Rion blew out a sharp breath like he’d been struck in the chest and resisted the pressure swelling in the backs of his eyes. Turning away from her, he rubbed a hand over his mouth, scanning the vacant-eyed crowd that cheered and shouted at the arena. They were the dead. They were just bodies with damned souls. He dropped his face in his hands, understanding how foolish he’d been.

Rachel wasn’t coming back to him. She was gone, and this shape sitting next to him was only flesh and bone. Only a memory.

He looked up and watched Herric perched over the edge of the platform, obviously reveling in his sick little game. Rion wondered where all of this had come from. Clearly, it was the magic of the virulence, and for the first time since he’d discovered Herric’s journals, he didn’t crave this power. He saw the edges of it blurred with tainted smoke. It felt wrong and like poison. Like something rotten dug from a rancid pit.

Suddenly, everything Herric had seemed like ash in Rion’s fingers. What did the lord have but this place of death and darkness, ruling over a kingdom of barren souls? If Rion continued using the virulence, would this also become his fate? Maybe he deserved this place, though.

His gaze moved back to the sprawling arena below. Nadir and the girl were running through the canyon while a stampede of massive antlered creatures chased them. He watched as they wove through obstacles checking in on one another.

Nadir stumbled, and immediately the girl slowed down to wait as he recovered. They kept running, shouting to one another, working together. Believing together.

Rion shook his head.

All those months ago, he’d sent Nadir to look for the girl, and then Nadir had hidden her. His son had pretended he couldn’t find her and then brought her to Rion’s Keep. He’d been convinced it was part of Nadir’s plan to steal his crown, but now he wasn’t sure about anything anymore.

What had happened to bring about this . . . relationship?

Rion had killed her parents, and yet she still loved Nadir. That much was obvious, even to him.

Why did Rion care at all?

But something stirred in his chest as he watched her.

She was strong. That he had already known. She’d fought him when she was only a child. She’d resisted the violence of his torture and clung to her magic, surviving things that would have broken most grown men. She had been only a slip of a girl, a child with nothing left to her name, yet she’d held on.