Tale of the Heart Queen (Artefacts of Ouranos #4)

Chapter 68

C HAPTER 68

RION

T HE U NDERWORLD

R ion stood beside the Lord of the Underworld with his wrists bound in arcturite. Herric had allowed him out of his cage only so he could observe the spectacle happening below and bear witness to the fruits of his actions.

Rion seethed with indignant rage at Herric’s trickery, though he was doing his best to conceal it. The ark was visible tucked into Herric’s belt, and how he itched to take back his only bit of leverage.

He hadn’t been thinking straight when he’d stormed down here believing he could order the lord to do anything. The drink had dulled his senses and scrambled his thoughts. If he got out of here alive, he’d never touch the stuff again.

Despite himself, Rion couldn’t help but watch. He’d seen his son fight off a pack of bears standing back to back with the girl. Watched them comfort each other. Tend one another’s wounds. They, too, wore arcturite cuffs, but Rion knew the truth about her. Had that been a one-time occurrence, or was she truly immune to their effects?

Rion could have shared this tidbit with Herric, but after the lord had tossed him into a cage and stolen the ark, he wasn’t feeling all that amenable.

Despite Nadir’s warnings, the girl swallowed a poisoned berry, and they all cringed as she vomited it back up. Then she threw herself into the canyon full of stone spikes with barely a moment of hesitation.

All to protect Nadir.

He wondered if the girl was addled in the head. Even if Herric technically wasn’t trying to kill her, it still required overcoming a significant mental barrier to put yourself in harm’s way. But she seemed fearless. Unstoppable. And the way she looked at his son . . . even from this distance, he could see how much she cared for him.

Rion dragged his gaze towards Rachel, who sat beside him, her hands folded on her lap, her expression devoid of emotion.

“How are you?” Rion asked, settling into his seat. She turned to him and blinked.

“I’m well. Thank you.”

After Herric had freed Rion from his cage, he had also released Rachel into his care. He’d tried to coax her into speaking and share what she’d been doing for all these years, but all he got were these insipid platitudes.

He took her hand, wrapping it with his. It was cold and thin. She’d lost weight since he’d last seen her. He’d always loved her curves and the way her hips sloped. When he got her out of here, he’d do everything he could to nurse her back to health. “Rachel, tell me what happened. Why did you turn to a life of crime? You had everything you needed from me,” he pressed, and once again, she slowly turned to him.

“I don’t remember,” she said. The same answer he’d gotten numerous times already.

“Did you think of me?” he asked, verging on a flimsy line of desperation. He’d spent his life pining after her, and he needed to know he’d figured into her existence in some way.

She tipped her head, studying Rion from head to toe. “I remember the smell of butterscotch,” she said, and a feeble hope flared in his chest. She did remember him.

“Yes. Do you recall that week we spent in the Cinta Wilds? My father had taken ill, and I’d finally pushed through the bill to conscript the low fae to the mines. We decided to get away for a short while.” He continued talking, describing the cabin and the sound of the wind howling through the trees and the patter of rain. The feel of sunshine on their skin. He remembered every detail like it was yesterday.

When he stopped, he stared at her, willing her to react.

“That sounds lovely.” She paused, her brow knitting in concentration. “What was your name again?”

Rion blew out a sharp breath like he’d been struck in the chest and resisted the pressure swelling in the backs of his eyes. Turning away from her, he rubbed a hand over his mouth, scanning the vacant-eyed crowd that cheered and shouted at the arena. They were the dead. They were just bodies with damned souls. He dropped his face in his hands, understanding how foolish he’d been.

Rachel wasn’t coming back to him. She was gone, and this shape sitting next to him was only flesh and bone. Only a memory.

He looked up and watched Herric perched over the edge of the platform, obviously reveling in his sick little game. Rion wondered where all of this had come from. Clearly, it was the magic of the virulence, and for the first time since he’d discovered Herric’s journals, he didn’t crave this power. He saw the edges of it blurred with tainted smoke. It felt wrong and like poison. Like something rotten dug from a rancid pit.

Suddenly, everything Herric had seemed like ash in Rion’s fingers. What did the lord have but this place of death and darkness, ruling over a kingdom of barren souls? If Rion continued using the virulence, would this also become his fate? Maybe he deserved this place, though.

His gaze moved back to the sprawling arena below. Nadir and the girl were running through the canyon while a stampede of massive antlered creatures chased them. He watched as they wove through obstacles checking in on one another.

