Chapter 33 Sidarphion
SIDARPHION
Fate yields only to sacrifice.
Sidarphion, God of Stars and Nightmares
Claudia barges out of her room and runs full speed through the halls toward the chapel.
She shoulders the door and strangles the handle with her grip, but it’s locked.
It doesn’t budge. Rage-filled, she slams herself into the door over and over, giving it a final, flat-palmed slap before collapsing against it.
“FUCK,” she cries, out of breath. She groans in frustration, tugging her hair by the root.
The back of her hand scrapes against the sharp part of her earring, and she gasps.
She rips it from her ear so hard it bleeds.
Jamming the needle into her thumb, she widens the wound until a thick river of blood pours down her hand.
With expertise she did not know she had, she dots Pyxis, Reticulum upon the lock: To Unlock and Open.
The lock glows green.
There’s a click, a creak, a groan, and the door opens.
She charges inside, straight toward the black candle. When she touches it, it burns as though she’s stuck her hand into a furnace, but she doesn’t let go. She presses her thumb onto the wick, squeezing her wound until the celestial magic in her blood catches fire.
The candle pulses once. Twice.
“DORIAN SHIP,” she screams. “SIDARPHION. ANSWER ME.”
At first, there is silence.
And then, there is nothing but white-hot, blinding pain. It’s coming from her chest. From the claw mark that has just barely healed.
Magic rips through her body and reopens the wounds between her breasts.
She screams while hot blood pours down her chest, her stomach, her legs.
In seconds, her entire front is soaked, and the gashes just keep bleeding.
Pouring, pulsing, spurting. She falls back, lightheaded and panicked.
Blood swirls and steams on her skin. Putting pressure on the wound doesn’t help. It seems to make it worse.
Her vision blurs and blackens. She’s fading, falling.
The world dips, spilling out all its warmth and color. The light leaves Claudia’s eyes, and she lies unconscious on the cold floor of the chapel.
A familiar chill breezes over her body.
When she opens her eyes, she’s in the Realm of Nightmares. And Dorian Ship—Sidarphion—is holding her against his chest.
His embrace is a death trap. Will she make it out of this alive? Odette didn’t, and she was his first choice. His favorite. His North Star.
Claudia is second best. Not worth saving. Not worth anything.
She looks into his eyes, and the weight of the realization sets in—this is not a man. He is more than a nightmare. He’s a god. He’s the most powerful creature she can imagine, and despite the fact that he’s tricked her into a fatal bargain, he’s holding her like he wants her to live.
He’s too good a liar. Even his body language is a trick.
Her voice gets caught in her throat. She can hardly breathe. Her bottom lip quivers.
“Now you know who I am,” he says.
“You’re a killer.” She tries to pull herself out of his grip, but she can’t. He won’t let her go.
“Just like you.”
She freezes. Her eye twitches while she lifts her chin.
Reaching up, she softly caresses his face with her hand until he relaxes his grip on her.
She behaves as if she wants this, as if she missed him.
Then, with all her strength, she strikes him across the face hard enough to split his icy skin and knock him to the ground.
Gods, that felt good.
Flat on his back, the god of stars and nightmares is bewildered, breathless, and frozen in shock.
Claudia towers over him with her foot pressed to his chest. He remains perfectly still, save for his chest rapidly rising and falling beneath her foot.
For a whole minute, neither of them moves or speaks.
“When you bit my soul,” she finally growls, breathless, “did you take my blessing?”
His brow furrows. “I granted your blessing. I gave you your greatest desire and brought you to Cygnus.”
Her fists tremble at her sides. Hot tears stream down her face.
“I have cried to you about how badly I wanted to be the valedictorian so I could get the chance to talk to my mother one last time. And you—” She nearly chokes on her rage.
“All this time, you knew you’d already taken away my chance.
And you knew what happened to Odette because you caused it. ”
His face is cold and hard as stone. “Do you want to hurt me?”
She presses all her weight onto his chest. If he were a human, this would split his bone in two.
Her foot would push through him, flattening his heart beneath her heel.
But he’s a god, and she can’t hurt him nearly as much as he can hurt her.
Still, that doesn’t stop her from saying, “I want to kill you.”
His eyes flare with a surge of power. With sudden strength, he slips out from beneath her weight and leaps across the clearing. “Try.”
Stalking around the edge with a predator’s grace, Sidarphion turns this meadow into an arena.
