My most loyal guard, my baby brother, the man I loved—I was going to lose them all. They were going to die right here in front of my eyes. All because I was too damn late. A rift cracked through the center of my soul. It split me open with the same explosive destruction as my falling blood when it fractured the heartstone. I no longer feared the cold, heartless monster Ophiucae had become—I welcomed it. I would embrace it with hateful glee. I would devour the world whole for all that they had taken from me. I would become a thing of vengeance and spite, I would—
