Chapter 47 #2
“Andrian,” she said slowly. “Kol is a monster. But that doesn’t mean you’re one, too. That was all him.”
“Don’t you see, nio?” His voice cracked.
He pushed a hand through his hair, raking more of it into disarray.
“He had a way in. You think you burned him out? I’m telling you—he was still there.
He still has power over me. And as long as he does, I will always be a monster, and you will never be safe. ”
“And what did he make you do with that power? Kill an innocent?” Mariah snorted.
“His ability to control your mind—it has nothing to do with your magic. Mind magic is Kol’s specialty.
Besides that, your father—the one who raised you—was far from a saint.
I have a feeling that a part of you wanted to kill him long before you learned the truth. ”
“What are you saying?” Andrian seethed, eyes narrowed to slits. “That I wanted to be a murderer? That I wanted that blood and guilt on my hands? I might’ve hated Julian, but I never wanted to be the one to end him—”
“Yes, you did, Andrian!” Mariah shouted. “And it’s okay that you did. He was your abuser. He deserved the death you gave him.”
“Stop defending me!” Andrian exploded, then immediately deflated. He tugged on the mussed onyx strands of his hair. “Please. Just stop. I don’t deserve it. Especially not from you.”
Darkness and anger and that desperate, wild hunger for revenge roared up within her. It had always been there, always lurking. With her light hidden away, it made it all the easier for it to fester.
“Long ago,” she continued, her voice dropping, “I killed a man who tried to kill me. Slid my knife between his ribs and stopped his heart, felt his blood wash over my hands. I thought I would be scarred forever, broken beyond repair. But you found me. Do you remember what you said?”
Andrian reared back, as if he’d been slapped. His eyes clouded, the memory coming back to him. “I do.”
Mariah nodded. “What was it?”
Andrian swallowed. “Don’t fight an evolution that was always destined to occur.”
“Exactly.” Mariah was now inches from him, chest heaving, heat pooling in her cheeks.
“The man who raised you was just as much a monster as the one who sired you. He was responsible for capturing me. For torturing me. He—” Her words caught in her throat, but she pushed them out, even as her tears broke free.
“He is part of the reason my mother is dead. So don’t you fucking dare feel shame that you ended him, too. ”
They held each other’s stares for a long moment, exchanging ragged inhales of breath. Andrian’s eyes hardened, and he pushed his shoulders back. Without a word, he turned, stalking into their bedroom.
Mariah lurched after him. “Where are you—”
He reemerged, shadows spilling from his shoulders, gripping something small and made of silver leather.
Mariah’s skin prickled, hair rising on the back of her neck, as he shoved the Ginnelevé journal into her hands.
“I’ve been reading it,” he said quietly. “I found it in your things that first night on the road. I don’t know why I picked it up, but once I did…I couldn’t stop.” He leaned into her, flipping the journal open to a page.
A page that Mariah recognized.
Abominations, monsters, evil crafted from the darkest corners of the heavens. It is not known if the reykr are born soulless or if they are turned that way.
“Kol’s mind magic doesn’t matter.” Andrian’s forehead brushed hers, breath ghosting across her face. “Because all those horrible things your ancestors wrote about my kind are true.”
She tilted her head up, finding his gaze beneath the dark fall of his hair. Her chest cracked at his brokenness, his vulnerability, the way a deep, aching part of him truly believed the things written on those pages.
“How much of this journal have you read?”
He pulled back, still holding her gaze. “Enough.”
Mariah shook her head. “No. Not enough.” She took the journal from him. “You found the bad parts. The parts written during a war. But five thousand years and hundreds of lifetimes can tell a lot of stories.” She fanned the pages, taking a moment to appreciate the magic of this little journal.
The pages were hardly aged, and the magic expanded it with each flip to fit more stories. When closed, it returned to no larger than a slim notebook, easily portable and easily hidden. She hadn’t opened it in a while; not since that fateful day in Khento.
With a tearful breath, she remembered her mother’s words, murmured over a fire from another lifetime.
When you need a reminder of who you are and what you are capable of…that book will tell you everything you need to know.
Maybe this—this desperate attempt to pull Andrian back—was another reason she needed it. A tool to face the darkness and find the light within.
Mariah’s fingers snagged on a page, and with a last shaky inhale, she started to read.
I had a dream last night.
I dreamed of silver and gold flames, of leathery wings, both blazing and shadowed.
I dreamed of that which was feared, saving us all.
And I dreamed that without darkness, we can never experience the light.
When she peeled her gaze from the page, lifting it to one of crushing tanzanite, she let herself crack.
“Don’t you see?” she whispered. “Your darkness is not something to be feared, Andrian. It is something to be loved.”
Andrian’s eyes flickered between her face and the words written on the open page of the journal. Shadows pooled between them, caressing her skin, as if he couldn’t bother to contain them.
“You didn’t hear him that day, nio. He made me to be a monster.”
“He may have made you to be one thing.” Mariah slid a hand around the back of his neck.
She gripped him tight, pulling him to her, forehead again meeting his.
“I was also made to be something else, something new. But fuck those who made us. We only belong to each other and ourselves. Those who try to take either can burn.”
They stayed like that, for too long. The sun hung heavy in the mountain sky, burning the air with the headiness of late afternoon. Cielle’s wingbeats thrummed beyond the glass, and somewhere a butterfly danced on the breeze.
Slowly, as if releasing a breath he’d held his whole life, Andrian softened in her grip. Not for the first time, Mariah watched as his walls crumbled to pieces, melted bricks of ice and shadow splaying at her feet.
She somehow knew they wouldn’t go up again. Not for her.
Broad, calloused hands encircled her shoulders. Warm and muscular arms settled around her body.
“I don’t deserve you,” Andrian whispered into the slim space between them. “I will never deserve you and all your light.”
“Light?” Mariah snorted. “I’m as shadowed as you are, Andrian. The only time I find light now is with you.”
His arms tightened around her. “I’m sorry I hid so much from you. I’m just—” He swallowed. “I’m fucking terrified.”
Mariah drew a deep inhale of his rain and sandalwood scent. “So am I,” she murmured. “But please; don’t let him take you from me, too.”
“Never,” Andrian said. “I swear to you, nio. Whatever you need for your revenge, I will see it through. I will go into the depths of Enfara itself, if that’s what it takes.”
“Together.” She glanced up, fingers digging into his skin. “That’s what I ask. That whatever it takes to defeat that fucking god, we do it together.”
Andrian’s mouth lifted into that beloved, cocky smirk, though the rage they shared didn’t leave his eyes.
“Always, princess. Together.”