Chapter 38
CAL
An earth-shattering scream pierces the veil between worlds. It echoes throughout Corinth, Synal, and the island nations. It reverberates through the immortal lands of the god realm and ricochets between the dead and the living before settling into the crumbling walls of the Amethyst Palace.
A scream of agony unlike any ever heard by mortal ears. A scream formed in the depths of my soul, ripped from my raw and raspy throat.
I love you. The last words she spoke before sacrificing herself to save us all. To save me.
As quickly as it disappeared, the midday sun rises again, washing the throne room in daylight.
It’s eerily still now. The earth has stopped its shaking, the walls have ceased their crumbling. The fire that engulfed the throne is now reduced to piles of ash. The once pristine alabaster floors are scorched with veins of godfire and stained red with blood.
There’s so much fucking blood.
I can’t see her over the mounds of my uncle’s smouldering, rotting flesh that litter the ground between us.
I try to stand but my broken, shattered body can barely move.
She was chained to the floor and still she tried to get to me.
Shredded muscles and gaping wounds won’t stop me from getting to her.
Death himself couldn’t stop me from getting to her.
Using the sheer force of my will, I drag my mangled body toward her. Through the charred hunks of whatever remains of the god Mikais, over the unburnt vines that still bind what remains of his body, past the splintered gold bars of the broken cage where the four aevus stir.
Ivy’s maimed body lies lifeless on the stone floor, the blood forming a halo around her brown hair.
“No. No. NO!” Each word is more desperate than the last. “Wake up, princess. Wake up!”
I feel their watching eyes on my back as they close in to survey the scene. I hear their silent exchange, their misplaced pity for the man who can’t face what they believe to be certain truth—Ivy is dead.
But I can feel her magic inside of her, singing in a language only I understand. It’s a song more beautiful than any ever composed for even the highest of gods. A song written for and heard only by my ears.
Ivy is alive. Barely clinging to life, but alive all the same. My stubborn, relentless goddess still fights. She is with Death now, but he won’t keep her.
“Help her,” I plead, but the gods do not answer, and neither do the aevus.
“HELP HER!” I demand louder, but still they do nothing. “Godsdamnit. She’s alive, you idiots! She saved you all! Now use your fucking magic and bring her back!”
Kieran moves first, dropping to his knees in the coagulating blood.
“Murphy, look at me.”
“No. Don’t you fucking dare say it, Rollins. I am not giving up on her.”
“Marks gave us all the same tonic, Murphy. We can’t access our magic.”
“She did!” I scream at him. Lies, pathetic excuses for denying their aid.
“Wilson, Porter. Release the others from the dungeons and fetch a physician.” Kieran emotionlessly commands the other governors to do his bidding. Their footsteps on the stone floor indicate their obedience.
The adrenaline that pushed me across the floor fades as quickly as it appeared.
Collapsing across Ivy’s body, I pull her tight against my chest as if I can absorb her back into my heart where she belongs.
Tears well in my eyes before spilling over my lids, the salty liquid mixing with the crusted blood smeared across her face before pooling into the open wound in her hair line.
If I could bring Marks back, I would, so that I could kill him myself. Not for what he did to me, but for what he did to her. I would choose another lifetime of torture and manipulation at his hand for five more minutes with her.
The large doors swing open. Heavy-footed marching indicates the arrival of the Corinthian soldiers now flanking the throne room awaiting orders. Twenty pairs of boots if my count is correct. I don’t lift my head to confirm.
“Captain,” Kieran says slowly. “What do you want them to do?”
The soldiers. With the Lord General dead, the responsibility to lead them now belongs to me. I am the heir apparent to the militant tyrant, the next in line to take up the mantle of my abuser and Ivy’s tormentor.
I don’t want to be the Lord General of Corinth.
I don’t want to be the Prince of the Gods.
I don’t want to be the son of Nobus.
I only want to be hers.
“Hen-ry.” My brother’s name is broken in half by the sobs that wrack my feeble body without shame.
Henry will lead them. Henry will know what to do.
The military was always a means of survival for me, a surefire way to stay out of the dungeons and put food on the table for my mortal mother and brothers.
I never meant for Mikais to know my name, let alone know who I really am.
For years I have wished that I could go back to that fateful day on the battlefield, wished there had been any way to save Theo other than putting my secret on full display.
My uncle knew who I was after that, and he made sure the tales of my viciousness spread across Corinth.
