The silver ring in his earlobe glinted as he shook his head, lip lifted in half a sneer. “And here I thought you’d be jumping at the chance to get rid of me.”
She stalked across the floor like she might slap him, fingers flattening in readiness. But to touch him would be to unleash something, her skin on his an ember sparking flame, and it scared her enough to stay her hand. Instead, she stood over him, teeth clenched, every muscle in her body held tense and tight.
It was a moment primed for something—her standing like an avenging god, him kneeling like a penitent to her wrath. But neither one of them took whatever volatile thing the moment offered. It would only make this harder.
“You’re an asshole.” Weak words, too brittle to hold up everything Neve needed to say.
He opened his eyes, reflecting firelight. “I’m far worse than that.”
Holding back from him was too hard. She was too tired for it. So Neve sat next to him, head tilted against the bones the same way his was.
“Your eyes are still brown.”
She turned to look at him, brows knit.
Solmir shrugged. “All that magic you’re carrying—all that power—and your eyes are still brown. Your soul is still intact.” He paused. “That means something, Neve. It means you’re good enough to carry it all.”
Too close to Valchior’s words. Neve pressed her chapped lips together. “I’m not,” she murmured. “I’m not, Solmir.”
“Tell me why you think that.”
He sounded almost angry. Neve snorted, mind spinning out spades of things she could tell him, a curated list of sins. But she narrowed it down to one word.
“Arick,” Neve breathed.
That name snagged in her thoughts, a burr she couldn’t pick out. The man next to her—the once-King, the fallen god, the villain of the piece—had caused the death of one of her best friends. And still she sat here and tried to think of ways to save him. Still she knew the distance between their bodies down to the inch.
Solmir’s eyes slid her way, lit with confusion. “What about him?”
Shadows damn her, he was going to make her say it. Neve pulled up her knees and rested her bent arms on them, muffling her mouth. “Even if Red held the knife, you were the cause of his death. And I’m still here, trying to save you.”
He didn’t move, didn’t speak for a moment. When he did, it was quiet. “Isn’t that the mark of goodness? Wanting to help people who don’t deserve it?” A pause. “Compassion for the monsters?”
She wished she could think of it in stark, black-and-white terms. Being able to point to herself as bad would be easier than this muddled gray area, not knowing if justice was wanting to save a man who didn’t deserve it or seeking revenge for an unrighteous death. Heroes and villains and the spaces between, a prism that changed reflections depending on the angle you turned it.
If she was truly good, maybe she could hold all the Kings’ souls without being taken over. Control their power, keep them contained. If she was truly bad, all of this was a lost cause anyway.
But Neve was somewhere between. Somewhere human. And it carried no certainty.
“I don’t know,” she said, closing her eyes. “I don’t know.”
After a moment, he put his hand on the ground between them, palm up. Neve slid her fingers between his. Magic buzzed where their skin met, but she didn’t let it go, and he didn’t let it in. No decisions had been made, not yet.
A low rumble, rattling the walls of their rib-and-rock cage. The tiny bones on the floor jumped and skittered.
“Neve,” Solmir murmured as the last of the shuddering faded, “let it be me.”
Her grip on his hand was white-knuckled. “Can you take it?”
They both knew what she meant, what lurked around the edges. Could he take in all the souls of the Kings without losing himself to them? Without becoming something terrible, something in their control, and making all of this for nothing?
Solmir’s fingers twitched in hers. “I can try,” he said finally. “For you, I can try.”
For her.
It should be a relief. But Neve’s throat ached. “You think I can be part of your death so easily?”
Silence. Then Solmir swore, long and harsh. He dropped her hand and stood, pacing away, scrubbing a hand through all that long hair. Blood streaked at his temple, turned it dark.
“I’d hoped it would be hard for you.” He turned, teeth bared, his eyes a cold blue glitter. “Damn me, Neverah, I hoped it wouldn’t be easy, and that, more than anything else I’ve done, means I’m absolutely the villain here. I deserve to be the vessel, and I deserve for you to kill me.”
She said nothing. There was nothing to say. Neve just sat there, knees clasped to her chest, heart a gaping maw.
Then she stood with a curse almost as impressive as his had been, reaching for him. He grabbed her arm, the sleeve of his coat a barrier between their skin, like he knew what she was thinking. “You’re not giving the power to me, Neverah, don’t you even think of it.”
“I’m not, you bastard.” It was a burning thing to admit, and it came out almost like a snarl. “Not every kiss has to be about magic.”
And his mouth was open with surprise when Neve’s crashed into it.
It was nowhere near gentle, nowhere near soft, this collision that felt as ordained as stars on the same path, combining into a sun or a burnt-out void. It was need, ravenous, distilled want that knew this was the only moment it would have.
His surprise lasted only a moment. “Damn me,” he muttered against her mouth, then his hands were in her hair, tugging her as close as he could.
She dragged her teeth against his lips, tasted copper; he growled deep in his throat and pressed closer, until her back collided with the rib bones that made the wall, his knee between her legs, running hot lightning to her core.
Solmir tasted like cold. Neve wasn’t sure how that was possible, but he tasted like cold, like the space between winter pine trees. It was fresh air; she wanted to gulp it down. One of his hands gripped the jut of her hip, raked her up his thigh so their chests pressed together; the other shoved his coat off her shoulders. He bared his teeth as he did it, even through their rough kiss, his hands rising to tangle in her hair and tilt back her head, mouth on her neck, tongue on her collarbone. Everything between them was sharp angles, even this.
Clothes were easy to discard, tattered and bloodied as they were. Solmir kicked away bones before he laid her back, lips on throat, clavicle, lower. Quick and desperate as this was, his arm beneath her head was gentle, muscle tensed to make her comfortable.
He broke away long enough to look up at her, blue eyes on brown in a gray void. The signs of souls. Neve had nothing to pray to, but she sent out an anguished hope anyway that he’d be strong enough to keep his right until the end. An end she still couldn’t think about.
“I love you.” Solmir said it like it made him angry, like he was throwing down a gauntlet, harsh against her throat. “Don’t you dare say it back.”
So she didn’t.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Red