Everlife (Everlife #3)

“What do you think happened to the ring?” I smile a cruel smile. “Shamus removed it, along with my daggers and the garrote wire that was hidden in my leather wrist cuffs. Leaving me armed would have made him a fool.” I ignore the question about my accent. No need to tell her about my lower birth, or how my speech patterns are proof that I spent most of my childhood inside a Myriadian orphanage, nothing but a drain on society.

Her lush red lips purse. “Right now you remind me of the boy I first met. I bet you even trust the lies Myriad has fed you, right?” She doesn’t wait for my response. “Once again, you believe Fusion is legit.”

Once again? Try always. “I do. It is.”

She smirks. “I’m about to prove spirits that experience Second-death never return to the Land of the Harvest.”

I roll my eyes. “Let me guess. The vote everyone is talking about. Someone has come back to life. Hate to burst your smug little bubble, baby, but just because Troikans enter into the Rest doesn’t mean Myriadians do the same.”

Her head falls back, and she pushes a heavy breath at the ceiling, as if praying for patience. Facing me, she says, “Forget the Light and shadow thing. Our people are the same. And stop calling me baby.”

“You’re right. We are the same. Baby.” I motion to my cage with a wave of my hand. “Troikans praise love and forgiveness, and yet they keep prisons inside their homes. How very Myriadian.”

Up goes her chin. “We have rules. When those rules are broken, measures must be taken. Punish the guilty, protect the innocent.”

I arch a brow. “Are you protecting innocents now? I mean, you plan to free me.” Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up. Am I trying to stop her? But I can’t halt my next flood of vitriol. “Why are you really here? You claimed you love me not, and told me not to trust you.”

Shame tightens her exquisite features, and I experience a jolt of regret. What is wrong with me? I never regret. But…

I want to see her smile.

I don’t know her, not really, but between one blink and the next I remember she has three different types of smiles. The one reserved for her friends, genuine and open, rare; a cold facsimile for those who have pricked her temper; and the special one for me alone that is soft and plaintive, inviting me to taste.

That one. I want to see it now. I feel as if my life depends on it, something searing my chest, branding, burning, just like before. This time, there’s no denying the truth. The culprit is absolute, utter yearning.

I want to see that smile because… My reasons do not matter! I want only what I need.

Want nothing, need nothing. I gnash my teeth.

“I couldn’t let the Generals know how much you mean to me,” she says softly. “They were trying to use my feelings for you against me. As for the poem…my Killian would have known there are two sides to every story, and the order could be reversed.”

Her Killian. As if I belong to her. Or rather, the old me. A version I’m suddenly not sure I want to be ever again. “You’re lying. No way the order can—”

“I love you,” she interjects, starting with the last line of her poem. She’s flipping the order, I realize. “Never, ever believe that I love you not. Listen. Hear me now. We will get through this. You must know sweet lies flow from my lips when I say, I will let you go, without hesitation. I admit, you are my everything. And today, tomorrow, forever, I will put you first. I’m lying when I say, you cannot trust me.”

My throat tightens, and my lungs constrict. This girl isn’t like others. Not even close. She’s not like anyone I’ve ever known.

How am I supposed to deal with her?

She kicks into motion and stops at the door to my cage. I haven’t moved from my perch in back. The part of me that I no longer understand longs to stand up, close the distance and sift her fall of azure hair between my fingers. The other part of me comprehends the absolute ridiculousness of such a desire. What good will contact do?

As she fiddles with the lock for a bit, learning it, I can see the wheels in her head turning. She thinks she can find a way to bypass Shamus’s blood and fingerprint.

A sharp pang lances my chest. How is she even more beautiful than before—even a second before? It’s maddening. But it doesn’t matter. My comm is functional, and I’ve already made contact with my Leader. My mission is clear: get Tenley Lockwood inside Myriad.

What the Powers That Be have planned for her, I don’t yet know. Don’t really care. Yeah, yeah. I know whatever befalls her will befall me as well, but I don’t care about that, either. There’s no fighting Fate. If I die, I die. My spirit will Fuse with a human, and I will be reborn.

Maybe this time I’ll live past infancy and actually experience Firstlife. Maybe I’ll Fuse with a Leader or even a General, and better my station.

Once, the Prince of Ravens believed I was Fused with a General. But as weeks passed, I failed to control the darkness in myself, as well as others. I let him down. I let everyone down.

Victors are adored, failures abhorred.

Maybe, if I have a better station, someone will be obligated to care about me. Perhaps my new mother. Out with the old, in with the new. I’ll finally have a family of my own. Not that I want a family that is obligated to care for me. No, I’d rather have what so many others take for granted: unconditional acceptance.

An impossible dream most likely. We are what we are, whatever our form. Still, hope can be stronger than reality.

Tenley grips the bars of my cage, her knuckles quickly leaching of color. “I wasn’t going to ask but I can’t help myself. No, that’s not true. We can always help ourselves. We simply choose not to. So. I’m asking because a part of me is desperate to know. Have you remembered anything about me yet?”

Yet. She considers a successful reboot of my brain inevitable. I wish I had her confidence. I need the return of my memories, even if I don’t want to be the boy I once was. I need to know why I did what I did, exactly, what I had planned—surely I had something planned—and what I deemed as my endgame. Myriad’s salvation…or my own?

Myriad’s, surely. How many times have I tried to impress my Secondking? I’ve pushed myself hard, won more spirits than most, but I’m still one among millions. A simple cog in the wheels.

A part of me would like to impress Tenley instead. What would it take?

In the past five minutes alone, she’s proven to be honest and raw, refusing to wallow in self-delusions about her motives while accepting the consequences of her words and actions. She’s flawed…human, and yet everything others should strive to be.

Ambrosine isn’t human or flawed. He is power. When he glides into a room, carried on a cloud of darkness, spirits drop to their knees unbidden, no longer able to stand. Shadows continually rise from him, his constant companions. One look into his eyes—deep, fathomless pools—and you are forever entranced.

“I haven’t remembered anything about you, no,” I tell her, knowing she’ll see through a lie. I lower my voice, letting it become a husky rasp once again. A voice meant to seduce. The ridiculous thing? Every part of me is on board, longing for her capitulation for reasons that have nothing to do with war. The only thing I have to force is my accentless speech. “But I’m determined to remember everything.”

I’m given that cold facsimile of a smile. “You can be such a jerk sometimes.”

Well, that certainly isn’t the reaction I expected. “How am I being a jerk right now?” Especially when I pretended to be nice.

Pretense is never the answer.

I grind my teeth.

“You think I don’t know you, but you are so wrong.” She crouches, pulls a dagger from a sheath anchored to her waist and stabs the edge of the lock. “Before our bond, you looked at me like I was a meal and you were ravenous. Right now you’re looking at me like I’m an experiment and you’re hoping to take home first prize at the science fair. It hurts, Killian.”

My darker side: Play on those hurts. Win her to your side—use her.

My new lighter side: Ease her. Help her. She is your ally.

The two sides of me war, shadows dancing with my synapses, sending bolts of pain through my temples, Light fighting back, marching forward to cover more ground.