Claudia understands from his smirk: He let her slap him.
He let her bruise his bones with her heel.
She can inflict only as much pain as he allows.
She can’t stop him. Can’t weaken him. Can’t best him.
He’s the one with the power here. He’s the hunter—she’s the prey.
Anger burns everywhere. Her hands tingle with the need to hit something.
She knows he’s stronger than her, but she can’t resist the chance to make him scream.
Her guttural wail makes the trees tremble.
She charges him and slams her fists into his frame, over and over, clawing at his skin so that his cold, black blood builds under her nails.
It’s like fighting a wall of ice, but she doesn’t stop, even as every blow hurts her more than it hurts him.
The skin on her knuckles splits. Bruises bloom almost immediately over her forearms.
Sidarphion doesn’t falter. He stands tall and impossibly strong, absorbing every hit with ease. He smiles. It’s almost as if he likes it. As if he, too, finds pleasure in pain.
“HOW COULD YOU,” she screams as her strength gives way to exhaustion.
“I had to,” he says, unaffected by her violence. “I told Odette the truth of our bargain from the start, and it made her go mad. It made her fail. I wouldn’t let that happen to you.”
She slaps him again. Again. Again. Harder. Faster. “LIAR.” When she raises her hand to slap him once more, he catches her wrist, holding her hand at the level of his eye.
“You would do the same if you were trapped here like me. You’d lie.
” He kisses her fingers. “You’d trick.” He licks the blood from her thumb.
“You’d kill.” He tries to bring her tired, breathless body into an embrace, but when her lips brush against his neck, she strikes again.
She bites him, ripping a piece of soft white flesh from his throat.
His black blood fills her mouth, and the taste of it grants her a high like she’s never felt before.
It’s stronger than his kiss. Better. More powerful. Infinite. Euphoric.
She knows now what it is—what makes a witch, and in turn, what makes a god.
It’s desire. Pure, divine desire.
That’s why his taste does this to her. She can’t stop. She presses her open mouth to the wound and drinks. She licks and sucks and moans.
He laughs. “There you go, Starling. Drink all you want.”
Her head is free from all thoughts, entirely consumed with want. She can’t help but hold him closer, tighter, desperate to keep him in her grasp forever until she’s swallowed every last drop of this power.
With his hand on her jaw, he guides her mouth to his and takes her in a violent, hungry kiss. The taste of desire is still there, but it’s nowhere near as strong as his blood. She pulls back, eyes wide with anger.
“I hate you. Don’t kiss me.”
He reaches up to touch her lips, but she slaps his hand away.
“But I so enjoy your mouth, Claudia.”
Her fingers curl into fists against his chest. She rears back and spits in his face.
He flinches, closing his eyes. With his hand, he wipes away her spit and licks it off his fingers with sensual, languid strokes. “Careful. You don’t want to end up like Odette.”
“How dare you. She needed your help and you killed her.”
“No, our bargain killed her when she failed. But you’re not a failure, are you, Starling? That’s why you’re the one who will free me. You’re better than her.”
She slams her palms into his chest, though it does nothing to push him away. “I will not kill Cassius.”
“Why not?” he asks, head tilted to the side.
“Because I love him.” A short gasp follows, for she can’t believe she just spoke that aloud. She’s never said it before. She didn’t know it was true until right now.
She loves him. She’s in love with him.
Sidarphion’s body tenses. Veins bulge in his neck. “What?”
“I love him,” she cries.
He grabs her by the throat, making her shiver in his grasp. “You think you know what love is?”
“I know I do.”
“You’re wrong. Love is a lie. There is only want and need. You want power. You need me to give it to you.”
She wraps her hands around his wrist and throws his grip off her. “I need him. I need both of us to live.”
“That is not an option.”
“Why? Why do you hate him so much? Why did you stop his ancestor’s ascension and curse his entire bloodline?
“Free me and I’ll tell you.”
“Free you?” She laughs. “You don’t deserve to be free. This is exactly where you belong.” Looking around the realm, she says, “You said you were trapped here because of Sidarphion. Clearly, that was another lie. How did it really happen?”
“I cannot say. There is another force at play. If you know their name, they will know yours. The only way we win is by playing in their blind spots. The more you know of the truth, the more danger you’re in. That’s why I lied. I’m protecting you.”
“Only because I’m your last hope.”