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I stole a glance at Jax, and the serious look on his face told me he might be thinking the same thing.

“Actually,” Aliya said, releasing my arm. “Would you like to meet him?”

Jax and I both turned our heads at her in confusion.

“There’s something I’d like to show you both.” She slid off the couch and stood to face us. “Come on.”

Jax and I rose and followed her out of the den, curiosity simmering in my chest. What could she possibly mean by “meet him”? Was her mind so far gone that she believed him to be alive somewhere?Washe alive somewhere, trapped in some form of diseased coma?

The list of possibilities was endless, so we said nothing as we followed her through the castle’s front doors and across the courtyard toward the village. Night was falling around us, casting an eerie aura on the empty storefronts and dark houses lining the main road.

Beneath the serenade of chirping crickets, I could almost hear the ghosts of those who once lived here, the echoes of laughing children, the whispers of pedestrians long gone. Though there wasn’t a soul in sight, I could feel a thousand pairs of eyes on me, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

They were watching us, judging us... condemning us.

“Aliya, where are we going?” I asked as we neared the end of the main road.

“When people first started dying from the plague, we would bury them in the valley just outside the village,” she explained, pointing to the treeless plain that opened beyond the last row of houses. “We didn’t know at first how horribly contagious the disease was, and it was always our custom to bury the dead.”

We passed the final house, and I could see a grid of modest stones and wooden posts revealing themselves among the tall grass and wildflowers.

“It wasn’t until the bodies started piling up that we began burning them instead,” she continued, leading us into the overgrown cemetery that seemed all but forgotten. “It got to a point that we’d light funeral pyres every night. So many lives went un-memorialized.”

Our steps pushed through the grass, and I took great care not to trip over any of the markers. Though Varinya had long been our enemy, I took no pleasure in knowing all its people were dead. We wouldn’t have killed them if we’d found it well-populated. Only the royals and those who opposed us.

Aliya would’ve been one of them, of course, so that didn’t make me feel much better.

“When my parents died, I didn’t want that to happen to them,” she said. “They were some of the last to go and seeing as I was apparently immune to the disease, I insisted they had proper burials.”

We came to the end of the graveyard, where two large piles of stones stood above the rest. The tops were draped in woven garlands of dried flowers.

“They deserved to be laid to rest with the people they loved so dearly,” she said, stopping in front of them and bowing her head at each.

“You buried them yourself?” Jax asked, his tone breathy with astonishment.

She nodded. “It took me two days to dig the holes deep enough, and another day to drag them here and fill in the dirt.”

I shook my head. “You poor, sweet girl.”

She wiped a tear from under her eye, the liquid glistening on the back of her hand in the moonlight. “I just couldn’t stand the thought of burning them. And I wanted to have a place where I could visit them. Every few weeks, I fashion new flower garlands and bring them out here to replace the dead ones.”

Jax stepped forward and knelt in front of them. “Your Royal Highnesses, it’s an honor to meet you at last. I only wish it could have been under different circumstances.”

I followed his lead, kneeling beside him in front of the graves of the monarchs we’d come here to kill. The guilt was overwhelming, crushing me like the memorial stones that marked their final resting place.

“You may be gone,” I said. “But your legacy lives on in your daughter. She’s an incredible person, and I think you’d be proud of the woman she’s become.”

“I know you can’t answer, but we’d like to formally ask for your daughter’s hand,” Jax said, and my throat constricted painfully. “Against all odds, we’ve mated to her. Fate works in mysterious ways... But we promise you that we will love, cherish and honor her until our dying breath. We will do our best to live up to the expectations you would have had for her husband.”

I smiled tightly, because I felt those words with just as much conviction with which he spoke them. I couldn’t put it off anymore. I had to tell her the truth.

I rose to my feet, squeezing my eyes against the refusal that pursed my lips. “Aliya, there’s something we have to tell you.”

I turned around and opened my eyes.

“Aliya?”

She was nowhere in sight.