Chapter 17 #2
I just flash a grin. “You’re far from the guest room. Lost your way?”
“Can’t sleep.”
I wait for more, for all those messy human feelings to come spilling out. But she keeps her expression smooth and unruffled. The Devaliant mask firmly in place.
“You never told me which parts of the tower were off limits,” she adds. “I’d hate to stumble somewhere I’m not wanted.”
I’m not fooled by the innocent act; this girl is always looking for lines to scuff out. Any excuse to disobey. It’s in her blood.
“There aren’t any locked doors here,” I say. “No forbidden wings or chains rattling in the attic. I’m not your jailer.”
“Really.” Before I can stop her, she’s reaching for the handle to her left. “Then why don’t I start with—”
No.
I slap my palm against the door to keep it shut. She blinks up at me, startled.
“Correction,” I say, shoving down all the memories threatening to bubble to the surface.
Stay the fuck down. “See this obsidian seal right here?” I tap the carved symbol on the wood for emphasis.
“Memorize it. Burn it into your brain. Consider it the one hard line in this whole fucked up arrangement. If I ever catch you opening this door, that’s it, Devaliant.
Your stay of execution ends, and I’ll make you wish you’d died on that mountain. ”
She snorts. “That reminds me of an old story in Vartena about a na?ve bride who gets the keys to her new husband’s castle. He tells her she can explore anywhere she likes except that one special room. No explanation, just a command. Want to guess what she found when she finally looked?”
“Let me think.” I back her up against the door. “Rotting corpses? The bones of all the other stupid girls who couldn’t follow simple instructions?”
“Close enough. So what’s in this room? The remains of dead princesses who bored you?”
The memories begin shoving at the box, screams echoing from hundreds of years ago.
Stay. The fuck. Down.
“Everyone has rooms they keep shut tight,” I say, dragging my focus to her.
“Where we put the ugliest parts of ourselves. I’d bet even a perfect princess has hallways she keeps locked down, doors she doesn’t want anyone going through.
” I press my palms to the wall on either side of her head, leaning in.
“Could be real fun picking those locks and digging up all those things you think you’re hiding.
That appeal at all? Or you want to tell me to fuck off? ”
Anger sparks in her eyes. But beneath that…
Fear.
Good, I think. You should be afraid of me.
“Thing is, Devaliant,” I continue, “I don’t need to hide what I am behind closed doors.
You know exactly what kind of sick bastard you’re dealing with.
I get off on violence. I get hard when I hurt people.
I’ve killed more humans than you’ve had hot dinners, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
And yet here you are, strolling around wearing only my shirt like you want me to bend you over and show you how monsters fuck. ”
Her mouth parts slightly, and a breath gusts past her lips. But she doesn’t back down or retreat. “The alternative was strolling around naked,” she snaps, as if I’m being particularly dense.
“Doesn’t sound like a problem from where I’m standing. Toys can be clothed or unclothed, depending on my mood.”
Her scowl deepens. “If you wanted a naked toy, you should have bargained for one.”
“I suppose I should have,” I say with a smirk, reaching into my pocket. “Maybe one day, we’ll renegotiate your wardrobe. Let’s try something else tonight.” I pull one of Zephyr’s sugar clusters from my pocket and hold it between us.
“What’s that?”
“Me being generous.”
She looks at the treat like it might grow fangs. “Prove it’s safe.”
“Doubting my good intentions?”
“Why in the realms would I trust your intentions?”
Fair enough.
I bring the sweet to my mouth and sink my teeth in. Decadence explodes on my tongue—ambrosial honey and succulent fruits, toasted nuts, and the decadent crunch of edible gold leaf. Exquisite.
Holding her gaze, I slowly lick the honey off my finger. “That do it for you?”
She’s staring at my mouth. “I guess so.”
I peel the wrapping off another cluster, and she tries to take it from me, but I push her hand away. “No. Toys get hand-fed when I want.” I press the sweet to the seam of her lips. “Open up. Think twice before biting.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll bite back.”
Her eyes flash. Do it, they seem to say. Push me until I push back and make you bleed.
“Behave,” I murmur.
Her lip curls like she’s holding back a snarl, but she leans and takes the candy delicately between her teeth. I swear the world stops. The noise she makes shoots straight to my cock—a low, throaty moan that has no business existing outside a bedroom.
I am going to devour this woman whole.
I’ll lay kingdoms at Zephyr’s feet. Shower her in the corpses of her enemies—any gruesome offering her spiteful heart desires—because Bryony Devaliant is licking honey from my fingers, and I’m about to lose my damned mind.
“Thought you might like that,” I say roughly.
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t sound so smug. Why did you bring these?”
“Maybe I wanted to see what you’d do with something that exists purely for pleasure. No purpose, no greater meaning. Just…” I trail off as her tongue darts out to wet her lips. “Indulgence.”
“And what’s the catch?” She bites down gently on my thumb. “Are you hoping to earn my trust with sugar?”
“Your trust is worthless to me. I want to watch you come undone and know I’m the reason.”
“Such lofty ambitions.” Another scrape of teeth. “You’re not even subtle.”
“I’ve been guilty of far worse crimes than ambition, and subtlety is for courtiers and grifters. For little boys who don’t know how to take what they want. I prefer the direct approach.”
“So do I.”
Quick as a snake strike, she buries her hand in my hair and wrenches my head back with a strength that surprises me. Pain lights up my scalp, sharp and immediate, and a strange, giddy amusement stirs in my chest.
Fuck yes. This is what I wanted.
