How could we have thought we could defy fate?
Pity the girl from Graystones who loved a heartless prince.
For the only way to save him . . .
A choked sob wrenched from my throat.
I wasn’t worth it. Wasn’t worthher.
Yet for all my selfishness, all my failings, this woman had found something in me worth loving. Worth the risk. Worth this undeserved fate.
I gathered the hair from her sun-kissed cheeks, spreading it across her pillow. The shadows from the lace curtains made it look as if flowers had been tattooed on her skin.
She’d died so that I could be free. But I would never be free, because this woman owned every part of me, body and soul.
I closed my burning eyes, cursing fate. Cursing the Queen. Cursing this world.
How was it fair that someone like her, so good, so perfect, was dead, and yet someone like me, so twisted, so depraved, sat here unscathed?
How was it fair?
It wasn’t. Not at all. But there was nothing I could do to change it.
That wasn’t completely true, was it?
I dug through Aveen’s sopping skirts, finding the hidden pocket and the dagger. The emerald hilt glowed as I adjusted my grip with trembling hands. I aimed the dagger at the point just below my ribs, angling it so that when the blade pierced my flesh, it would find my cursed heart.
Once more, I memorized the woman I loved, then I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and—
Something soft brushed against my thigh.
When it happened again, I opened my eyes, watching Aveen’s fingers twitch.
The dagger clattered to the ground.
They twitched.
Maybe it was wishful thinking, but I sworethey feckin’ twitched.
“Aveen?”
She didn’t respond, but her finger twitched again, as if she could hear me.
And then I heard the sweetest song: a ragged, gurgling breath. Aveen’s chest barely rose, but there was no mistaking that beautiful sound.
“You’re back . . .” Tadhg’s magic, his life force thrumming through her veins, had brought her back to me. “Aveen? Can you hear me?”
Her lips tugged down.
She must’ve been in excruciating pain. If only there were some way for me to bear it for her. But this was something she had to endure on her own.
“It’s all right. I’m here. I’m here.” I cradled her against me, holding steady as her whimpers mended my tattered soul. “I know it hurts. I know it does. Breathe through the pain.” The sooner she accepted it, the sooner she would be through it.
Her next ragged breath felt stronger, fanning against my neck.
“Why are we here?” she croaked.
“I had to bring you somewhere safe. If she found your body . . .” The Queen would’ve taken her heart to replace the one she’d lost. “When I came back and saw you fall from that cliff . . .” Sunlight sparked across the dagger’s cursed blade. “I thought you were gone forever.”