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Death and curses and misfortune.

Lana sat in stunned silence, staring straight ahead and knotting her fingers in her lap. She was an innocent amongst monsters. Monsters with no moral compass.

I pitied her. But that wasn’t what was carving up my insides.

I had let her into my heart somewhere along the way, and I knew she’d let me into hers. I could see it in her eyes every time she looked at me.

I lusted after her, too. It didn’t hurt to admit these things. Not anymore. But this was bigger than that, bigger than me, bigger than her.

And I was no less a monster than the demons that had massacred the town we just left.

She was an innocent pawn in this game.

And sometimes, pawns had to be sacrificed for the bigger game plan.

I chewed the inside of my cheek, wishing I could forgive her people’s sins like Lana could forgive mine. But I couldn’t. They had killed a part of me when they killed my family. A part of my soul.

And that village...

The need for revenge burned through my blood like acid.

I looked over at Lana, pressure stinging my sinuses. I wanted so badly to let her save me, to let her change my mind, to let her replace my broken heart with hers.

But it was too late.

The idea had already sunk its claws into my brain.

It was simple.

Genocidal, but simple.

She would have to be induced to open her blood connection, either through coercion or trickery. A lethal toxin, injected into her heart, would then spread from her, down her connection, into the blood of the thousand remaining Infernari.

Every last demon would fall.

Paralyzed, unable to wield magic, their bodies would rot from the inside out.

Allwould die.

This was no longer about the portal. I could no longer hope to pull off a full-frontal attack against one this heavily defended, not without an arsenal, not without the element of surprise.

Nor would I try.

Attacking the portal would be the decoy, the feint, the misdirection.

An all-or-nothing crapshoot.

If I succeeded, the Infernari would go extinct.

Including Lana.

The nausea I’d felt at the sight of so many dead bodies resurfaced at the thought of innocent Lana dead.

Killed by my own hand.

“What are you thinking about?” Lana whispered.

I shook my head, jaw clenched.