He growled before the silhouette even stepped through the door, but instead of a male, Rion saw the slender form of a female. A form he knew better than his own body. He’d memorized every curve, the way she moved, her gait.
Arianna’s heart jolted at the sound of his warning, but she stepped through anyway, pausing just over the threshold to take him in, her brows knit with confusion.
Rion’s body tightened. He waited for her eyes to begin melting from their sockets or a slit to appear across her throat. Would her hair catch fire? Maybe this time he’d be forced to watch her skin peel back from her face, revealing the muscles underneath. She always smiled at his horror.
Arianna stepped forward and Rion stepped back, gritting his teeth at the sound of the chains above. He glanced up quickly. Wherever he was, they’d reinforced the bolts in the ceiling. There wasn’t a mechanism to raise or lower him anymore.
Arianna scanned the room from top to bottom before taking another cautious step forward. Then blue lights followed her inside, sinking into previously hidden grooves. Sconces oneither side of the room burst to life, the heat from the flames wafting out momentarily. The very room hummed with energy.
“Can you escape?” she asked, following the chains with her eyes. Rion wasn’t certain he wanted to answer. If she were a mirage, speaking to it would only feed into the hallucination. If she were real. Gods, if this was real—Arianna had already tried to kill him twice.
Rion licked his lips, heart threatening to beat from his chest. “Are you real?”
“Are you?” The question struck him. It had never occurred to Rion that Arianna could think herself trapped in an illusion as well. He glanced up at the chains again.
“Would you believe me if I answered?”
Arianna stepped further into the room, her confidence growing. She studied the ceiling, the floors and corners. He sensed her rising anger, then her magic sprang forth, coating everything in uneven layers of jagged spikes. A particularly large spear wedged itself in the door’s opening.
“This is … strange. The wall—” she paused. “Why would there be a room like this?”
If they were even in Nàdair.
Rion’s jaw worked. Illusion or real? Arianna was standing before him, uninjured, powerful, ready to tackle the world. She wasn’t hurt. She wasn’t screaming in pain. But would something happen in the next moment that would split his world in two?
He tried to focus. What had they been doing before this room? He’d been following her through the library. He’d seen her shiver and thought to gift her his jacket. She’d spun around and—the fear. Realization flew through him.
“It’s protecting you.”
“What is?”
“This place. The library.” Relief flooded through him. “It’s designed for you. It used your magic to open the door. It knows you see me as a threat, so it neutralized that threat.”
The magic dancing around her calmed slightly. “But you’re the king, aren’t you?”
“That’s probably the only reason I’m alive. It’s letting you decide what—” he paused, catching himself as he realized Arianna could very well kill him right now. There wasn’t anyone here to stop her. He didn’t know how she’d gotten here. Were their guards waiting on the other side of the door? Did Talon and Raevina know they’d vanished?
Arianna stepped closer. He watched, rooted in place, as the flickering flames on either side of them illuminated the fire in her eyes. Her nostrils flared. She studied the chains, absorbed the fact that they were iron. He had no magic. No power.
Her scent washed over and through him and sent his heart racing.
“Ironic, isn’t it? You always claiming I’m the one in control?”
“You are,” he whispered breathlessly. “You always have been.”
She glanced at her wrists and the scars embedded in her skin. “Not always.”
He looked too, his blood raging at the sight. “What do you want, Arianna?”
He thought he saw a flicker of recognition break through the anger. A spark of hope ignited in his own chest.Remember, he willed.Remember me. Remember us.
“You’ve said that to me before. Among other things.” He swallowed hard. “I don’t … remember exactly, but it’s like—” Her hand drifted up to cover her heart. “It’s like something in here knows. I can’t explain it, but I’d be stupid to ignore what everyone else has been telling me.” She stepped closer. Closeenough that she could reach out and touch him if she wanted. End him. His heart beat even faster. Arianna tilted her head, and something akin to sympathy and … guilt entered her gaze. “You’re afraid of me.”
Rion huffed a laugh. “Terrified.”
Something else flickered in those beautiful eyes, and she paused again. “I may not remember everything, but I do remember how much I hate to kill. Before this war, I was a healer. I just—I don’t know what went wrong. I can’t find the memory. I see the blood on my hands, but—”
“Me,” Rion said, swallowing hard. “Your first kill was because of me.”
