Realization slammed into his gut like an iron fist. Slowly, he stood, clenching and unclenching his hands and desperately trying to hold on to the last bit of composure he had.
“Reyna,” he said in a deep, rumbling voice as he stalked toward her. Her words echoed ominously in his mind.
I had to prove my selflessness.She had lookedso sad, so defeated. Like the power had broken her heart. Now he knew why.
She stiffened, the stick stilling in the flames. He felt Nollaig watching him, clearly confused, but she had not been inside his thoughts, piecing the puzzle together and understanding everything all at once.
“Reyna, what did you give up?” he said in a low voice he knew was edged in danger.
She pressed her lips together, and the color fled from her cheeks. “Judging by your expression, you’ve figured it out.”
Anger clawed up his throat, slashing it raw. “I need you to tell me. I need to know I’m not going mad. Because I cannot believe that you would do what it is I think you’ve done.”
Sighing, she twisted away from the fire and stood. Her face was a storm of emotion. “You do believe it. Because it was the only choice I had.”
A feral roar ripped from his throat as the truth crashed down all around him. She had done it. His heart pounded. She had really given him up to the gods.
“How could you?” he asked, his fisted hands trembling. “How could you give us up so easily? Have I meantnothingto you?”
“You mean everything,” she whispered, tears filling her eyes. “That’s whyyouwere it. For the power of Seelie, I had to sacrifice my greatest desire.”
Taken aback, Lorcan stared.Hewas her greatest desire? A storm of emotions shook his body. Happiness, that she cared for him so much. Pain and fury, that she had thrown it away like an old, dirty rag.
Nollaig cleared her throat, stood, and then vanished into the cavern. He didn’t blame her. He didn’t want to be here either, faced with the truth of such terrible agony.
“I gave you my heart,” he said bitterly.
“And I gave you mine. This doesn’t change how I feel about you, Lorcan. Nothing could ever change that. This doesn’t mean my love for you is gone.”
He shook his head, speechless. She had never spoken those words, and now they hung between them like daggers of ice, ready to pierce every part of him.
“What it does mean is that we will be ripped apart.”
She flinched, nodding. “It has already started. You have your task. I have mine. Soon, we will be on opposite ends of the world.”
“It doesn’t have to be this way.”
“We don’t have a choice.” With a trembling chin, she reached out, but then let her hand drop to her side again. “We can try to fight against it. We can try to stay together as long as we can. But you would have to leave your kingdom behind. I have to go north, Lorcan, to where the Ruin began. The power is a part of me now, and I took it for a reason.”
“The power,” he said in a growl. “You could have walked away from it. You didn’t have to take any of it at all!”
“Yes, I did,” she whispered, tears pouring down her flushed face. “I had to take it, Lorcan.I have to save them.”
He whirled on her, his body brimming with all-consuming pain. “What about us though, Reyna? Who saves us?”
She shook her head, and her eyes were drenched in sadness. “We don’t get to be saved.”
“I don’t accept it,” he shouted, pointing a finger at the cavern. “Return to the pit and tell Seelie to take it back.”
“I can’t. And I won’t.”
He stormed off, leaving the camp behind to find somewhere he could think. Her face was emblazoned in his mind. He couldn’t bear to see it anymore. Not knowing what she’d given up.
He stopped at the edge of a cliff and gazed out at the dreary, mist-enshrouded expanse. The odds that he and Reyna would have ever met were alarmingly small. They were from opposite ends of a continent that had been ravaged by war for a hundred years. In truth, it was a miracle they had ever stumbled upon each other. And even more of a miracle that they’d survived everything the world had thrown at them, to find themselves in each other’s arms.
For a fleeting moment in time, they had been happy.
How could she have given it up? How could she have tossed away her own happiness, and his, for a chance to save her kingdom?
