But she had looked into my eyes and asked me if she would be safe if she left. If years of love and companionship had earned her that right.
I said, “You’re welcome to leave whenever you want. Arrogant of you to assume I’d care enough to go after you.”
Much of that conversation has become a blur, cruelties blending into cruelties. But I remember every word of that answer.
Here, in the face of the magic she created for me, I cannot lie anymore. And it was, indeed, a lie. A childish one.
Here, I cannot lie to myself.
She’s gone. She is not coming back.
And even if I found her, I wouldn’t be able to kill her.
The weakness in this confession to myself astounds me. Embarrasses me. I hate myself for it.
And yet, I know I would hate myself more, standing over her dead body. I think of another dark-eyed woman, a former queen who had been kind to me when I hadn’t deserved it, who I had not spared, and feel a little pang of regret.
What I felt for Alana was—is—so much greater than what I once felt for a kind enemy I barely knew. My body physically recoils at the thought of what the wound of her death might feel like.
I force myself back to my feet. My hands are so badly cut that the blood overflows the carvings. I got some of it on my face, stinging my eye.
I raise my gaze to the thing of beauty before me. This fortress, designed to hold a greater power than any king, Nightborn or otherwise, had ever wielded before me.
And yet I concern myself with some human woman?
I force my shame and my hurt away to a dark place in the corner of my mind, never to be acknowledged again.
Let her go, I tell myself.
She isn’t worth anything, I tell myself.
I pull my hand away.
I felt sick. I didn’t even come back to awareness this time until the wall was already down, and I had fallen to the floor with it. I was on my hands and knees on the stone, retching. I’d eaten very little today. Nothing had come up but a few spatters of putrid liquid.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and raised my head.
Now the only thing that stood before me was the column. Column—no, that wasn’t a strong enough word for it. An obelisk. The carvings on this one were, I could see now, a little different than those in the rest of the cave, even if I couldn’t fully articulate how—the strokes a little messier, the circles a little more crooked. The Nightfire had dimmed—or did I imagine that the room was darker now? The angry red glow of the carvings seemed more aggressive with each of my heartbeats, matching them in cadence.
My father’s memories—hurt, anger, fear—burned in my veins. The terrifying dual-blade of his love and his disgust for my mother. I hated feeling it.
I hated him for feeling it.
I stared at that obelisk. I blinked and a tear rolled down my cheek.
I didn’t want to.
The memories, the emotions, had only grown more intense as I moved to the center of the room. I was losing my grip on myself. This, I feared, might break me. Worse, it might break whatever fragile image I still had of the father that I’d loved—the father that had loved me.
What a fucking coward it made me, to still treasure that, after everything.
But I came here for a reason. There was only one place to go next. One remaining piece of the lock.
I stood, swaying on my feet. Stepped into the final circle.
I didn’t need to open the gash again. My hand was already covered in blood.
I laid it against the stone.
70
RAIHN
My wings wouldn’t work. I couldn’t slow myself, stop myself, before the ground rose up to hit me.
Pain. I tried to move. Something cracked.
I couldn’t make my eyes open. When I tried, a face I hadn’t seen in a very, very long time leaned over me.
My brow furrowed.
Nessanyn?
She looked just as she had two hundred years ago, curly dark hair falling around her face as she leaned down next to me. Her eyes, chestnut-dark and a million miles deep, stared hard into me, wet with tears.
Who wins? she asked, voice cracking. Who wins, if you fight him?
She’d said it to me so many times, back then. Countless times, dragging me back from the line every time I thought I would cross it.
I’d always thought that Nessanyn was so much stronger than I was.
But now, in this version of her, it seemed so obvious that she was just terrified. She was a lonely and abused woman who was a prisoner in her own marriage.
She didn’t fight because she was too afraid. Because it took a stupid kind of courage to keep fighting even when you knew every odd was stacked against you.
I reached out and touched her chin. She grabbed my hand and held it there, a tear rolling down her cheek.
Who wins? she said again.
Maybe not me, I replied. But worth a try, right?
She tried to hold onto my hand, but I pulled it away.
I opened my eyes.
Above me, carnage unfolded in the skies. Spatters of blood from warriors locked in battle hundreds of feet above dripped onto the rocks like black rain. A drop of it struck my cheek.
It was a nightmare. The kind of sight that, I knew in this moment, would wake me in a cold sweat ten years from now. If I was lucky enough to make it that far.
I tried to push myself up. A spasm of agony took my breath away.
Ix’s fucking tits. My body was broken. Absolutely broken. I’d pushed it too far these last few weeks. Whatever Simon had just done to me had nudged it over the edge.
I’d died before. I knew what it felt like to stand on the precipice of the end.
Not yet.
I lifted my head. Another drop of blood from above struck my forehead, rolling down into my right eye, tinting the world black-red. Through it, I took in the ruins around me. I’d landed on a rock, smashing up my right side. My wings were still out, though I could tell right away that the right one was now useless. That arm, too, refused to cooperate when I reached for my sword. I grabbed the hilt with the left one instead, every muscle protesting the weight.
I lifted my head.
There, through the ruins, Simon staggered to his feet. The front of his leathers was smeared with blood. One of his wings was askew in all the wrong places, sticky black blood matting the feathers. The—thing on his chest pulsed brighter now, bright enough that it surged through the night and illuminated the harsh panes of his face from below.
He swayed back and forth, clutching his head, letting out a chilling roar that sounded like it belonged to an animal.
Then he straightened, and his eyes fell on me.
I dug my sword into the ground and used it to force myself upright.
Sun fucking take me.
My knees almost buckled. Almost.
I didn’t show it. I just smiled. Didn’t realize how much blood was in my mouth until the expression made it dribble down my chin.
I was eternally conscious of the door behind me—the door that Simon’s gaze fixed on, before returning to me.
No, he wasn’t getting past me.
I’d spent long enough letting him into my thoughts, my fears. I’d given him too damned much already.
This was where it ended. Whatever it cost.