Page 150 of The Crimson Walls Of Algorath

“Shh.” Ariadne shifted forward onto her knees, moving closer to him, never letting him pull away. “This—I am not an illusion. That was the illusion.”

His face crumpled. “I didn’t know.”

With that, Ariadne released his hand. He did not let it drop as she inched closer, his gaze following her every move until she curled against his chest. Only then did he slide his hand into the tangled braid of her hair. She slipped her fingers around the horn farthest from her and pulled his face closer as she said, “Until the very end, alhija, and it is not the end for either of us yet.”

Azriel let out a small whimper, then brought his mouth down to hers. The kiss was soft and tentative, searching and begging, as though still not quite certain she would respond in kind. As though still unconvinced of her being real.

But Ariadne melted into him. She gripped the horn tighter and deepened the kiss. His lips tasted of salty tears, only breaking her heart more. For so long she had searched for him. She trained and studied and put herself through endless nights of torment to prepare herself for the moment she could stand against Melia. She would never again turn away from him—never deny him a kiss.

“N’alhi lhon, Azriel,” she whispered against his lips, the dhemon words for I love you that Kall had taught her still strange on her tongue. “Nothing will change that.”

At last he nodded, accepting her words as truth. Whatever had happened in Melia’s chateau had not been his fault. She knew deep in her heart he would have never gone with that mage willingly, nor would he have done all that he had to in order to survive the Pits and beyond.

“N’alhi lhon,” he breathed, nuzzling his head into the crook of her neck and inhaling deep. “I’ve missed you more than I can say.”

Ariadne smiled as the words filled her with warmth. “Then do me a favor.”

“Anything.”

“Eat.” She leaned away to reach for the bowls. “I need you energized.”

He whipped his head up to look at her, those ruby eyes blazing with a sudden spark of heady desire. She had hardly pulled the food toward them before he took his from her hands and scooped a large bite of the delicious sauce with the bread.

This time, as he chewed, he closed his eyes and hummed. “I forgot how good food could be.”

With a scoff, she leaned against his chest and took a bite for herself. “What did they feed you in that awful place?”

The floodgates opened as they ate, alone and away from the others gathered around the fire, as they told each other everything. Azriel explained the wretched food, his training, the illusionary drugs Melia had concocted, and how the Pits had tested not only his waning strength but his mental fortitude. Those he had been forced to kill were not his enemies and, therefore, left a heavy burden on his heart. In kind, Ariadne explained her own training with Kall, how the dhemon had mothered her throughout their time together, and the nerve-racking introduction to Melia.

“I think I understand how Melia was able to fool you,” Ariadne said, setting her empty bowl aside. He wrapped his arm a little tighter around her but said nothing. “My last visit with her, I went alone—”

“What?” He looked down at her incredulously. “She could have killed you!”

Ariadne shuddered at the memories. “She tried.”

Paling, Azriel tilted his head back to stare at the sky, releasing a long, burdened breath. With his free hand, he covered his face as though shielding himself from his own horrific experiences when he believed she had been lost forever.

“Nikolai was there,” she went on. He cursed under his breath, but she continued before he could interrupt, “He confirmed my true identity, and Melia…She told her guard to kill me.”

“Fuck.” Azriel pulled her closer and pressed a kiss to the top of her head, murmuring something in the dhemon language—a string of obscenities she had grown accustomed to Kall using whenever she stabbed him on accident.

She swallowed hard, sorting through the frantic haze of what had happened after Melia demanded her head. “Nikolai and Paerish stopped her. I would not be alive tonight if not for either of them. She used her illusions on me. I do not know how long I was trapped in them, but it felt like…a very long time.”

“It was you,” he breathed, his words cracking. “I heard you scream.”

Ariadne closed her eyes and nodded. The illusions had immobilized her. She had been so very alone as nightmare after nightmare tormented her. Somehow, Melia had dredged up the memory of her mother’s death, the night Ehrun had snapped her neck. In the illusion, she kept returning, broken and rotting to haunt her.

Melia had pulled out the worst parts of her torture at Ehrun’s hands and replayed them again and again, only this time it had been Azriel he killed, not Darien. Still worse, she replaced those dhemons who entered her cell with her husband.

Then it was Emillie who was strung up by Ehrun. Ariadne had watched her scream and beg for it to stop, just as she had. Then Madan. Her father. Revelie and Camilla. Phulan and Kall.

Each of them took their turn and each time, she could not remember that it was an illusion. It had been so completely encompassing, there had been no beginning and no end—no way to decipher what had been real and what had been created through Melia’s twisted mind.

“The guard stopped Melia somehow,” Ariadne explained, frowning to herself. “I never asked what they had done to convince her to let me go. Nikolai got me out and brought me back to Phulan.”

“Why would he do that?” Azriel stared straight ahead, confusion written on his face. “Why didn’t he take you back to…”

Ariadne watched him, just as lost as he. “I honestly do not know. He told us to leave—that Melia would be coming after us all if we did not hide.”

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