By now the Hiaj spectators understood what was happening. People trampled each other in the stands trying to escape, taking to the sky or to any open exits in clumsy masses.

A deafening crack sounded from beyond the colosseum. It shook the ground, followed by a deep grinding—like stone shattering. Like city walls falling. Like an empire crumbling.

Soldiers poured from the entrances of the colosseum. Soldiers wearing the red and white of the House of Blood. Septimus watched it all and smiled.

A dead lover can never break your heart, Nyaxia’s voice whispered to me, taunting.

It was all I could hear as Vincent spread his wings and drew his sword.

He didn’t move as Raihn approached him. No, Vincent never backed down from a threat. He’d face his challenger head-on.

No.

I didn’t remember drawing my blades. I just started running. I made it halfway up the steps to Vincent’s balcony before someone grabbed me. I didn’t know who. Didn’t care. Didn’t look.

I needed to get to him.

I needed to get to him right now, right now, right now—

Raihn’s lip curled. “You don’t even know who I am, do you?”

Vincent did not dignify this with a response. Instead, he lunged.

A cry leapt to my throat.

Vincent was one of the best warriors in all of Nyaxia’s kingdoms. And yet Raihn struck him down mid-movement, as if he were nothing. Power swelled and sparked at Raihn’s fingertips—flashes of light and darkness, like stars themselves, dwarfing even the force of his Asteris in the ring.

I thrashed against whoever held me back—thrashed so hard that soon another set of hands joined the first—

“We met,” Raihn said. “Two hundred years ago. The day you took power and opened a river of blood in this city. The day you slaughtered your own family and every Rishan man, woman, and child within these walls. The day you killed anyone you thought even had the sliver of a chance of taking the Rishan Heir line and challenging you for the House of Night.” He pushed Vincent’s sword away with a burst of power, sending it clattering to the floor. “Well. You missed one.”

Raihn grabbed Vincent’s throat. The red of Vincent’s Heir Mark sputtered in fits and starts, as if repelled by the grip of its natural enemy. A sickening CRACK as Raihn pushed Vincent’s body to the smooth stone of the wall, smearing crimson-black over white marble.

Horrible certainty fell over me.

I was about to watch my father die.

I fought harder. Two sets of hands became three. Someone yelped as I stabbed at them.

Raihn yanked Vincent closer, their heads bowing. Vincent said something to him, much too quietly for me to hear.

Then his head turned—slowly, as if it took all his strength—to look at me.

Raihn looked at me, too. And for a moment, that hate on his face was replaced with profound, tortured regret. I couldn’t hear anything over my frantic scream, but his lips formed the words, Look away.

I screamed something—perhaps a curse, a plea. I would never remember.

And I did not look away.

Not as magic flared at Raihn’s touch.

Not as Vincent’s body flew back against the wall with enough force to turn bones to liquid.

No, I did not look away as I watched Raihn kill my father.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Vincent’s body hit the railing and fell to the sand, a long drop from the balcony.

I didn’t know what sounds I was making, only that they were ragged and animalistic and violent. It was the Nightfire that made them finally let me go. In a sudden burst, it engulfed me.

Not that I noticed, or cared.

I stumbled down the steps. Crossed the sand in several long strides. I collapsed next to Vincent.

He was still alive, barely. But it was a testament to his power that he even managed to survive these few seconds. His body had been destroyed—skin replaced with scalded flesh, bones rearranged and crushed, that elegant cold face twisted and blood-smeared. His eyes, moon-silver, were brighter than ever peering through that gore.

Growing up, I had thought Vincent was untouchable. He could not bleed. He could not break. He certainly could not die.

But the man before me was broken in every way. A collection of destroyed muscle and tissue, and a heart that was just as soft as mine in the end.

His eyes glistened. One mangled hand reached for me. I grabbed it.

“I am so sorry, my little serpent.” Each word was hard-fought. “I was going to—I was going to tell—”

I just kept shaking my head. Tears marked little pools of clean skin on Vincent’s face. I managed one garbled word: “Stop.” Stop speaking. Stop dying. Stop leaving me.

But he didn’t.

“I love you. I loved you from the first moment.” Bubbles of blood formed at the corners of his mouth. His gaze drifted past me, to the night sky. Then it dragged back to me—the movement slow, laborious, like he was working very hard to make sure I was the last thing he saw. “So many mistakes in the end,” he choked out. “Never you.”

For the rest of my life, I would wish I had said something to my father as he died in my arms. He was a terrible person in so many ways. And yet I loved him.

I loved him.

I told him so three seconds too late, when his eyes had gone blank.

The grief tore me apart in its jaws. So much worse than I ever thought it would be.

No.

I preferred anger.

Blue-white flames consumed my vision. Every muscle coiled. I guarded Vincent’s body like a wolf over her den—a serpent over her nest.

Something had been ripped open inside of me, and whatever had been within that carefully guarded box was too much for me to control. Pain and sorrow and fury poured through me, poured and poured and—

In the distance, I heard shouting. It grew closer.

Someone grabbed me.

I fought them on instinct, railed against their hold. I couldn’t grip my own magic—the dam of my restraint had shattered, leaving it gushing in uncontrollable waves. Flames roared at my hands, my arms, peeled from my skin.

It was Raihn who finally dragged me back.

I hated that I knew it was him right away. Knew him by scent and touch alone as he pulled me back against him, arms around my shoulders.

“He’s gone, Oraya,” he murmured into my ear.

They’re dead, little human, he had said to me, the first time he had met me.

They’re dead. They’re all dead.

I’d dropped my blades somewhere. I had no weapons. Only my flames, which were so far beyond my control that I could have burned the colosseum to the ground. But if they hurt Raihn, he didn't show it. He spun me around, held me firm by my arms.

“Breathe, Oraya. Come back to me. Please.”

He said this like he cared.

Like he fucking cared.

I hated him. I was ready to die for him and he killed my father, and he lied to me, and he—he—

And yet the sight of Raihn’s pain, of the skin on his cheeks slowly scorching, made me draw in a gulp of air.

He gave me a weak smile. “You’re safe.”

I never wanted him to say those words to me ever again.

People surrounded us now. Rishan warriors clustered in the arena. Dimly, I recognized Cairis watching us nearby, sword in hand, and Ketura not far beyond him. When did all these people get here?

I couldn’t orient myself. Something I could not name was so—so different. The flames slowly ebbed. Yet I still felt like I was burning from within. I struggled to breathe. My chest hurt—my neck hurt.

As the Nightfire withered, Raihn’s eyes lowered to my throat.

Horror fell over his face.

“Oraya, what is—”

“Fuck.” Cairis stepped closer, his eyes wide. “Is that—FUCK.”

What?

I looked down at myself.