“Nothing,” he growled in return. “Stop wasting time. Let’s go.”

Magnus had come to a horrible realization. One he knew would cause him nothing but pain and suffering from that day forward.

But there was no changing the truth of it.

He had fallen in love with her

CHAPTER 36

LUCIA

LIMEROS

Lucia spent every last coin she had on a carriage to bring her to the Limerian palace. Her one true home. On the way, she’d used her earth magic to heal her wound. The pain of it was only a memory now. She could heal herself, but she couldn’t heal Alexius.

I tried, she thought. I’ve never tried harder for anything. I’m sorry I failed.

By the time she arrived at the palace, it was nearly dawn.

The pitch-dark granite spires stretched up into the sky—black on black. She walked past the palace, ignoring the warmth it might offer her, and moved along the shadowy pathways winding through the still and silent gardens, so different from the light-filled, lively ones at the Auranian palace.

Both so different, but so stunningly beautiful in their own ways.

She was drawn to the cliffs that looked out upon the Silver Sea, lit now only by moonlight. She stood at the very edge and looked down at the glistening black water crashing against the rocky shore.

She held Alexius’s dagger at her side. It was still coated in his blood.

His body had vanished from her arms in a flash of light only moments after his death. If it hadn’t, she never would have left the temple; she would have stayed right there by his side for eternity. But there was nothing there for her anymore.

Just before he’d taken his last breath, he told her to come here and to wait.

So she waited.

Suddenly she heard the snow crunch behind her, signaling someone’s approach. But Lucia didn’t turn around. She just focused on the water, on the horizon far in the distance as the moon sank lower and lower.

“Quite a night.” A woman’s voice, calm and melodious.

“Yes, it was.”

“You know who I am, don’t you?”

Expecting to see a monster hulking before her, Lucia turned to face the woman who’d destroyed everything. Instead, she saw the same golden beauty she had seen in her frightening vision of the past.

Melenia’s eyes were like sapphires with swirls of molten gold. Hypnotic. She wore a gown of platinum and crystal. Her skin glowed and her hair was a cascade of shining gold framed by the ebony darkness behind her.

Her beauty was so vivid—so unreal—it was terrifying.

“I’m sure you’re very angry with me,” Melenia said, her gaze moving to the dagger Lucia held. “But any attempts at vengeance will be futile. I’m immortal, even here now that the wall has finally weakened between our worlds. That weapon won’t work on me.”

A fog hovered over and around Lucia, one of grief and pain. She could barely see through it, but she had to try. “This isn’t meant for you.”

“That’s good to hear. But still, I do understand how you feel. I’m sure Alexius told you all sorts of things about me, but you mustn’t believe all of them.”

“You wanted him to kill me.”

“I wanted him to bleed you. Your blood is powerful, so powerful that it broke the curse that has trapped me in my prison for so long. I’ve now left the Sanctuary for the first time in a thousand years, thanks to you.”

Lucia’s grip strengthened on the hilt of the dagger. “How wonderful for you.”

Melenia smiled. “I know what it’s like to love someone, to miss them so much it feels as if your heart will break.”

“You’ve felt that, have you?”

“I have. I’ve felt that for centuries. But I’ll soon be reunited with my love.”

“That’s why you did all of this, for him. That’s why Alexius is dead. That’s why hundreds have died to soak your road with their blood. All so you could be reunited with your lost love. With the fire Kindred.”

A glimmer of surprise lit the immortal’s beautiful eyes. “Alexius was more transparent than I expected in the end.”

The dying voice of the boy she loved echoed in Lucia’s ears.

“The crystals are not the true magic of the Kindred, princess. The magic is what’s trapped inside. An elemental spirit is imprisoned within each sphere. This is our secret. This is what we guarded. This is what we protected from the world . . . and what we protected the world from.”

Melenia’s gaze hardened, but her smile remained fixed. “One does what one must for true love.”

“The god of fire, the most powerful of the four Kindred, trapped within a sphere of amber,” Alexius had whispered to her. “To free him, Melenia would destroy the world.”

Lucia shivered. “No. You’re wrong. True love isn’t selfish.”

“Your opinion is noted. Now, there is only one thing standing in my way to reunite with the one I love after all this time.”

“Me,” Lucia said.

“I’m afraid so. I knew Alexius couldn’t kill you. I saw it in his eyes, no matter how deeply I sank my magic into him. I saw that his love for you was true. Lucky girl. Most never experience a love so deep. Imagine, that boy chose to take his own life before ending yours.”

Grief blinded Lucia for a moment until she mustered the strength to push it away.

“How will you kill me?” Lucia asked, her voice flat again.