Chapter 10
DEATH
Three months later
“We have already looked there, sire.”
“Well then why isn’t it marked off the fucking list?!” I throw the red marker at the raven that perches on the edge of the table.
“Perhaps because I do not have hands, sire?”
My fingers tangle in my hair as I grip it in frustration. “Perhaps I should remove the feathers I gave you, Corvus. Would you like to go back to being a skeleton?”
The bird hops from the table and returns a moment later with the marker in his beak. Corvus strikes 7924 from the list, crossing off the second-to-last realm before flying to my shoulder.
“You can remove my feathers, but it won’t change the fact that we have searched every realm.”
Fuck.
The raven is right—infuriating, but right nonetheless. I check the pocket watch for the tenth time in five minutes. The last Reaper should have been here by now. If she doesn’t have the missing god blade, months of searching will all be for nothing.
“Why do you need this blade, Your Majesty? Isn’t there already one in the god realm?”
My teeth grind against one another, every muscle in my jaw flexing as I bite back my anger. “I understand that you are a bird and therefore your brain is very small, but do you honestly think Nobus would willingly hand over the only weapon capable of killing him?”
“Maybe Arcasia could smuggle it to our queen?”
I swat at the raven, shooing him from my shoulder as I turn my attention to the sky above. A month ago, the sight of these stars or mention of her would have sent me into a fit of rage, but it’s desperation that takes hold of me now.
Every time I close my eyes, I see her—her face, her glowing golden eyes, the constellation of freckles across her cheekbones.
And every time I open them, I see her again—her stars, her suns, the hint of shimmer that runs along the veins in my forearm now.
She is impossibly interwoven into the fabric of my realm and into the very essence of who I am.
If I had known that bringing her here, that feeding her magic like that would lead to her writhing in my lap, breathless in my bed, and embedded into my heart…well, I would have done it a long time ago. What use is pretending that I would have made a different decision?
I know my sentence and I have paid my penance a million-fold. I knew I couldn’t keep her, knew that the magic that chains me here and demands my silence would take her away from me, but I did it anyway.
From the moment Taura told me Selene’s future, I knew this was my only chance to have her. One day with her was worth the disdain she’ll harbor towards me for the rest of her existence.
And in order to have that existence, I need to find the missing god blade.
This weapon is my only chance to save her from a fate worse than mine. I nearly scoff at the irony. The weapons designed by Creation to kill their powerful children have now become the only thing that can save them.
Two identical daggers were forged in the fires of life, their handles made of ivory bone. The gods of Flesh and Blood, the first of Creation’s divine children, were each gifted a blade. Gods may be injured, their flesh torn and their blood spilled, but they will not die unless a god blade is used.
The magic of Death is the only exception to that rule.
The Goddess of Blood was afraid that the children she tortured would turn on her, so my mother hid her blade.
Little good it did her, though. She was the first god I slayed, and her death frightened the God of Flesh so much that he gifted his blade to his eldest son and tasked him with traversing the realms to kill me.
But Nobus has always been a selfish god—and he wasted no time burying the blade in his father’s heart and stealing his throne instead.
With the ability to kill any god I choose, I’ve had no desire to find the missing dagger.
Not until now. My condition of eternal servitude to the Under Realm deems that I cannot interfere in this rebellion.
If Selene has any chance of slaying Nobus or saving the child god, she has to have my mother’s blade.
Thunder claps behind me and I turn to face the Reaper now standing in my study. “Tell me you fucking have it.”
“I fucking have it,” the black-clad warrior says, pride tugging up the corners of her full lips as she pulls a bundle from her pack.
Obsidian fabric covers the steel, but the sight of the exposed ivory handle sets my heart racing.
“Well done, Amaya.” I nod to the Reaper as I take it from her hands. “Where did you find it?”
“It was in some warlord’s trove. I nearly got godsdamned crushed trying to retrieve it. Have you been to 1407, Your Majesty? They have insanely fast horseless carriages and flying death bugs.”
“Bullets,” Corvus corrects. “They’re called bullets. The king finds the quality of mortals in 1407 especially interesting.”
“Their penchant for evil is truly unmatched and I do love a people who grant me endless offerings.”
