Chapter 41
Forty-One
“What the hell are you doing?” Silt had entered Kosmina’s room to find her on the balcony, dressed for travel.
Over her tunic and pants, she wore a coat, her sword belted around her waist. When she turned to him, he nearly flinched to see her eyes. Over the night, they’d turned completely red.
“I was waiting for you to return.”
“Listen, I’ve thought about things, and I’m convinced you must drink straight from my flesh. We’ve both dreamed about that because it might be a cure.”
“I don’t believe it will work, and I don’t have a few days to wait and find out. I’ve already stayed too long. Tonight, I’ll meet my fate head-on while I’ve still got some fight—and sanity—left in me.”
She’d readied to leave without him? He asked slowly, “Why are you acting as if I’m not going with you?”
“Why are you still acting as if you will? I’ve known for days that you were lying about leaving.”
He scrubbed a hand over his mouth. “I did lie. I . . . regret that.”
“Have you changed your mind about coming with me?” she asked with that expectancy in her expression. Even after all his lies, part of her wanted to believe in him.
“No.” The word was like a death knell. But he was tired of deceiving her.
“So you let the days go by and had no intention of fighting alongside me. These were probably my last days and you played with me?”
“I didn’t lie about wanting you. Under different circumstances, we’d be starting something together.”
“So where does that leave us now?”
“We have to try this last step before anyone leaves,” he insisted, his words punctuated by a quake.
“That’s the second one today. The pressure is escalating.”
“The quakes could end tomorrow.”
She rolled her red eyes. “Come on, sorcerer, talk about burying your head in the sand. Do you think the gases of this realm will outstrip your oxygen first? Or will the lava make it quick? We’re nearing world’s end. Staying here is illogical.”
“But trying to defeat a primordial ghoul with a sword makes sense? We’re not even certain an escape exists. You value logic so much? You’re ignoring it now.”
“I’m not setting out filled with false bravado, and I’m not underestimating my foe. Facing the queen will be horrific, but I’d rather fight than surrender.”
“Then give yourself a chance.” With difficulty, he formed a blade of sand from his pouch and slashed his wrist. “Drink from my flesh. It’s not a request.”
Kosmina’s fangs went sharp as she stared at his blood. She looked ravenous but also . . . wary, like an animal scenting a trap. Heartbeats passed before she broke her stare. “I have to go. Now.” She hurried to the door.
Why would she not listen to him? Maybe because you keep lying to her. And she knows you do. Pocketing his sand, he hastened after her into the hall. “Can you just stop for a moment and discuss this?”
She didn’t slow when she reached the steps and hurried past the never-ending orgy. “I won’t rehash the same arguments. And it’s not like I sprang this on you.”
“Why won’t you try to drink me? What would one bite hurt?”
“The time for that has passed. Besides, right now, I’m not sure I want to know you that well.”
A mace blow to the chest would’ve hurt less. But he deserved that and more.
Downstairs, banging sounded as the bridge unfurled. She’s actually leaving me? “Another Lorean with more information might arrive. Your brother might. Xodin just told me that those two immortals somehow survived the hellhounds and will close in on the castle soon. We only need to maintain until then.” He raised his regenerating wrist.
When she refused to look at it, striding on toward the foyer, frustration sharpened his words: “You’re ready to get both of us killed out there. You’re selfish! A typical princess. Nothing matters beyond your illness. You’ve given no thoughts to what I need to survive.”
She finally slowed and turned to him. “That’s not true. If you want to survive, you must leave this place. Can you trust me enough to do that? Please, Adham.”
Adham. Fists clenched, he stalked over to stand before her. “You’ll never be satisfied with me! You expect me to bend and bend. This reed will break.”
She raised her hand to his cheek. “I hope the reed will grow. And I’ll grow right beside you.”
He just stopped himself from leaning into her touch. But tonight was not the night he planned to lose her—or to die.
She murmured, “Fight for me.” The words were part question, part command; directness mixed with sweetness. “Fight for us?” Her palm trembled against his cheek. So much expectancy . . .
