He crossed his arms, staring out into the gray sky. “It’s a more complicated story than you’ve probably heard. But yes, I was undoubtedly Gaya’s villain.”
She didn’t ask him to elaborate. But she did give him one arched brow, similar to the expression he turned on her when he wanted an explanation.
Solmir took the hint. He pulled in his knees, rested his forearms on them. Making himself smaller, almost subconsciously, before starting the tale that she’d heard so many times before.
“Gaya and I had been betrothed since we were children. I didn’t ever imagine a life that didn’t have us together. I assumed she didn’t, either.” A rueful noise. “I was wrong.
“She used to sneak out,” he continued. “Pretend at being common. Valchior didn’t really mind—he didn’t give much thought to his family, anyway, and Tiernan, as his oldest daughter, was his heir. Valleyda wasn’t strictly matrilineal then, but the oldest child inherited, regardless of sex or gender.” He picked at his thumbnail; nerves always sat strangely on Solmir, built for arrogance and cold. “That’s where Gaya met Ciaran, out in one of the villages. And I didn’t know anything was happening between them until they ran off to the Wilderwood, after we’d created the Shadowlands.” A pause. “It was my fault, I think. Assuming she was happy in the role she’d been given. Assuming she didn’t want more.”
Neve shrugged but didn’t refute him. He was right. “Were you angry, when she fell for Ciaran?”
“I wasn’t thrilled,” he said, “but I wasn’t the scorned, furious wretch I’m sure the story paints me to be. I wanted Gaya happy. And if that was with Ciaran, I would make myself fine with it. My anger was reserved for the Wilderwood. For trapping her.”
“Is that why you wanted to kill Eammon?” His name still felt strange on her tongue, this monster her sister loved. “Because he… he is the Wilderwood?”
“Eammon needed to die for my plan to work,” he said simply. “The fact that he’s the Wilderwood—that he’s Gaya’s child—has no bearing on it.”
But there was enough of an edge in his voice to make that explanation too simple. Neve narrowed her eyes. “But you’d feel guilty. If it had worked, you would feel guilty.”
She expected him to scoff at that, but Solmir only went on picking at a thumbnail. “Maybe,” he said finally. “But I have so much to feel guilty for already. What’s one thing more?”
“I don’t believe you really think that.”
“Don’t try to dupe yourself into believing I’m remorseful, Neverah.” He snapped out her name, rising to stand, looming over her and blocking out gray light. “All of this is means to an end. Remember that. It will go better for you if you do.”
Neve stood, too, glaring up at him. “Don’t mistake understanding for forgiveness.”
“As you say, Shadow Queen.”
They stood there, the air tension-thick between them. She was the one to break, to turn away. He wasn’t worth her anger. He kept trying to tell her that.
Neve turned to look out over the emptiness of the Shadowlands, over the remains of the gods they stood on, searching for a subject change. “There must’ve been a great many Old Ones, to make a whole mountain range from their bones.”
“Not really.” Solmir seemed as grateful to change the course of the conversation as she was. “This is the remains of three, I think, plus some of their lesser beasts. The Wolf, the Rat, the Hawk. They all had territories near here.”
Three Old Ones, making false mountains that would put the Alperan Range to shame. Neve tried to imagine the sheer size of them, but it made an ache begin in her temples. “So they didn’t get pulled to the Kings’ Sanctum to die?”
He shook his head. “These three died early,” he said. “When the Kings could still leave the Sanctum, before they mired themselves in so much power they were stuck there. They stabbed these Old Ones for their power and left their bones here after they absorbed it. The Oracle took up residence soon after.” A feral smile twisted his mouth. “And I made sure it couldn’t leave.”
“Why didn’t you kill it then?”
“Believe it or not, god-killing is only something I’ve taken up recently. Each Old One that dies makes this world a little more unstable.”
“Then why were the Kings doing it?”
“Because they want out,” Solmir said, turning away from the horizon and toward the mounds of bones beyond. “When the Shadowlands are gone, their souls are free. The Kings welcome the Shadowlands’ dissolving.”
We welcome it. Valchior’s voice, whispering in the dark.
To Neve’s right, stark against the gray sky, something jutted out from the side of one of the bone-peaks. Its dimensions made it difficult at first for her to realize it was another skull, as large as the Valleydan palace. The Hawk, apparently. It looked vaguely avian, with a short beak thrust out and pointed down toward the ground, like the Old One was screaming across the cracked landscape.
With a shudder, Neve turned to follow Solmir farther into the mountain made of corpses.
Chapter Fifteen
Neve
After scaling one smaller bone-shard rise behind them—Neve was afraid the pieces might slip, but they held fast—a small cave appeared, the path to it marked by another mound of fused-together bones. The cave was a dark pit, stark against the ivory.
Solmir stopped on the curve of a giant pelvis, gestured toward the cave’s mouth. “Welcome to the Kingdom of the Oracle.”
“Some kingdom,” Neve muttered, balancing on an oddly shaped leg joint thrusting out of the mountain.
“Cold and small and barren, just like yours.”
She made a rude gesture at his back.
It was a steep climb up splintered bones to reach the cave entrance. At the top of the rise, Solmir turned, offered a hand to pull her up. He tugged too hard when she accepted, and Neve crashed into his chest.
His skin was chilled where it pressed against hers, his hair feathered across her cheek, smelling of pine. The scars on his brow were deep punctures, ragged edges with angry welts in the centers. They’d be deep crimson, if there was color here, but in the Shadowlands they were only charcoal. There were six marks, deepest on either temple, the size gradually decreasing to be smallest in the center of his forehead.
“What are they from?” Neve asked quietly, eyes fixed on the scars.
“Some crowns are hard to take off,” he answered. Then he stepped away from her, putting distance between them.
Neve stood there a moment, fists closed tight at her sides. Something like guilt churned in her stomach, something like shame. She’d told him that understanding wasn’t forgiveness, and that was true. But Neve was starting to feel like forgiveness might be something she wanted to give him, and what kind of traitor did that make her?