He said it quick and harsh, almost like he thought it could hide that look on his face, the way his hand kept twitching toward her and falling.
Neve swallowed. She knew how to keep calm when receiving terrible news, knew how to remain poised even in the worst circumstances. So she tilted her chin and steeled her spine and hoped that was enough to hide the burn in her eyes. Foolish. She was so foolish, to have thought he…
She didn’t let herself finish that. “And what changed your plan, once-King?”
The use of the term from her hit home. Solmir flinched, just slightly, just enough for her to see it. “What changed my mind,” he said, “is that I realized I couldn’t kill you. Not even to save the fucking world.”
Neither one of them moved. Neither one of them spoke. They only stood there, the confession thrown between them like a gauntlet.
At the front of the cavern, the Leviathan clapped its hands. “Well,” it said, “that does make things interesting.”
Solmir turned away from her, the movement heavy, like something weighed him to the spot. “Happy?” he spat at the Old One. “Is this why you brought us here?”
“No,” the Leviathan answered, its tone nearly giddy. “Just an added bonus.”
“Then why?”
“Curiosity.” The Leviathan tapped one bony finger against its jaw. “I felt the Heart Tree open. I felt someone enter. But then I felt them come back out.”
There was something calculating in its tone, something that told Neve the god didn’t speak the whole truth, only a piece of it. But maybe that was just how gods talked.
“Odd, that a quest to find the Heart Tree would be successful, only to fail right after,” the Leviathan continued. Its fingers twitched. Around Neve and Solmir’s feet, a ring of coral began, slowly, to grow. “Odd, that someone would enter the nexus between worlds, their only way home, and then decide to stay.”
The coral grew faster now, nearly to Neve’s knees. She tried to step over it; a thread of seaweed wound from between the stones and tangled around her foot, holding her in place. When she stumbled, Solmir grabbed her arm, and she shook it off. She couldn’t take him touching her, not right now.
“The two of you fascinate me,” the Leviathan mused as the coral grew taller, now at Solmir’s neck. “The once-King and the Shadow Queen, tied together and yet separate, trying to bring things back into balance when you’re both so riddled in darkness. The Shadow Queen, especially. You chose the mantle; now I want to see how you’ll wear it.”
“By keeping me here?” Panic clogged her throat, the tiny prison the coral built making her breath come too fast, like her lungs couldn’t find enough air.
“For a time,” the Leviathan replied. She couldn’t see it anymore; the coral blocked everything but a circle of light above Solmir’s head. “Besides, it seems like you two have things to discuss. Enjoy the privacy.”
Then the circle of light closed, the coral prison complete, and they were plunged into total darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Neve
It reminded her of the Serpent’s cairn, a solid dark that pressed against her skin, that robbed her of all her senses, even deeper than the black water when the Leviathan brought them under.
“Dammit.” Solmir, snarling right next to her ear, the close quarters of their prison pressing them shoulder to shoulder. “Shit.”
The pound of something against stone—his fist, whistling past her cheek. He was so close that she caught his arm on her first try, stopping him from slamming a punch into the wall again.
“Solmir.” His name a command as she caught his hand, his fingers slicked with blood against her own. Without sight, her sense of smell was heightened, the pine of him and the salt of the sea undercut with thick copper. Her other palm reached out to touch the wall. Jagged coral, bloodstained. She was glad she couldn’t see the mess he’d undoubtedly made of his hand.
Stiffness, then he sagged, the motion of it felt rather than seen. “We’re trapped,” he said unnecessarily.
“Can we kill it?” Maybe it should alarm her that killing was now her first idea, but Neve didn’t care to think about that right now. “When we get out of here, if we get the chance—”
“No.” Solmir cut her off, firm. “If the Leviathan dies, the Shadowlands will be completely destabilized.”
The wall was too rough to slide down—Neve sat gingerly, keeping only a breath away from Solmir’s legs as she did so, the shape of him guiding her in the dark. When she met seashell-pocked floor, she leaned her head back against the jagged coral. “What is it going to do?”
“Fuck if I know.” His sigh was so heavy it stirred her hair. “Not kill us, we know that much. And it won’t hurt you.”
“What about you?” It shouldn’t kick up her heartbeat, the thought of the Old One hurting Solmir. Not after everything she’d just learned, everything still swimming in the space between them. And yet.
“The Leviathan has never been what I’d call a friend.” Dry, but with an undercurrent of apprehension. “And you’re the interesting one, Shadow Queen.”
There was a question in it, harkening back to what the Leviathan said—that she’d chosen the mantle, chosen to stay. But that discussion could wait.
First, Neve had a score to settle.
No tears—they burned in her eyes, but she wouldn’t let them fall, even if he couldn’t see. “You were going to sacrifice me.” She couldn’t keep the waver from her voice—Neve wanted to be a thing beyond hurting, but he softened all her armor. “Up until a minute before the Heart Tree opened, you were going to let me be a vessel for the Kings. You bastard.” Her voice fully broke then, and she pulled in a deep, shaky breath. “How could you do that?”
“I didn’t.” Barely a whisper, rough and hoarse. “I didn’t do it, Neve. I couldn’t.”
“You want another medal?” Neve wiped at her streaming eyes, her nose. “One for keeping your soul, one for deciding at the last minute not to kill me?”
“We both know I don’t deserve any medals.” Solmir moved to sit beside her, the salt dried on his skin rasping against the sleeve of Neve’s coat. His coat. A sudden urge filled her to rip it off, but she didn’t.
“There’s one thing we can agree on.” She swiped at her eyes with the back of her wrist, streaking his blood across her cheekbone. “I trusted you, Solmir.”
The emphasis on the past tense was intentional. Neve let it hang in the heavy air.
“I know,” Solmir murmured. Paused, and the next question came soft and low as a prayer. “Is it something I can earn back?”
She clamped her lip between her teeth, pulled her knees up to her chest. Yes welled in her throat like a river dammed back, that loneliness tugging at her again, reminding her that he was the only thing in this whole underworld even close to human. He’d intended to betray her, even if he’d changed his mind. Even if he’d kissed her to pass on the magic that would save her, even if that kiss felt real.
I couldn’t kill you, not even to save the fucking world.