Nadir stumbled, and immediately the girl slowed down to wait as he recovered. They kept running, shouting to one another, working together. Believing together.

Rion shook his head .

All those months ago, he’d sent Nadir to look for the girl, and then Nadir had hidden her. His son had pretended he couldn’t find her and then brought her to Rion’s Keep. He’d been convinced it was part of Nadir’s plan to steal his crown, but now he wasn’t sure about anything anymore.

What had happened to bring about this . . . relationship?

Rion had killed her parents, and yet she still loved Nadir. That much was obvious, even to him.

Why did Rion care at all?

But something stirred in his chest as he watched her.

She was strong. That he had already known. She’d fought him when she was only a child. She’d resisted the violence of his torture and clung to her magic, surviving things that would have broken most grown men. She had been only a slip of a girl, a child with nothing left to her name, yet she’d held on.

She’d survived Atlas’s Trials, and then his son had fallen in love with her. Rion saw the change in Nadir. He appeared . . . softer, but not in a weak way, rather in a way that only made him stronger. It reminded Rion of the way he’d once felt about Rachel and how he’d always felt towards the woman he remembered.

His gaze returned to her as he finally accepted that he’d never get her back. While this might be her physical body, she had died, and this place had nothing to do with reality.

Herric watched the girl and Nadir with a fevered light in his eyes, and that’s when Rion realized how lonely the Lord of the Underworld must have been for all these years. He was of sound mind—for all intents and purposes a living man—but he’d been surrounded by only death and these vacant corpses for so long.

Rion’s hand gripped the railing as he watched his son weave in and out, constantly checking in on the girl.

Lor.

A simple name. A strong name.

He didn’t understand why he always refused to use it, but maybe a small, buried part of him felt shame for what he’d done. Maybe in his quest for power, he’d lost sight of everything. He’d never been a good man. He knew that. He’d never pretended to be anything but the black-hearted villain he was.

But something about Lor and Nadir cracked a tiny fissure in his chest.

His gaze slid to Rachel once again, and for the first time in centuries, he saw everything he’d lost. Instead of a life with a woman he loved, he’d chosen the hollow emptiness of his power. And then, when he’d made that decision, he’d regretted it. Instead of acknowledging that he’d made his own bed, he made his mistake everyone else’s fault. Meora. Nadir. Amya.

What a monster he’d been.

Maybe if he’d tried, Rion could have found a version of happiness. Maybe if he’d looked beyond himself and his selfish desires, he could have been the partner and father his family had deserved. It had taken three hundred years, but finally, he recognized what he had done.

Watching Lor and Nadir together, he saw the love they felt for one another and that she had chosen to put herself in danger for him. She loved him enough to agree to this test, and she was doing everything she could to keep him alive.

She was noble. She was nothing like her grandmother had been, and if someone like that could love his son with such reckless abandon, then maybe Rion was the one who’d been wrong from the very beginning.

The strangest thing happened then. He wanted to cry. He wanted to say sorry to Nadir, Amya, and Meora for all the hurt he’d caused. He wanted to take it all back. He wanted to start again in that throne room all those years ago, when fate had bound him to his son and his partner, and chart a different path.

His gaze fell on Herric, who continued to watch while Nadir covered Lor’s body as they tumbled together, seeking safety in a small cave carved into the side of the mountain.

“It’s a shame,” Herric mused, drawing Rion’s attention.

“What?”

Herric smirked and leaned in. “Your son. He gave up his crown for her. What will happen to your legacy now?”

Rion blinked, once again recalling the tale Cloris shared with him. Two Primaries could never bond unless one of them gave up their position. His son had made the choice Rion hadn’t been brave enough to face. Would Amya succeed him?

As he watched them comfort one another, Rion realized his son had been so much smarter than he could have ever hoped to be. That maybe none of this had been about taking his crown after all.

A moment later, Lor and Nadir fell through the back of the cave. The stadium blinked out, the entire dome darkening before they suddenly found themselves inside a cavern hewn from the center of the mountain, everything lit with a soft glow.

Rion could make out the edges of the space and the animated faces of the crowd.

A bright light flared, illuminating Lor and Nadir balanced on a tiny cliff at the edge.

They blinked in confusion, staring at their surroundings.

Herric spread his arms wide with a grin on his face, and Rion . . . noted the ark tucked into the Lord of the Underworld’s belt before he turned to look at his son, silently rooting for him to win for the very first time.