My eyes are glued to the shining steel of the god blade as I unwrap it. Eons of age and a few millennia in a hellscape realm haven’t dulled it a single bit.
It’s here. It’s really fucking here.
After months of searching every realm in existence, the one and only weapon that can give Selene a fighting chance is finally in my grasp.
“Amaya,” I say without tearing my eyes from the blade. “You’ve earned your rest. Go fetch Osrus. I need him to deliver this for me.”
The Reaper nods and exits my study without a word. Corvus soars to my shoulder, incessantly tapping his talons in an effort to get my attention.
“What?” I finally ask.
“You don’t have to send Osrus. Your time is up, Your Majesty.”
The raven is the only being who knows the extent of my sentence to the Under Realm, the only creature who can speak the words I am forbidden from saying.
Not that anyone would believe me anyway. A king, bound and gagged, forever cursed to serve a realm he supposedly rules— any sane person would laugh at the joke.
But it isn’t a farce. For every one day I spend elsewhere, I am imprisoned in the Under Realm for one month.
And if I was to try to circumvent that rule, I would cease to exist, crumbling into dust and blowing away in the wind.
My immortality is tied to the confines of the dark void I call home.
My eternal penance for being born with the power of death to a savage goddess.
“I think our queen is worth it, don’t you?”
I don’t waste my precious time responding to Corvus’ question. It was rhetorical anyway. He’s seen me these past three months—three whole fucking months since I kicked her out of my bed and shattered the fragile bond I insisted we make. I’ve been even more sullen and shuttered than usual.
Looking into his beady black eyes, I can tell the raven knows the lengths I would go to for Selene, maybe even more so than I do.
I shove the wrapped blade into my jacket pocket and, in a flurry of darkness, I reopen the blood connection between us and call to the shadows to lead me to my light.
A mist covers the gardens of Nobus’ palace, tinged purple by the light of the two suns that shine beyond the mountains. Of all the thousands of the realms in existence, I should have known she’d be here.
Her blood pulls me toward her, like an invisible rope tied around my sternum. I follow it through the hedges and down the river stone paths as if my very life depends on reaching her.
And maybe it does.
“Have you come for me at last, Dark God?”
The voice startles me, my feet stopping so fast that my immortal grace is the only thing that prevents me from falling over. I turn toward the voice, to the goddess sitting on the stone bench holding a sleeping child.
“No,” I reply. “I am not here for you, Arcasia.”
“For Calaedon, then? Has his father finally decided to do it?”
The Goddess of Protection’s face is hard, no hint of sorrow or worry, only resignation gracing her features. In her mind, it’s a matter of time before Nobus takes the life of her son. She doesn’t know that the soul of the young Prince of the Gods isn’t on my list.
The toddler stirs in his mother’s arms. Arcasia drops her gaze, brushing tendrils of onyx hair from his face. Silver eyes pop open at her touch and I watch her mask slip slightly. If I was here for the boy, she would beg me to take her too.
The place where my cold, shriveled heart should be aches.
This child is so small, yet already so powerful. He’s not just covered in magic, but also in love. The love of a mother who would give up eternal life to never be separated from him, and the love of gods who joined a rebellion at the sight of his eyes alone.
I saw it that night, the ripple of realization across the faces of the gods who hadn’t yet agreed to join Mikais’ rebellion.
Across the face of the goddess I’m actually here to see.
An entire section of the pantheon plots against the man who would kill this prince simply for the crime of being born.
It’s a crime and a punishment I know all too well.
The image of the Goddess of Blood flashes in my mind’s eye.
War clings to her leg, standing amongst her flowing skirts while my mother holds the lifeless carcass of a raven in her hands.
“That was my offering, you careless child! How dare you steal from me!”
She drops the bird and strikes me again across the face, my blood joining the bird’s on her fingers.
“Every drop of blood spilled is mine. The power of life and death belongs to me. ME! Not you. Never you.”
“Your Majesty, it’s time to go now.” The voice of a servant rips me from my memory. “Your allotted time is up.”
Arcasia clears her throat as she rises, her gray eyes locking onto mine in a final, desperate plea to take them both.
I can’t tell her what I know—that the child won’t die but will grow up under someone else’s care, that the Goddess of Light will steal him away with the dawn—but I can grant her one sliver of hope for now.
“Not today, goddess.”