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Misinterpreting her expression, he added, “Don’t worry, I know you can’t do it until you’ve Released everyone he’s Claimed, otherwise they’ll die too, but once they’re liberated…” He shrugged and finished, “He’s free game then, and you can kill him without consequences.”

Alex opened her mouth and closed it. Then she did so again, before finally saying, “I’m not going to kill Aven.”

Niyx’s body stilled, the action so sudden that the bed jerked under them.

“I’ve never said I was going to kill him,” Alex continued, her shock at his presumption making her somewhat breathless. “I don’t—Ican’tkill him. That’s… that’s… Especially now, not after—after—”

After knowing Aven in the past. That’s what Alex couldn’t say, but Niyx heard it all the same.

She watched him swallow, once, twice, before he managed to speak. His voice was hoarse and barely controlled when he whispered, “You said you were going to defeat him.”

“Defeat, yes,” Alex said emphatically. “But kill?” She shook her head. “I’m not a murderer, Niyx.”

“You said you were going todefeathim,” Niyx repeated, much louder this time, his features ravished by emotions Alex couldn’t fully understand. “I’ve given my whole life for this cause, surviving hour by hour only from the knowledge that one day you would end him. And now you’re telling me that was never your intention?”

“Niyx—” she whispered, but he interrupted with a roar that miraculously didn’t wake the now comatose puppy.

“I didn’t rot away in prison for thousands of years just so you could give him a smack on the knuckles and tell him to play nicer in the future!”

“That’s not—”

He leapt to his feet and jabbed a finger down at her. “I stayed there foryou, Alex!”

She winced at the name he’d used, a name he never used.

“I could have escaped at any time—but I stayed because I knew, Iknew, that when the time came, I had to appear loyal to him so that I could helpyou!” His finger jabbed the air again, a sharp, violent motion. “And now—now you want to, what? Tell him to stop being a naughty boy and send him on his way? Stars! I can’tbelievethis!”

“Niyx, that isn’t—”

“Do you haveanyidea what he’s been doing these last few weeks?” Niyx bellowed. He threw his arms out to the side. “Do you haveanyidea what horrors I’ve been keeping from you, just so you’ll sleep soundly at night?”

Alex felt cold all over at the ragged look on his face that accompanied his declaration. She mouthed his name, unable to offer any sound.

“I told you, Aeylia,” Niyx said. “Itoldyou.”

Breathing heavily, he didn’t continue, not until Alex pressed in a whisper, “Told me what?”

His eyes cut to her, like purple flames piercing her flesh. “When you first returned here from the past, I told you that Aven is more powerful than you realise, than any of you couldeverrealise. I told you I’d heard rumours of what he’s done, unspeakable things, monstrous things on his path to becoming who he is. Things no one should ever consider doing.”

Trembling from his intensity, Alex stood up and stepped forward until she was right in front of him.

“Tell me,” she whispered looking up into his eyes.

Niyx’s features hardened. “There isnothingleft of the Aven you once knew. The Aven I once knew. What stands in his place is a shell of a Meyarin, a soulless creature full of darkness.”

“Niyx—”

“He’seatingthem, Aeylia!” Niyx yelled into her face. “He’s cutting out the hearts of the Meyarins he’s Claimed and he’seatingthem. Their strength, the power of their life force, he’s absorbing it all, bite after bite.”

Alex’s stomach lurched violently as she tried to process what Niyx was saying. She didn’t understand—shecouldn’tunderstand. The very idea that Aven was—was—

She couldn’t even finish the thought.Whywould he do something so… so…barbaric? It was one thing to watch a zombie movie and joke about how unrealistic it was. It was another thing entirely to be living the experience. She raised a hand to her mouth, fearing she was going to throw up.

“It’s become an addiction for him,” Niyx said, his tone lowering but no less anguished. “The thousands of years he’s spent Claiming other beings have changed him, transformed him into a power-hungry creature with no care for anything but ultimate supremacy. He will stop at nothing to take dominion over this world, following the vilest of paths in order to do so.”

A harrowing sound left Niyx’s throat, and Alex reached for him but he recoiled from her touch.

“To eat the heart of a Meyarin is an act worse than the murder itself,” Niyx whispered, his eyes filled with unspeakable horror. “The heart is sacred, it is the wellspring of life. Everything we are, everything we have ever been, comes from the heart. And if we can’t go to our final resting place with it still in our bodies, we’ll never find peace. Our eternal slumber will be tormented and cursed by darkness.”