Chapter Thirty-Two
Rion
Rion’s world spun, his mind reeling as he tried to sort through the last several moments. The wall had … swallowed him. He’d seen nothing but swirling gray for several long seconds before everything had come to a jarring halt.
He was standing, but—panic flooded his veins and he gasped when chains rattled overhead. Rion yanked on the offending metal. He planted his feet, panting, and stepped back, pulling with every ounce of his strength. Rion summoned his magic next and gasped when blinding pain shot through his system.
This isn’t happening.
He was trapped again.
Caged again.
He was in a dark cell. There were shackles around his wrists. Arianna was nowhere in sight. Rion stopped pulling against the chains. He scanned the area. Arianna. Gods above, where was Arianna?
Rion spun as much as he could manage, straining against the bindings.
Nothing. He was alone.
Had—had he always been alone? Were the last few weeks nothing but an illusion? Was Kaylee still here? Was his mother even—
Rion planted his feet and yanked against the chains again. Metal bit into his wrists, but he ignored the sharp pain. He frantically pulled again and again and again. The skin around one wrist broke. Red rolled down his forearm.
This wasn’t real.
This wasn’t real.
His breath came out in short gasps. Why couldn’t he breathe?
Pádraigín’s magic. Niall. Vairik. They were here.
They’d done this to him again. No, not again, he’d never gone back to Nàdair.
He wasn’t anywhere near Brónach. He was on the other side of the continent, trapped in a dungeon, never to escape from the male hell-bent on revenge.
Rion yanked on the chains again. Something in one arm cracked.
Pain exploded down the limb. Rion growled in response.
He didn’t care. He’d break every damned bone in his body before he allowed himself to be caged again.
Let them—the door in front of him swung open and a sliver of flickering light peeked through the crack.
Rion braced himself, ready to endure Niall’s torment all over again.
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 on either 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. Close enough 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.”
She stared straight at him. “Why?”
“To protect me.”
Her lips parted and her eyes flickered between his. “I guess you’ll have to tell me that story when we’re done here.” She lifted her hands, and he flinched slightly, bracing for the blow. Her gaze softened. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Arianna let her hands hover over one side of the chain. Her magic coated his wrist, the water warm against his skin. He could feel his own responding, craving to be closer, pulling at the restraints of both the iron and his own will.
“Release him,” she commanded. Nothing happened for a long moment.
Arianna glanced up at the ceiling and the ice coating it.
She let that ice melt and used the water to surround his other wrist. “Release him,” she said again, voice firmer this time.
Still, nothing. Arianna let her magic fall, then used a bit of the liquid to trace a rune onto the metal. It snapped open.
Rion stood completely still. He wouldn’t dare give her a reason to change her mind.
She stepped to his other side, watching him closely, and drew another rune on the remaining shackle.
That lock snapped open, too. Rion’s magic swelled, but he held it in check, letting his arm fall slowly back to his side. Arianna didn’t step away.
Both watched one another.
Her eyes traced his lips.
Then the world trembled beneath their feet.