“When Amarantha made me kill those two faeries, if the third hadn't been Tamlin, I would have put the dagger in my own heart at the end.'

Rhys went still.

'I knew there was no coming back from what I'd done,' I said, wondering if the blue flame in the Carver's eyes might burn my ruined soul to ash. 'And once I broke their curse, once I knew I'd saved them, I just wanted enough time to turn that dagger on myself. I only decided I wanted to live when she killed me, and I knew I had not finished whatever... whatever it was I'd been born to do.'

I dared a glance at Rhys, and there was something like devastation on his beautiful face. It was gone in a blink.”