Chapter 40
Icouldn’t hear what Kier heard, couldn’t see what he saw, but I felt its impact in every recoil of his body as I curled myself around him. He must have felt Natasya’s accusations land every time my chest jumped, my breath cut to shreds.
Monster’s whore.
Killer.
Traitor.
Useless, waste of air.
Pathetic excuse for a sister.
At first I argued, like I did on the staircase to Gaia’s tomb.
I yelled in Natasya’s face that she’d done far worse than I had.
That she’d killed innocent goblins with the rebels, under Cleodora’s manipulation.
That she slaughtered a child by taking that stone of power.
That I was honest about my faults but she was a liar and a hypocrite.
But I could only snap and shout and snarl for so long before my energy drained.
Now I slumped on the floor with my back to the darkness, my whole body curved around Kier’s as if I could protect him from the trauma Lacuna raked him through.
He never once argued. Never spoke. Never even whimpered or gasped or cried.
He just flinched, silent and empty-eyed.
I knew it was exactly like the staircase, like the Lazankh forest when Cleodora whispered to him.
In his mind, was he that abused little boy again, terrified of his own family?
I could see him this time, could wrap my arms around him and whisper reassurances, unlike when we were separated in the mausoleum, but I wasn’t sure it was a comfort.
If Kier heard my words, he didn’t react.
He only flinched into the wall, locked inside his own head, suffering through memories I knew he preferred to pretend didn’t exist.
“Kier,” I murmured, running my fingers through the long, wavy strands of his hair, gently unknotting the tangles. “I’m right here. It’s just the darkness, messing with you. None of it is real. Okay? None of it is real.”
“He can’t hear you,” Lacuna remarked in a voice like silk and cashmere—beautiful and soft and inviting.
I hated these moments between Natasya taunting me the worst, because Lacuna was a smug bitch who fed off pain.
The more we suffered, the more she enjoyed it.
I lifted my hand and extended my middle finger to the darkness that slithered down the opposite wall.
“Leave Kier alone,” I tried to snap but it came out weak and breathless. I was so fucking tired, right down in my bones, in my soul. “My pain’s more exciting than his; focus on me.”
“Oh, no, his is much more enticing. So powerful. So deep. He’s spent decades suppressing his demons, and they’ve grown claws and teeth to draw blood. I love blood.”
I bared my teeth, wishing I had a badass goblin form so they were a bigger threat. Natasya would have a fucking heart attack if I shifted into a tall, blue badass right now.
No, she wouldn’t, because my sister was dead. Lacuna was just raking up every dark thought I’d ever had and presenting it as fact. Natasya was dead. She wasn’t the one hurting me. I had to remind myself of that fact every time her voice faded, and Lacuna’s filled the void.
I smoothed hair from Kier’s sweaty forehead and kissed the spot between his eyes, letting my lips linger.
And then I stood, my hands curled into fists as I faced the dark.
It wasn’t the first time I’d tried to fight her.
Wasn’t the tenth. I didn’t know how long we’d been locked in here with her, but it had to be days.
Maybe weeks. Time was nothing in the darkness.
“Back for more?” Lacuna asked, her voice coming from the dark pool on the wall. “That worked so well for you last time.”
Because I was weak, listless, and tired. But too stubborn to stop trying.
I rushed at the wall as fast as my heavy chest would allow and drove my fist into the darkness.
It scattered around my knuckles, but Lacuna’s soft laugh showed no hint of pain.
She was playing with me, as always. It didn’t stop me trying to grab a fistful of the inky, writhing substance she was made of, like a corrupted, twisted version of the Haar.
I was too beaten down for true rage to form, but anger sparked, like the first sputtering embers of flints striking.
And for the first time in days or weeks, I felt my magic rush in response to it.
The bastards must have stolen my gem pendant while I was unconscious, the same as Kier’s dragon, so I’d been completely without magic.
But now I felt it flicker, like that fire, like that anger.
It took me a moment to recognise the feeling of low, simmering anger—Valour.
What the hell? More importantly, how the hell? I swallowed my rings… unless I could still use them while they were inside me… All I needed was physical contact to call her from my ring, after all.
Energy fizzed through me, and I straightened my spine, eyes narrowed on the writhing mass of darkness.
“I beat you in Gaia’s mausoleum. I can beat you here.”
Lacuna laughed, dismissive. She couldn’t sense my power yet. Good.
Valour? I tentatively reached out, not sure how to go about this, splaying my hand on the wall, darkness writhing against the backs of my fingers.
Magic and light and pure sapphire rage exploded from my belly, blasting through my skin, splitting the cloying dimness of the spire like a lightning strike. It could have hurt, but it only tingled as a torrent of magic erupted and formed into the shape of Valour.
She snarled before she’d even landed on her paws, her front legs raised, claws out as she raked them through the sinister dark that was Lacuna.
Kier was the one who reacted first, sucking in a great, gasping breath like he’d been drowning but could suddenly breathe. Pain and a tangled, thorny mess I couldn’t begin to decipher filled our bond.
“Zaba,” he said in a rough, gravelly voice.
“Here,” I grunted, teeth gritted as Lacuna sank a dark coil into Valour’s side. I felt it pierce my own ribs, and expected the hot pour of blood over my skin, but it was just a bruise. My heart stumbled in relief.
Rip her apart, I ordered my jaguar. Don’t hold back.
Her growl revved into a purr. It was a rare day I didn’t restrain the full severity of Valour’s bloodlust. She unleashed it now in a flurry of claw swipes, guttural noises, and bites so deep they pierced the dark.
“Call it off,” Lacuna hissed, her lyrical voice rough with surprise.
“Fuck you.” I lifted my arm as I sensed Kier close the distance. He fastened himself to my side, his arm locking around my back with a desperation that echoed mine. I didn’t ask if he was alright. He didn’t ask if I was.
“How do you have Valour?” he asked instead, his voice a ragged, broken mess.
I tried to shut out the memories of his screams, his pleas, and when those pleas broke into whimpers of pain, but I didn’t think I’d ever forget them.
When we got out of here, I would eviscerate Jyrard.
Cleodora was no longer my number one target.
“I swallowed my rings,” I admitted, grunting when a coil of darkness pierced Valour’s shoulder, a matching ache thumping through my skin into muscle. I massaged the area, and reminded myself it could be worse. “Can you call the Haar?”
“Not… yet,” he answered carefully enough that I looked up at him, my heart heavy at the shadows under his eyes, the emptiness in his stare. I rose onto my tiptoes to kiss him, and Lacuna punished me for that distraction by lashing out with a shadowy limb and snagging my ankle. Mine, not Valour’s.
The world flipped, spun, and turned into a dark whirlpool as she flung me through the air towards the darkness gathered at the very top of the spire.
“I’m going to enjoy devouring your demons,” she told me, her voice closer, richer.
Valour, I screamed inside my head.
She ripped out a chunk of shadow and leapt, sinking her claws into the mortar between bricks, scaling the spire like a monster.
“Get your own demons,” I replied to Lacuna, and flung myself backwards, praying the tendril around my ankle held as I hung upside down, my hand stretched out.
The second Valour came close, I grabbed the ruff of her neck and threw her up towards the conical ceiling.
If she’d been flesh and blood, it would never have worked.
I didn’t have that kind of strength on a good day, let alone after being ripped apart, put back together, and destroyed all over again.
But Valour was magic, and I had two rings of power inside me.
Valour opened her mouth wider than was natural, bare light glinting on her sharp teeth in the moment before she closed her jaws around the dark, simmering pool of magic and devoured Lacuna whole.