He gritted his teeth, then snapped, “Give me something I can fight! With you, it’s fucking plague and primordials. You expect too much from me.”
She lowered her hand with that gut-wrenchingly stoic look.
Grasping for calm, he rasped, “If you want to punish me for lying to you, this is not the way to do it.”
“Yes. So many lies.” Her brows drew together, her expression crestfallen. “You said we would comb the worlds together for a cure.”
He held up his wrist again. “Yet you won’t even try the one on offer right here!”
She wasn’t looking at his injury, just stared into his eyes. Hers welled with tears.
Unable to bear her grief, he raised his face to the sky and loosed a roar. “Ahhh!” He met her gaze again, not bothering to hide all the turmoil inside him. When she gasped at what she saw, he gripped her nape, his hand shaking on her. “If there’s nothing I can say to change your mind, then you lied too! You told me your heart was open to me. Forever.”
“It is!” she cried. “Which is why this hurts so much. Sorcerer, I stayed here for you . Even as I got sicker, I stayed to give you a chance to see what is right before you. But you haven’t. And I don’t think you can.” She drew back, freeing herself from his grip.
“Don’t,” he bit out. “You cannot leave me.”
Voice breaking, she said. “I have to, because even now, I’m tempted to give you more time.” She dashed the back of her hand against her eyes. “Time I don’t have.” Clasping her sword handle as if for comfort, she whispered, “Good-bye, sorcerer,” and stepped out onto the bridge.
In disbelief, he watched her putting space between them, watched her form grow smaller as she reached the other end of the bridge and picked up her pace. Self-preservation warred with undefinable emotion. Go with her. Live—or perish—with her.
He’d just taken a step when Enti sidled up to him.
“Let her go, friend. In her heart, Kosmina wishes to meet a heroic end, and in your heart, you wish to remain in the comfort of my keep. She doesn’t belong here, but you do.”
As Kosmina passed out of sight, he said, “I belong with her.” He’d just taken another step when dragon’s breath enveloped him like a miasma. His lids went heavy.
At his ear, Enti murmured, “The Silt Harea of old would not follow a woman he’d known for such a short time into a nightmare.”
True. And he must still be that man. Kosmina had coaxed him, warned him, offered her partnership and maybe even her love. But he hadn’t committed to her. Of course she’d felt like she had to go without him. She was the reed that had bent and bent.
Enti continued, “That ghoul queen won’t kill you; she’ll keep you. What purpose do you think you’ll serve for her as a new slave? A sentry or a common drone? Perhaps you’ll dig tunnels in her hive, laboring like you used to. As we Sorceri often say, ‘Once an Inferi, always an Inferi.’”
That word still carried a blade’s bite—yet all he cared about was Kosmina’s fate against the primordial. His princess needed him. She needed his blood from the flesh. His protection. Him.
Yet he stood, immersed in that smoke, making no move to follow her.
“Now that the vampire’s gone, you can return to your previous existence. Pleasure is here for your taking, Silt.”
Kosmina called him Adham. If Silt belonged here, maybe Adham didn’t. “That vampire moved me like a desert of sand. There’s no going back for me. She believes this is the right course, and I trust her.”
How . . . monumental .
“I trust her,” he repeated, tasting the words, finding them right. “So either you are not seeing what’s in my heart, or you’re lying about it.” He dragged his focus from Kosmina’s direction to Enti and found her irises swirling. “Why are you sweating? You’re using some kind of power on me!” He shook as he resisted it.
At last, that memory he’d struggled to recall surfaced. Hadn’t he heard tales of an infernal sorceress who fed on the fall of her victims? One who could conjure anything needed to entrap them?
He swept his gaze around his surroundings, seeing Castle Vitis anew. Vitis was the root word of vine , but also of vice . “You don’t read others’ dreams. You read their sins . You’re the Queen of Vice.” The gambling, gorging, and orgies here had been by design. She was feeding on sin, enabling it. “You lied about the parole, the Gaolers, everything.”
