Ayla Crown saw the man she loved disappear as the world collapsed. The other man she loved grabbed her arm with the futile hope of holding on to a dream before waking up. Her stomach tightened; her ears rang… The sounds of clashing swords and the screams of the drek gave way to silence. “You’re home,” Grim said, his voice breaking with relief; and then Ayla found herself in the familiar place on his chest, her cheek beneath his heart. Her instinct was to breathe in his scent, to hold him close. Home. Something deep inside her unfurled. Something else shrank. She pulled away from his embrace. She looked down. Her armor and hands were covered in blood. Her lips tasted of salt—sweat and tears from the battle. She thought of everything she had done… everything she was… She wanted to run. She wanted to race through those corridors as she had the first time they met, she wanted to be transported back to Lightlark, back into Oro’s arms… But she had a reason to be here. Ayla would kill either Oro or Grim, according to the prophetess. That was how it was meant to be.

Now, knowing what she had done in the past, all the people she had killed… she didn’t trust herself not to harm the king of Sanling. Grim approached her slowly, hesitantly. His voice was gentle. “My heart.” He offered her his hand again, his knuckles scraped and covered in both his own blood and Oro’s. My heart. Hers was split in two. One part wanted him more than anything else—she remembered. The other wanted to stab him in the chest again. She took his hand. Grim’s broad shoulders relaxed in relief until she said, “Take me there.” He knew what she meant. As much as she wanted to hate him, as much as she wished her hatred for him would last, would take root in her bones and cover everything like weeds in a neglected garden, he knew her. He truly knew her.