Chapter 39 Midnight #2
Claudia leaps back out of his grasp. Back pressed to the stone wall, her hand snaps up to her neck. There are two new teeth marks next to the bite marks Sidarphion left. She swallows a gag.
“Did you—” She shivers, fingers tightening around her own neck. His mouth has been here. His tongue has licked here. His teeth have marked her here. “Did you bite my soul, too?” She pushes down the bile burning in her throat.
“I have no use for that. I only needed to be sure that your soul was truly bound to Sidarphion.” The torch’s glow hangs on to his bared teeth. “And what a big bite of you he took. Far more than he took from Odette.” He inhales deeply through his nose. “I could taste him in you.”
“You did this with Odette, too?”
“Of course I did. I once thought she was my only hope for killing the god, but her soul had left her body by the time I found her.”
Claudia’s heart sinks, landing like a rock in the pit of her stomach. Odette really is dead. Nothing more than a ghost. So, who else brought the diary into Claudia’s room? Who locked her in the detention room with Cassius? Who slid that note under the door?
“You’re better, though,” Triche murmurs. “So much of your soul lives inside him. If you die, part of him dies as well. And when your soul is poisoned, he will be poisoned, too.”
“Poison,” she whispers, remembering how Triche called her that when he caught her with Cassius in the observatory.
She was so naive. Why was Triche there that night?
Why did he even come to the Astrologia wing?
It’s so obvious now. He’s the strongest celestial witch of them all. The one who killed all the others.
The one who caged a god.
“I think you’re the poison, Triche. You could’ve approached ascension honorably, but you knew you were too weak to earn godhood. Your only chance is to steal it.”
He holds his hand over his heart. “You think I did not try other ways? I was once a young student here, same as you. I know just as well as you do how hard it is to survive this place. Here, scholarship is akin to suffering. It is merciless and it is cruel. Back then, it nearly killed me, but I refused to give up. I was determined to become the sixth god of Cygnus. Relentless in my work ethic, I read constantly. I coined new theories. I published award-winning papers, and I worked my way to becoming valedictorian. So don’t you dare accuse my desires of being unearned.
I am owed, Claudia. I won a blessing that Sidarphion refused to grant, and it is finally time to collect the debt that he has wrought. ”
“You cannot ask for ascension as your blessing. That is law. You’re not entitled to godhood just because you surpassed your classmates.”
“All I wanted was a chance to ascend,” he defends.
“Not ascension itself. I didn’t want to be handed anything, so I asked for a series of trials that could prove my worthiness.
Sidarphion refused. That’s the moment I knew he was not worthy of his place in Cygnus’s pantheon, and he needed to be punished.
By rejecting my blessing, he broke the rules, so I broke them, too. ”
Her mouth goes dry. “How? How did you trap a god?”
“He did it to himself,” he snaps. “I didn’t create the trap.
I didn’t curse the stars of Dracoemagyl.
He did. All I did was bind him to the constellation, for I knew it was the only one he could not burn out.
He had tied it to the MacLeods’ bloodline, and he could not undo it.
He could not escape. Sidarphion fell victim to his own power and became a prisoner in a cage of his design.
The stars fell out of balance, and I watched the nightmares drown him in sleep.
” He smiles, then sighs while his stare drifts and his eyes turn glassy.
“At the time, I did not have any intentions of killing him. But after many failed attempts at ascension, I realized I had no other choice. I simply had to wait for the right person to wake him.” He blinks, sharpening his gaze.
When their eyes lock, he says, “I must thank you, Claudia, for turning your soul into the weapon for which I have waited an entire century.”
“No one has to die for this. You can let Sidarphion go. Unbind him from the stars. That’s all Lamour was going to do. Free him and we all survive.”
“What do you think he’ll do once he’s free? I will be his first target. It’s his death or mine.”
Claudia’s fists tighten around the metal bars. “If you don’t think you could defeat him, what makes you think you’re strong enough to take his place?”
His nostrils flare. “I already have defeated him, and you should be thankful. You want me as a god, for I will never let any harm befall Cassius. I will offer him divine protection. Sidarphion, though, will kill him the very second he gets the chance. If you truly love Cassius, you will do the only thing in your power to protect him: You will die, and you will take Sidarphion with you.”
“You’re lying to yourself. You’re not protecting anyone. You’re getting revenge on Sidarphion and you’re using Cassius’s curse as an excuse.”
