It had changed—partially, at least. Made itself something easier to comprehend, something that didn’t tear at the border of her brain to contemplate. Before them, a figure on a throne, beautiful in the way a shark was beautiful, all paleness and sharp edges. Its black, flat eyes watched them with something like curiosity, though the emotion wasn’t quite so human as that. Like an animal trying to feign interest, imitating things it didn’t really understand or care about. The flesh, though pale, looked leathery, like it had been embalmed.
The Leviathan’s lover, she realized in a rush, remembering what the Seamstress had said about how the Old One had made the corpse into a puppet. The knowledge made the creature on the driftwood throne even more awful to look at.
Though it was still better than looking directly at the massive being behind it—the thing she’d seen peering into the castle, the thing that had spoken with the terrible voice. Vaguely sharklike, but large enough that Neve could still see only pieces of it at a time, flickering in and out of view like something hidden behind a gauzy curtain.
She was thankful for that.
The entire cavern was bathed in a pale glow that made both shapes hazy, and if she focused on the man-figure, the monster behind it faded to nearly nothing but occasional flashes, shadow and light seen from fathoms below the surface.
Strings of seaweed, leached of color like everything else here, wound around the man-figure’s ankles and wrists and neck, snaking backward into the haze. The leash by which the vast, sharklike thing manipulated the marionette it had made of its former penitent.
Neve fought down a shudder.
The stone of the cavern was damp; barnacles clung here and there, shells scattered, holding tiny pools in shining upturned centers. Spikes of glittering rock thrust up from floor and ceiling, still speckled with waterdrops. Neve glanced behind her—the back wall of the cavern was open, and beyond was the black ocean, glassy and endless. The water stopped right at the cavern’s lip, held back by some invisible force.
She thought of drowning, swallowing cold water. The Leviathan could snap its hold so easily, let all that immense sea come rushing in on them.
Next to her, Solmir pushed up on shaky legs. He didn’t look at her, blue eyes fixed on the man-monster-god, but when he held out his hand, she took it, let him pull her to standing beside him.
“Welcome.” Still that reverberating, terrible voice, but softened somehow. Forced through a throat that had once been human, and thus made easier for her mind to comprehend. “So pleased to have the pleasure of your company.”
“You didn’t exactly extend an invitation we could refuse,” Solmir said drily.
Strings of seaweed tipped the corpse-puppet’s head back, unhinged its jaw. Laugher rolled out, a slithering tone that hurt Neve’s ears. “Come now, once-King, you didn’t think you could sail through my kingdom without my knowing? I may be diminished, but not so much as that.” The thing rose from its seat, fluid as a current despite its seaweed articulation. “I assumed you knew I would call on you.”
“You know what they say about assuming.”
“Manners, manners.” The Leviathan’s tone was distracted, its shark-black eyes fixed on Neve rather than Solmir. With a subtle twitch of his shoulder, Solmir put himself between the two of them, chin tipped up, wet hair dripping down his back.
The Leviathan smiled, showing razor rows of teeth. “Step before her all you want, boy,” it said quietly, “but you can’t hide that kind of magic.”
And for the first time since he’d given it to her, before she stepped into the Heart Tree, Neve truly looked at what magic had made her.
Before, it had only darkened the veins at her wrists, her neck, places where skin was thin and the nexus of blood showed through. But now, as she pushed up the sleeves of Solmir’s coat, her arms were dark-laced all the way to her elbows. And when she shrugged the coat off her shoulder, all the veins there were black, too, coalescing in a knot of shadow right over her heart. Thorns made vambraces around her forearms, studded the jut of her collarbone.
She looked up at Solmir and saw the reflection of her own eyes in his. Black, the whites swallowed, with only a slight hint of brown at her irises. Her soul, still in there.
She thought of how Solmir’s eyes had flickered in those moments when he took in so much magic, like his soul wanted to sink into it, become part of it. Neve didn’t feel anything like that, didn’t feel anything that might be a sinking soul, and she didn’t know what that meant.
“You held all this?” she whispered. “But you didn’t look… I didn’t…”
A swallow worked down his throat. “I’m rather accustomed to holding shadow, Neverah.”
Another chuckle from the Leviathan, standing before its driftwood throne. “And this isn’t even the power of a god. You’ve only killed two, correct? The Serpent, the Oracle? And you had to use that up to get to the Heart Tree. So this is just all that magic from the lesser beasts you’ve slaughtered along the way.” It shook its head, bones clicking. “It appears you had a practical reason for holding it all, once-King, if she changes so with such a small amount of power.” Black eyes narrowed, and the seaweed tendrils attached to either side of its mouth pulled rubbery lips into a sinister, too-wide smile. “More than one practical reason, I mean.”
Solmir’s jaw clenched beneath his beard.
“You had a change of heart.” The Leviathan’s bony hand rose to rest over where its heart should be. “Or should I say a change of soul?”
Neve’s brows drew together. “What is it talking about?”
“Yes, Solmir.” The Leviathan steepled its fingers, smiling again. Behind it, the flash of a massive dark eye, there and then gone. “What am I talking about?”
Silence in the cavern, other than the drip of salt water from the ceiling.
Solmir’s eyes closed. He pulled in a breath. He shifted forward in front of Neve, so no part of him touched any part of her.
“I changed my mind about sacrificing you,” he said finally.
For a moment, Neve stood motionless, thoughtless, as much a marionette as the corpse before the throne. When she found her voice, it wasn’t articulate, wasn’t anything but wounded. “What?”
He’d tensed as if he expected her fist, but the broken sound of her question seemed to wound him more. Solmir kept his eyes closed, reached up to rub at the puckered scars on his brow. “The easiest way to bring the Kings to the surface is with a vessel,” he murmured, like he didn’t want the Leviathan to hear, like he wanted this confession to be between them alone. “Something to hold their souls and take them to a place where they can be killed. And magic and souls… you know how that goes. It’s hard to carry both.”
“But you did. I am, currently.”
“Hard, not impossible.” He dropped his hand, finally looked at her. His expression… she’d seen Solmir look pained, but this was different. His eyes were almost beseeching, a shine in them that spoke of deep aches unable to be hidden, no matter how he wanted to. “I was going to let them use you as a vessel. When the Heart Tree opened and they were drawn to it, the one of us with no magic would’ve been the easiest for them to take.”