“I won’t merge with it.”
“You’ve already been doing so in my arena. Surely you’ve sensed it helping you? It lends you power to kill, and your killing makes it stronger. With it comes perfect bliss.”
His words reminded me of the dream, the dark thing telling me that we would merge when my heart was black.
“But the Minax is already part of you,” I said.
He shook his head slightly. “It advises me, lends me the power of the throne, eases my worry. Yes, by virtue of my crown, I share some of its power. But I can’t merge with it completely, not the way you can. Once you and the Minax are one, we’ll create a perfect rule over a perfect kingdom. No rebellion could withstand our combined power. No country will be able to defy my rule. And with it inside you, we won’t be restricted to the castle. We can go anywhere, and its power will come with us.”
Now I understood why the king had forced me into the arena. He could manipulate me so easily, forcing me to kill or be killed, every time opening cracks in my soul to let in more darkness. What would I become if I let him shape me into the creature he seemed so intent, even excited, to create? Like Eurus creating his shadows, there was no thought of right or wrong, only pleasure in the act of creation, of having control over another being.
I tried to pull away, but it felt as though I were caught in amber. His hand came up and caressed my throat. Revolted pleasure surged through me.
A great shadow rose from the throne, its shoulders pointed and two great horns growing from its head. The Minax looked more solid than it had in the arena, the same shape, only gaining bulk and dimension, as if it were becoming more corporeal as I watched.
A tendril morphed into a black hand that reached out and stroked the tip of my finger, sending tingling darkness up my arm and over my chest. Grief was sucked away and replaced with heady power. It was draining all the painful feelings from me, replacing them with a blank, empty kind of joy. I wanted to throw myself into that embrace. I wanted to forget everything and welcome oblivion.
It took a few seconds to realize that my heat had come back to me. The Minax had given me my fire.
The chiming voice of my dream whispered in my mind. “Let us be one. Together we will be free.”
I suddenly had an overpowering urge to use my heat on the throne, to melt every last bit of ice until only a puddle remained in its place.
To set the Minax free.
Before I could react, Rasmus’s lips came back to mine, harder, more insistent. My mind scrabbled to take hold of something stable, something that would ground me in this storm of confusion. A jolt of memory tore through me, another set of lips, cold but ardent, moving against mine. For a second, it was Arcus kissing me. I felt his cheeks under my palms, the silky strands of his hair at my fingertips. I saw his lips descending to mine. Other images came thick and fast: his profile in the dark, the waver in his voice when he’d told me he didn’t want to let me go, his conviction that I was strong.
As hope and longing swelled inside me, the dark thing quivered and retreated. It was poised, though, ready to come back to me. I took advantage of its retreat, shoving the king with all my strength and running to the main doors, pounding on them with both fists.
I heard a laugh. I didn’t know whether it was the king or the shadow hovering over the throne.
At the king’s command, the guards opened the doors, took my arms, and led me back to my room.
I sat on my bed, my arms wrapped around myself. The king had seen the darkness inside me, and I couldn’t deny it was there. I had welcomed it, and him, not just letting him kiss me, but returning his kisses. I closed my eyes against a surge of shame. Much as I wanted to deny it, I had enjoyed it, almost as much as I’d enjoyed killing in his arena. And now the Minax was speaking to me, telling me we would merge, that we would be one. I could no longer dismiss my earlier vision as a dream. The thing was becoming more powerful, more solid, the longer I stayed here, the more I killed.
Hands over my face, I rocked back and forth. What had I become?
Even now, I longed for that darkness, for its sinuous caress, like Brother Gamut’s tea that eased all pain, only a thousand times stronger. I ached for the obliteration of worry and pain, even as the implications of what I would become repulsed me.
I hated the king. Hated him to the depths of my spirit. And yet he’d woken something in me: a thirst for mindless power I couldn’t control.