KARIS

We made it to the edge of the border of the Northern Forest where the former Court of Winter was, and where my mother had established her Court of Ash. Feeling the cold, knowing that Iric was so close, and that I was getting ready to face a woman who wanted me dead… it all began to overwhelm me. I ground to a stop, watching the ash rain down around us, and couldn’t help the tears that fell down my face. I’d held them in for miles, but couldn’t anymore. Loftin was in front of me, holding my arms, desperate to help.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

The better question was, What wasn’t wrong? “Who was that faery to you?”

With only a slight pause, he began, “Her name is Lita. I was betrothed to her before my court was destroyed,” he asserted, searching my face. The thought of Loftin with Lita was painful in a way I didn’t understand, and I was sure my expression let him know exactly what I felt about their reunion. Tears sprang into my eyes.

Loftin stood in front of me. “What is happening?”

My emotions are spiraling out of control. That’s what’s happening. My heart hurt. I rubbed my palm over my chest to quell the ache.

“In Ironton, I turned two human men into ash,” I admitted quietly, peering up at him to see the horror in his eyes. I needed to see the moment he decided I was just like my mother, and that he was right all along. I was an aberration, an abomination of the worst kind. He’d been right to hunt me and drag me to her.

“Were you upset or scared when it happened?”

“Yes,” I replied, my lips trembling at the thought. “But they didn’t deserve to die just for scaring me.”

“How did they scare you?” he asked.

I shook my head, too embarrassed to tell him.

“How did they scare you, Karis?” he punctuated the words.

“They came into our house when Iric wasn’t there,” I whispered.

“Did they hurt you?” he asked, his voice breaking.

“There were two of them. They didn’t get the chance, but they would have.”

He exhaled. “They deserved to die.”

“No, they—”

“Boil me alive, Karis! They deserved it!” he exploded. “Instead of making it quick, you should have drawn out their deaths. Everyone in Ironton would have heard their screams for days if I’d been there and found them with you!” he exclaimed. “And just so you know, Lita is not the one I want, Karis. My heart belongs to you.”

“I don’t deserve it,” I mumbled.

“No, Karis. I don’t deserve yours.”

Did it even matter now that we were about to be slaughtered? I couldn’t let Loftin go with me. I knew what Nemain wanted. She wanted to kill Iric in front of me so she could watch me crumble, so my grief would overwhelm my power. She wouldn’t even have to fight for what she wanted. And when she did come for me, she would cut out my heart while Loftin watched, and then she would kill him. Slowly.

The ache in my chest wouldn’t stop. This pain in my heart.

And then it hit me.

Alistair’s warning. The Shades. The way the Washer woman pointed at my chest…

“Conceal your heart,” I mumbled beneath my breath.

“Conceal your heart? What are you talking about?”

Realization dawned. In the vision with the hunter I didn’t recognize, she asked him to bring her my heart. “My mother. She needs my heart, doesn’t she?”

I kissed him then, capturing his lips and leaning into him as he pulled me tight against his chest, pouring my heart into our kiss. His eyes fluttered closed and he let out a soft moan, deepening it further. I needed him to know, to feel what I felt for him so he wouldn’t forget. I knew what I had to do now. Pulling away from him, removing my lips from his, and stepping out of his arms was the hardest thing I’d ever done.

“Loftin, I need two things from you.”

“Anything,” he immediately answered.

“Promise?” I asked, knowing he would be livid when he heard my request.

“Of course.”

“I need you to release me from the favor I owe you.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but I covered it with my finger. “You promised.”

His eyes were ablaze with anger as he shook his head slowly. “Why?”

“Loftin, you promised.”

“Fine, I release you,” he retorted angrily.

“I also need you to keep something safe for me. Safe and hidden. You can’t tell anyone you have it.”

“Of course.”

“Promise me?”

His eyes drilled into mine. “I won’t tell anyone I have… Wait, what are you giving me?”

I pulled my tunic over my head and unbuttoned my blouse. “Karis?” he asked, uneasily, eyes shifted toward my chest, my breast wrap, and the planes of my stomach that lay beneath it.

LOFTIN

“I have a feeling that what I’m about to do will change me,” she said calmly. “And that I won’t be the Karis you know. But remember who holds my heart, Loftin. It belongs to you, so it’s fitting.”

“Karis,” I whispered against her ear as she raked her nails down my chest.

“Don’t forget who I really am. Don’t forget what’s in my heart.”

Whispering words that swirled with power, she reached her hand into her flesh and curled her hand upward beneath her ribs. Her mouth formed an ‘o’ and she let out a choking sound as she removed her heart, plucking it out of her body. Her skin healed in seconds and she held her beating heart in her hand, blood dripping off it as she looked at me. “Do you trust me?”

“I do.” It was true.

“Take off your tunic and shirt.”

I quickly did as she asked, and then she reached her free hand into my abdomen, holding my flesh and muscle open as she shrank her heart and tucked it beneath my ribs, right next to mine.

For a moment, the sound of their opposite beats was deafening as they rang in my ears. But then her beat shifted, becoming one with mine; strong and sure and pounding with determination.

“Now I’m heartless. Just like my mother,” she tried to joke as she held a hand over my skin. There was no wound.

It wasn’t funny, but I still wanted to kiss her senseless because through it all, she kept her sense of humor, and also because we were probably going to die and I might not get another chance. I stepped forward to do exactly that, when there was a shift in her posture. Her smile fell away and her face turned to stone, a wicked gleam entering her eyes. She tilted her head.

“Karis?”

She laughed, running her hands up from her chin, over her face, and around her hair until she looked like her mother’s twin.

With a backhand, she sent me flying into the stiff, frozen trunk of a tree. I landed at the base with a thud. She was in front of me in an instant, my throat between her claws. Where the hell did those come from?

Appraising me, she sighed. “You’re too pretty to kill.” With that, she released me and disappeared into a cloud of writhing midnight.

Cursing, I pushed to my feet. Lita told her to come to Nemain by midnight or Iric would be killed, but I knew I couldn’t beat her to Nemain on foot.

She didn’t even recognize me now, which meant she wouldn’t know Iric. And if she or her mother hurt him, when she did take her heart back, it would destroy her. I ran back toward the Leancan lair. I hated to ask Finean for help, but it was the only way to get to her before she did something she would regret forever.

Scald me alive.