If I had been able to tap into the core of my power, none of this would have happened.
Emerald would still be whole. I would be alone, but Ivy would be alive.
I would trade all of it, every second that I have spent with her, if only it would bring her back.
I would damn the whole realm to the gods’ wrath if it meant sparing her.
Time passes in a blur—seconds, minutes, or hours, I can’t tell the difference anymore. Nothing matters without her here.
I love you.
The very words she refused to let me say are the last she spoke. Her final breath was meant for me. She fought us from the beginning because she thought she had to do this alone. And for some gods-unknown reason, she thought she wasn’t capable of giving me what I wanted.
But all I ever wanted was her. Whatever fractions or bits she deemed me worthy of, I took them greedily. I was always left hungry, always wanting more of her. I could spend every year of eternity with her and it still wouldn’t be enough.
The closer we got to the end, the more she withdrew into herself, the more I could feel that she wanted this, that she wanted me. When it came down to it, she gave me the one gift that meant the most to her. She chose me.
And I will spend every second of my immortal existence proving that she didn’t make a mistake. That I’m not a mistake.
I don’t need a throne or worshippers or even a god-family. She is all that I need. Everything that my soul aches for. She is everything to me. She is home.
“It’s time to go now, brother.” I turn my head to find Henry squatting beside me in the pool of our blood. “Let me help you.”
He doesn’t wait for me to reply before he wraps his arms around my middle and pulls me off of her. My entire body cries out in agony at both the loss of her touch and the pulling strain on my shredded skin. I can’t leave her.
“Ivy!” I call out for her as Henry wraps my arm over his neck to support my weight.
“We’ve got her. We won’t let anything happen to her, okay?”
His face is stoic, but his eyes give him away; they always have. Sorrow wells in them as he blinks away the tear that he would deny forms in its corner.
“This way!” another familiar voice commands.
Theo bursts through the throne room doors, two physicians following on his heels. The robed men stop and share a concerned look at the sight of my mutilated body, but their attention is misplaced.
“She’s alive. Help her,” I plead.
“But Captain, you need care,” one protests.
“Help Governor Fellows first. That’s an order,” Henry bellows. His voice cuts through the commotion, causing every soldier in the room to snap to attention.
My eldest brother is a natural born leader. His skills on and off the battlefield should have been rewarded with the title of captain. And if the Lord General hadn’t been a god with a vendetta, they would have been. I never wanted it. I only ever wanted her.
The room is a blur of motion as every available hand rushes to Ivy’s side. Black spots form at the edge of my vision. I don’t have long.
“Take me to my mother’s altar.”
There’s a temple just off the gardens in the Western Courtyard with a marble statue of Arcasia.
It’s one of the few in Corinth. Every time Marks summoned me to the palace before a mission, I left something for her in exchange for her gift of protection.
And I have one final ask of her before I leave this world.
“You will see a healer first.” I lift my head from Henry’s shoulder to argue with him, but it’s futile. “That’s an order, Captain.”
“I have nothing left to give but my life. Let me barter it for hers.”
Henry kicks open a wooden door to a bedchamber where two robed physicians wait.
“No one dies today. Do you hear me, Callan?” The tear he tried so hard to hold in slips between his lashes and trails down his dirty cheek, desperation etched into his brown eyes. “No one.”
The physicians herd us toward the bed, their assistants running to gather hot water, bandages, and needles. They survey me from head to toe, cataloging every cut. They clean the wounds excruciatingly slowly. Too fucking slowly.
I have to get back to her.
Impatiently, I rip the cloth from the assistant’s trembling hold. Before I can attempt to stand, a large hand forces me to lay back on the bed.
“Prepare a calming tonic for him,” Henry orders.
“Power is going to your head already, Lord General,” I bite out with an exasperated huff.
“As soon as you’re healed, I’m going to whoop your ass for putting that job on me.”
“I’m counting on it.”
The physician holds out a vial of green liquid, presenting it to Henry for approval before removing the stopper.
“Just something for the nerves, Captain,” the weaselly man says as he grips my chin and forces the bottle between my busted lips.
The bitter liquid burns as it slides down my raw throat. An invisible heaviness weighs my body down as visions of Ivy dance in my head. A smile that outshines the sun, eyes that sparkle like the finest emerald, a ferocity that burns like a fire.
One thought fills my mind as my eyelids slip closed. One thought that will haunt me until I can say it to her face: I love you; I’m sorry.