“There is a great difference between poor excuses and righteous revenge. Cassius and I deserve godhood more than any of them, and if any gods attempt to keep us from our destiny, I will kill them.”
“If you do that, you’ll destroy the place you love the most.”
“You think I love Cygnus?” He scoffs. “I hate it. I want to reform it entirely, and if I can’t, I will turn it to ash and dust.”
“I won’t let you. You can’t poison my soul.”
Head tilted, he barks out a laugh. “I already did.”
She freezes. Cold grows over her body. She shakes her head as Triche nods.
“Yes, you’re dying right now. Can’t you feel it? Do you taste death freezing over your tongue? Do you feel your soul rotting away?”
Pressed to the wall, the sharp stones digging into her wounds, Claudia finally realizes what they are: constellations.
She reaches back, tracing the cuts on her spine. Crater, Virgo: To Make a Perfect Poison. Fear needles through her veins, burning at her fingertips.
No, not fear—death. Death is growing like a babe inside her, feeding off her life until it can rip through her body. How can she stop this? Is it already too late?
“Cassius will never forgive you. He loves me. He’d rather bear his curse than lose me.”
“Perhaps that would be true if you had not killed Lamour.”
“You killed Lamour,” she growls, holding back tears.
“That’s not what the rest of the school believes. You were my perfect cover. You will go down in history as the girl who began and ended her time at Cygnus in blood, and Cassius will be free to pursue godhood with no distraction. He will be just like me.”
“No.” Claudia leans against the wall. With painful force, she shreds the skin on her back against the stones, praying that the spell will stop if she tears it from her body. Every move is agony, but it’s all she can do.
“Fighting it will only make it worse. You can only prolong the pain. You cannot outlive it.”
Her chest heaves. A minute passes where they both stand perfectly still. There is no sound save for her laborious breathing and the soft crackle of the torch.
Triche gives her a sympathetic smile. “I am not a monster, Claudia. I am a god, and I am as benevolent as my circumstances allow. I do not want you to suffer in death, and you do not have to. You can simply let yourself drift, and it will all be over.”
Weakly, she steps away from the wall, leaving behind a silhouette of blood. She glances over her shoulder, and it looks as though her back has been flogged and beaten.
And the spell is still there. Glowing, burning, poisoning, killing.
“I don’t want to die,” she murmurs.
“You were going to die for your bargain anyway. I have made your death useful. This way, it’s coupled with vengeance.
You will die, yes, but in doing so, you will slay Sidarphion.
The liar. The nightmare. The devil who took a bite of your soul and made you into a murderer.
Don’t you want to bring him down at any cost?
There is honor in that. You should be proud. ”
“Proud?” She charges toward the bars, slinging her fist through a wide slit, landing a blow to Triche’s aquiline nose.
It crunches. Her hand comes away hot with his blood.
He stumbles back, dropping his torch and throwing light into the dark corridor.
There are arched doors there that look like the entrance to the white detention room.
She’s somewhere in the basement of Cygnus.
Triche gathers himself and picks up his torch. The light dances in the fresh blood dripping down his face. In an instant, he reaches through the bars and takes her by the throat, squeezing hard.
“See? You like vengeance more than you’re willing to admit. Enjoy it, Starling. Together, we are destroying the god of stars and nightmares. We are killing the god who stole our fates from us.” He tosses her neck out of his grip.
She coughs and spits and heaves. “I don’t want to be a killer.”
“You already are. I saw your every sin when I tasted your soul. This is your punishment. Take it with dignity.”
He turns to leave but looks back. There’s a softness in his eyes.
“If it means anything to you, he tried to save you.”
“Cassius?”
Triche blinks. “No.”
She freezes. “Sidarphion.”
“He begged. The god of stars and nightmares got on his knees and begged for me to let you go.” He leans in and laughs.
“But trust me, it’s not you. He needs you to live in order to save himself.
You are not special. You’re a pawn, and I have no choice but to trade you for godhood.
You are the final key in my quest to abandon my mortality and conquer the self. ”
“That’s what you think you’re doing?”
He nods. “A human body is a tomb in which the soul rots. The body is plagued with vices, disturbed by mortal desire. But I have mastered my passions. I am ascending mortality in its entirety.”
“You are a fool and a master of nothing. You are a slave to your own appetite. A prisoner within yourself.”
“Says the dying girl who’s locked in a cage.” He laughs. “Goodbye, Claudia.”
He leaves her there to rest, and to rot.