“That has to mean something,” Raffe murmured.
“I think so.” The Wilderwood in Red expanded, new leaves unfurling, flowers opening wide. “I think she’s—”
She cut off with a yelp, the warmth of the key flaring suddenly to a bonfire-burn. Red dropped it, stumbling backward into Eammon, holding her hand to her chest.
The snow melted where the key dropped, hissing as it fell through the drifts, finally coming to rest on the earth.
Then an explosion threw all of them back in a burst of blinding light, as a white-and-gold trunk burst from the ground and reached glowing branches toward the sky.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Neve
The stone floor inside the dead god’s rib cage could never be called comfortable, but cushioned by Solmir and his tattered coat, it was perfectly fine. The languid aftereffects of a sated body lulled Neve into a deeper rest than she’d felt in years, for once free of massive white trees and in-between places. Just sleep, dark and silent.
But when she woke, she still knew exactly where she was, none of that fading in and out of consciousness that usually accompanied deep sleep. Bones creaked above her head; the gray embers spat in the fire pit. Solmir pressed close to her back, chest still bare, his tattooed arm twisted over her waist and the other under her head. He held it at an odd angle; his wrist was still encircled by a manacle, the long chain still tethering him to the stone floor.
She reached out and threaded her fingers with his, black-veined against his pale gray.
Valchior would be returning soon, more than likely. She couldn’t find the energy to care. They’d come to a decision, she and Solmir, but Neve didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want to look it in the eye until she absolutely had to.
First Red, then Arick and Isla, then Raffe when she entered the shadows, and now him. Neve was always losing someone.
Gooseflesh prickled over her skin, only warm where she pressed against Solmir. He breathed low and even in her ear, but she knew he wasn’t asleep any more than she was. Every time he moved, she smelled cold pines. Thorns pressed through Neve’s wrist, through the knuckles of her fingers. Lightly, he brushed a thumb over them. “Jagged thing,” he murmured against her neck.
She turned, not speaking, hid in the hollow of his shoulder. He pulled her closer, face buried in her bloody and rock-dusted hair.
Before, they’d been rough, all sharp edges and desperation, but now things between them seemed to have settled into softness. It scared her a little. Softness was easy to wound.
“Are you…” He breathed the words against her ear, clearly as unable to find the right emotion as she was.
She kissed his jaw. Let that be an answer for a question neither of them knew how to ask.
The thrum of Solmir’s heartbeat under her cheek had almost lulled her back to sleep when he spoke again. “When you go home and they ask what happened with you and me,” he murmured into her hair, “don’t feel like you have to tell them.”
Her thorn-wreathed hands curled, digging into his skin. No need to define they. Red, her Wolf, and Raffe. “What if I want to?”
His arms tightened. “You don’t have to explain yourself,” he said. “You don’t have to absolve me.”
They lay in silence, wrapped up in each other, the only anchors either of them could find. The branch-shard key, still tangled in Neve’s hair at the back of her neck, pulsed cold against her nape, raising gooseflesh. Distantly, she wondered how long they’d been here. Time moved strangely, with no sun and no moon and no real need for food or sleep.
However much time it’d been, she wished for more of it.
Solmir nudged her up, grabbed her tattered nightgown off the floor. He shook it out before pulling it over her head, brushing loose rock and bone from its length, the chain on his arm clicking delicately over the floor. Then his coat, settling over her shoulders. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of wood.
The night sky carving.
“It’s as done as it’s going to be,” he said, holding it out to her. “If you still want it.”
Neve stretched out her hand. Let him drop it in her palm. Her fingers curled around it like a promise.
“I’ll be the one to do it,” she said, hand still hanging in the air between them. “When we… when we get to the surface. Not Red or Eammon.”
“You kill your own monsters.” A rueful smile picked up the corner of Solmir’s mouth.
She dropped the carving into her coat pocket. And when she wound her fingers in his hair and pulled him back to her, he didn’t protest.
They were still kissing, slow and languid and not leading to anything else, when she heard the chuckle.
There was no illusionary King to watch them, since Neve wasn’t there for Valchior to lay his hand on her forehead and spin a lie of the man he used to be. But apparently the Kings could still see them, even without that. Their awareness seeped into every bone of their Sanctum.
“Don’t worry, Shadow Queen.” The voice reverberated in the floor, in her ears. “We didn’t watch.”
Solmir snarled, fingers arching like claws. “Fuck you,” he whispered hoarsely into empty air.
The chuckles intensified.
Neve lay her hand on Solmir’s cheek, turned his wide, scared eyes to hers. She was beyond shame now. Who cared if monsters knew she was a dark thing made all of want? “I know you told me not to say it,” she began.
“Don’t,” he murmured, and kissed her instead, swallowing the confession.
They turned to the opening in the rib cage together, the arch of bones that served as an entrance. The long chain on Solmir’s wrist snapped off, fell in a cloud of dust. The Kings, releasing him with a thought.
Hand in hand, Neve and Solmir wound their way through the bones, pulled back to the center of the Sanctum like planets on the curve of their orbit.
The Kings sat on their thrones. The Dragon’s skull glared down from the apex of the ceiling, immense mouth eternally open in an endless, silent scream. Neve strode to the center of their circle with her jaw firm and her eyes narrowed, graceful, regal. Her hand trembled in Solmir’s, but she didn’t let the fear show on her face.
Solmir’s expression was a mask to cover terror. A sneer, blue eyes cutting, lips twisted like he wanted to rip each stone effigy limb from limb.
“Well.” It took Neve a moment to place the voice—Malchrosite, the most reserved of the four. “Did you have time to say goodbye?”
“Oh, she did.” Byriand tittered, a strange sound in these voices of shale and stone. “She said a thorough goodbye.”
Valchior said nothing. The King faced her, rock-still, face shrouded by gauze and stone fingers steepled. Waiting.
Damn him. He wasn’t going to ask. He was going to make them say it.
“I’m through running,” Solmir said, low and seething. “I’ll be your damn vessel. But you have to let her go.”