I scream, a burning pain biting at my hands.

The agony is surreal, blackening the edges of my vision, and it takes every ounce of self-control I have to hold on.

It hits me then that I am going to fall. The pain is causing the muscles in my arms to seize, and even my vampire instincts can’t guide me with the pain pounding in my skull.

It’s then I hear a voice, and this time, there’s no twinge of the parasite in it.

“Farin?” asks the queen—just the queen—peering up at Nox’s face. The one that should have held her son. The fate of her son must have pushed Abra hard enough to regain control of her body, even for just a moment.

“Farin’s gone,” says Nox, his voice trembling with cold triumph. “I made sure of that.”

Abra lets out a cry from above. It’s not the cry of a villain defeated, of a conqueror put to shame. It’s the scream of a mother who’s lost her child not once, but twice.

It’s then that I catch Nox’s gaze.

Everything goes still for a moment, like Time itself stops to watch the two of us.

He’s balancing on the rafter two levels above, Abra having just been sent to her knees by grief as she scrambles for purchase on the railing.

My fingers are slipping. Nox’s gaze flits to them, then back to my eyes.

“Nox,” I whisper, but it’s no use, because Abra is down, but not for long.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers back.

And rips Abra’s head from her body.

It’s the last thing I see before I fall.

CHAPTER 62

ZORA

“Why’d you save Nox?” I ask, trying and failing to chew the boar Farin roasted for dinner. It’s rather tough, though I suppose that’s more the boar’s fault than Farin’s. It’s just more satisfying to blame Farin.

Either way, my muscles are having trouble making a dent in my portion.

Flames flicker from the fire, casting shadows across the cave, as well as Farin’s masculine features. He sits across from me, having very little trouble chewing his food, though he’s not the one with a knife wound in his gut, I suppose.

“Perhaps I like to keep things interesting. I’m easily bored. It’s been a problem since I was a youth. My imagination’s gotten me into all sorts of trouble.”

“But you could have let him drown.”

Farin stares at me, his crystalline eyes glowing in the firelight. “When I first woke in this world, I didn’t know where I was. Who I was. I saw a male floating face first in the water, and I pulled him out. I didn’t know he was my enemy at the time. Not until the memories started flooding back in.”

I crane my neck at him. “And then when you realized who he was? Who you were?”

Farin sets down his piece of meat and pushes it away. “I’ve died once before. It isn’t an experience I’d like to replicate. The forces on the other side—well, let’s just say they don’t like me much. The first time I died, it was due to a curse placed upon me by the Old Magic. One that prevented me from lying. Rather, it punished me for it. I thought that, should I return to my world, the curse would still apply.”

“What does that have to do with Nox?”

“Because when Blaise looked me in the eye and asked me what happened to him, I wanted to be able to tell her honestly that I hadn’t touched him.”

“Until you learned you could lie. That the curse was broken.”

Farin breathes out, though it’s a subtle movement of his chest. “Until then.”

“So it wasn’t about not lying to the girl you claim to love. Just not having to suffer the consequences of lying.”

Farin flashes me a dazzling smile. “Are you telling me you never lie?”

My lips falter, and I go back to eating my boar. Rather, attempting to eat my boar.

“You think you actually would have had a chance with her?” I ask, giving in to my incessant need to fill the silence. I might be in the presence of a psychopath, but it’s still better to keep him talking.

I’m pretty sure moments of contemplation are when all the violent ideas come to people like Farin.

“Why? You don’t?” He flashes me that handsome smile again, the one he has to know he possesses, and I feel my cheeks heat. I promptly blame it on the fire underneath the boar.

“She loves Nox, not you.”

Farin’s smile remains, though it appears effortful now. “Nox was the first male to see her for what she is and love her despite it. Of course, she developed feelings for him. That doesn’t mean the two of them are right for each other.”

“Oh, but you are right for her,” I say.

He shrugs. “Blaise and I are the same. She simply doesn’t wish to admit it to herself.”

“And how are you the same?”

“Why do you care?”

“Because someone had the audacity to stab me, and I’d like a distraction as recompense.”

“A distraction, eh?” Farin’s eyes twinkle.

Again, I flush—stupid cheeks—but I level him a glare. “You were just talking about Blaise, the girl you claim to adore enough to cross realms for, and now you’re flirting with me.”

His face is unreadable, but he goes back to answering my original question. “I suppose it’s the least I can do. Blaise is the type who’s willing to do whatever it takes to get what she wants. She loves unconditionally, but she does so within a hierarchy. The people who outweigh the others get preference, and she’d do anything to keep them. Blaise’s life has been shrouded in darkness, but her light comes from within. She can take whatever situation she’s in and pretend it’s something else, a better version of her life. Nox doesn’t understand that about her. His mind is practical, and he only sees what’s real, tangible. He doesn’t see the beauty in pretending.”

I chew absentmindedly on my boar bone, and between bites say, “Sounds like that’s exactly what makes him better for her than you.”

Farin’s ears flick. “All it means is that he doesn’t understand her.”

I shrug. “Or maybe he understands her better than anyone else. Not because he thinks the same way she thinks, but that he can see her for what she truly is, even in ways she doesn’t understand herself. Maybe being able to dream the pain away has its benefits, but maybe Blaise doesn’t need someone who pretends. Maybe she needs someone to anchor her, someone to ground her to reality and help her face whatever it is her mind is trying so desperately to run away from.”

Farin shifts, and for a moment I wonder if this was a stupid topic to broach. An image of Farin picking at my burns just to reopen my wound flashes through my mind. Nox did say that Farin gets a high off the pain of others.

But if Farin has an aching desire to make me scream in pain, he doesn’t act on it.