What the Empyrium shared with me in the Evanescence. Virulence. That black glittering stone I looked upon so many times when I stared at the Aurora Keep from the Hollow, vowing to tear it apart.

Are the arks made of the same substance?

The memory of Rion’s choking black magic filters into my turbulent thoughts. What shadowed power flows in his veins? What forces has the Aurora King been toying with? Is that what all of this has been about?

The Lord of the Underworld was the first Aurora King of the Second Age. He used virulence to attempt to destroy Zerra, and now Rion has his hands on the ark of Heart. Does he intend to destroy me with it? But why? Or am I only a step on a ladder to some other purpose?

Does Rion know that he sleeps in a bed surrounded by dark magic?

Could virulence bring Nadir back? I’d crawl into the very heart of the Beltza Mountains on my hands and knees if that’s what it took.

“Nadir,” I sob into him, soaking his shirt with my snot and tears. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

I did this. I was reckless and impulsive, failing to consider who might be close when I unleashed. Rion and his guards had to pay for touching me again.

Thank you for telling me where she would be.

Rion’s words come back to me with the diamond-hard clarity of honed steel.

But I refuse to believe them. If Nadir gave me up, he had a reason. He had no choice. He would never have done so willingly. After everything we’ve been through, I have to believe that. I handed him my trust, and I refuse to waver at the first test.

I fist the fabric of Nadir’s tunic as I wail, wondering how I’m supposed to go on. How can I possibly exist without him?

My magic fizzes under my skin, pulling towards him like fingers seeking a drop of moisture in a desert. It’s that same formidable tug I always felt before we finally admitted who we were to one another. Does it feel his loss, too?

No one’s heart has broken into as many pieces as mine. No number exists high enough to count these shards pushing under my skin. I am bereft. Tossed in the waves of a sea with no bottom where I’ll sink and sink for eternity.

My mate. I killed my mate.

“Help!” I scream as though anyone could make this stop being real. My stomach lurches, and my pulse pounds inside my skull, chipping away at its brittle walls. “Take me too,” I whisper. I can’t go on knowing I did this to him.

My heart lives outside of me now, exposed and raw for the world to witness the monster I’ve become.