She sneered, “And you never lie.” Reining in her temper, she asked, “Are dreams so different from vice?”
“Yes!” That was why Enti couldn’t create the scythe; the weapon would have been used for virtue.
She smoothed her hair. “Well, I had to lie. Vice has gotten a bad rap. Vicious used to mean full of vice, now full of cruelty. People got suspicious of me, so I opted for a rebrand.”
“You feed your powers when people surrender—but you can compel them to as well. You’re compelling me right now.”
“Because without that vampire, you will fall!”
“So with her, I won’t?” He managed a step away from Enti. “You know I’ll be true to Kosmina. You know I’ll never smoke again. It doesn’t matter to you!”
She ran her forearm over her damp brow. “Your potential for vice is greater than that of anyone I’ve ever known. For the better part of a millennium, you worshipped it like gold. You could empower me as no one before.”
“Never.”
“You already have been. You gave me wrath with Xodin, and even some with the princess. And so much deception. That was good, but I need you at your peak—all your lust, your weakness, your jealousy. And, of course, your habit.”
“I won’t be some mindless host for you. I’m going after Kosmina, will follow her to the end of the worlds.” Yet he remained rooted to the spot as Enti’s power battled his willpower, a muscle he’d left unused.
“Do you know what that princess’s vice is? Pride . And she will never allow you to injure hers again with more lies.”
“Did you work on her too? Making her leave, so I’d get back to feeding you?” His jaw clenched as he fought Enti’s influence. But the smoke swept him up as never before—until nothing could compete against that pull.
Nothing.
Almost nothing .
Kosmina’s pull was greater. The princess with her oasis eyes. He squared his shoulders. “I’ll never lie to her again.”
Desperation crept into Enti’s voice. “Why do you deserve another chance with her when you’ve squandered all you’ve ever been given?”
He had no answer. Only Kosmina could answer that question. He pictured the way she already reached for him in sleep, and calm filled him.
“You belong here, Silt!”
He hated that name now. “That’s not who I am any longer.” At last, he’d discovered himself. “I’m Adham.” He was Kosmina’s protector. He hadn’t only lied to her; he’d lied to himself, because he’d always been going on this fateful journey. He’d trained with his sand to give him a shot at defending her.
He would reach his princess before she faced the revenants, then take on hell beside her. If he died giving his life to defend hers, then that would give meaning to everything that had come before. “I’m going to fight at Kosmina’s side.” With no guarantees, he would cross the desert for her, one dune at a time.
“Just wait! Without you to empower me, everyone living in this dimension will be in jeopardy. Don’t abandon us.” A quake rumbled, the third one tonight. Enti’s eyes swirled hypnotically, and she gave a cry—as if with effort.
“You’ve been masking the quakes. The Gaolers stopped sending in prisoners because this place is done, just as Kosmina sensed.”
“I can handle the quakes until they ebb. And they will!”
He’d said much the same. No wonder Kosmina had lost patience with him. “Listen to me, Enti. The quakes won’t end, but Nightside is about to. Your only hope is to come with me. Sound the alarm and evacuate this place. We’ll storm the hive together.”
“It can’t be won!” She ripped off her mask. “You said I lied about everything, but I didn’t. I read the Gaolers, and everything I said about that primordial is true. We must make the best of our situation here. Besides, this is my home. I have nowhere else to go.”
“Then you’ll die here.” Finally he could turn from her, taking his first step toward his future. “You have no control over me.”
“I might not be able to control you any longer,” she said from behind him, sounding less desperate. “But she can.”
A sinking suspicion gripped him as he glanced over his shoulder.
Pearl now stood beside Enti. Her kohled eyes were black as the sea on a moonless night.
And she’d removed her voice-box modulator.
“No!” He sprinted to escape her all-powerful song. But the bridge began to furl once more, trapping him . . . until the ringing notes of Pearl’s voice washed over him.