The king’s long fingers snap around my wrist, scalding my skin with his fire element.
He thinks a little fire is going to deter me?
He can burn my hand clean off and I won’t budge until he tells me the fucking truth. “How is that possible when the portal is only open one day a year?”
“I can explain?—”
“Youliedto me!” The acrid stench of my melting flesh twists my stomach and burns my eyes.
“Only those who need to know?—”
“Ineeded to know,dammit!”
His Adam’s apple bobs when he swallows. Blood dribbles down his throat.
Am I really going to do this?
Am I really going to kill my own brother?
Dammit. I shove him away and launch the blade across the balcony, cursing this world and everyone in it. I clasp a hand above the bubbled, aching flesh of my wrist, sending healing magic toward the wound. “You dragged me away, spouting shite about the portal closing even though it was a fucking lie!”
Boris falls forward, bracing his hands on his knees, his breaths sawing in and out. “You were expected to leave for Nimbiss at dawn.”
Nimbiss. Nimbiss.Fucking Nimbiss. The entire kingdom can burn for all I care.
Still gasping, Boris straightens, his face pale in the moonlight.
“You took me away from her when I could’ve stayed,” I cry. “Could’ve protected her. Saved her.”Died with her. “But you lied. This isyourfault.”
“You want to blame me? Fine.” Throwing out his hands, he stalks forward. “Go ahead. Blame me. But I’m not the one who convinced her to stay in the human realm.”
Guilt swallows my anger.
It’s all my fault.
If I hadn’t been a fool and begged Allette to stay with me in that cursed realm, she wouldn’t be dead.
“Gods above, Senan,” Boris mutters, his face raised to the twinkling stars. “It’s been four years. You should be over this by now.”
Over it?He thinks I should beover it? “Just because you don’t understand my grief doesn’t mean I’m doing it wrong. You can’t possibly know how I feel. The guilt I wrestle with every moment of every day.”
I was the one who left my mate in that cottage. Me. No one else. I’d nearly died having to wait an entire year to return when I could’ve gone straight back to her. What happened when I finally made it still haunts my dreams.
A burned-out shack.
And inside…
I can’t even bear to think about what I found within that hollowed out shell.
That first year, I’d foolishly believed Allette had been living—maybe even thriving—in the human world. And my mate never even made it out of the cottage.
I sink onto the ground, clutching my head in my trembling hands. “I loved her so much,” I say, my voice breaking.Too much.
Boris sits down next to me. “I know you did. But Allette is dead.”
Allette is dead.
Dead. Gone forever.