“Tell me why you really brought me this,” she hisses. “A test? A trap? What game are we playing right now?”
For a moment, all I can do is stare at her—this wild, reckless creature who sees the monster in me and snarls right back. “The same game we’ve been playing since you got here. Move, countermove. Disarm, attack. You draw blood, I draw more.”
Do it. Hurt me. Make me feel it.
She releases me with a disgusted sound and shoves at my chest. “The toy is going to bed. Enjoy your brooding, or lurking, or whatever it is demented gods do to pass the time.”
It’s too abrupt. Too much like a retreat.
I want to keep poking at this woman and seeing what snarls out of her, finding hard lines and all the little things she craved when she was bleeding on the altar.
I tell myself this is how monsters deal with any prey they toy with.
They find weaknesses. They make it hurt.
My hand closes around her wrist. “Wait.”
A frown tugs at her lips. I can practically see her pondering all the ways she could break my hold.
“Let me show you the library.”
What the fuck? I want to swallow the words back. Pretend they never happened, because why would I be stupid enough to invite her there?
The Devaliant blinks. “What?”
“The library,” I grit out, because apparently my mind and mouth have decided to mutiny. “I want you to see it.”
There. I’ve committed now.
Dumbass.
Emotions flicker across her features. I tense, waiting for her to laugh in my face. To throw my offer back at me with a sneer.
But then—
“Okay,” she breathes. “I’d like that very much.”
I can’t look at her. Can’t breathe through whatever this is cracking open behind my ribs. I need to dig it out.
But instead, I just turn and lead her down the hall. I feel her stare between my shoulder blades as I push the library doors open.
She steps inside and sucks in a sharp breath, taking in the high arched ceilings, stained glass throwing color everywhere.
A staircase circles up and up, railings wrapped in glowing roses.
And the books. Hundreds of thousands of leather-bound tomes, scrolls, and stone tablets in a thousand dead tongues.
It’s one of my most prized possessions, this library.
The only surviving piece of my life Before—a repository of my people’s history.
Our language, our craft, the legacy of our magic before the war ripped my mother’s territory apart.
Turpori is now temporarily split between Asteria and Nyholm until my brother and I reclaim it.
And I let a human pass the threshold. A Devaliant. The last woman in the realms who should ever see this sanctuary.
Amara’s right. I’m out of my mind.
“It’s incredible,” the Devaliant breathes. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”
She tips her head to take in the tiered balconies and the domed skylights, reverence softening her features. This is the first time something of mine has moved her to awe. I want to trap that expression beneath glass just so I can keep it.
In truth, my library is a rather modest collection by Asterian standards—a few hundred thousand volumes as opposed to the millions that line the archives of Alexios’ palace. But to mortal eyes, I imagine it seems vast.
The Devaliant runs light fingers over the spines. “I can feel the power in each one,” she murmurs. “Like a current. It’s almost alive.”
I go still, a sudden wariness tightening my muscles. “Magic leaves a mark. In the right hands, a drop of power can rewrite reality.”
And in the wrong ones, it can raze entire cities.
If she hears the catch in my voice, she doesn’t let on. “I’ve never seen so many books. How old are they? How old are you?”
“A few are as ancient as the first Eternals, before our realms divided. Others are more recent acquisitions from the fallen libraries of Scillari in the aftermath of the war.” I flash her a smile.
“As for my age—I’m a thousand. Old enough to have collected plenty of perverse pastimes.
” I lean in, breathing my next words into her ear. “And young enough still to enjoy them.”
She shivers. “And luring wayward Vartenan royalty to their doom? Is that a recent hobby?”
“What can I say? I’m always in the mood for new experiences.”
The laugh that startles out of her is effervescent, and it sends a shrapnel burst through my withered excuse for a heart. What a lovely sound, her amusement. Musical.
She moves deeper into the stacks. I follow her, never more than a half-step behind, waiting for the inevitable moment when realization sinks in and her survival instincts roar to life. Remembering what I am, what she is.
But she doesn’t. The Devaliant has forgotten herself.
“There are more books here than in the entire palace in Hellevig. My sister, Theodora, would weep at the sight of it. Burst into flame out of pure, rapturous bibliophilia.”
I snort. “The scent of charred princess would be difficult to air out.”
That earns me another smile, this time more wistful. “Could you… send word to Theo? To let her know I’m okay?”
I should play gatekeeper. Should twist the knife until she understands exactly what it means to be at a monster’s mercy. And yet…
I’m not your jailer, I’d told her. And I meant it.
“Tomorrow,” I say gruffly.
The Devaliant gives me a grateful grin. “How do you have volumes from before the realms divided?” she asks as she continues down the stacks. “I thought all the records from that era were lost to the Great Burning when the Urnian Archives fell to human soldiers.”
“Not all. Some were smuggled out in the years leading up to the border wars between Asteria and Vartena when tensions were escalating.”
She pauses. “You fought in the war.”
Memories batter against the inside of my skull. The taste of ash, the screaming. My brother’s blood-slick hand clutching mine as his face twists in agony.
End it. Please. It hurts.
A blink, and I wrench myself back to the here and now. “Yes,” I say flatly. “I fought.”
“There aren’t many surviving books about the war in Hellevig.
” Her voice goes soft, careful. “I heard Amalthea ordered most of them destroyed as part of her bargain with Alexios. But the ones we do have only tell the Vartenan side.” She fidgets, throwing me an apologetic look.
“They say paying a tithe to the Eternal was better than losing more of our own. Alexios and the Dark King were killing us in large numbers, and nearly all of my family died before Amalthea…”
She notices my expression, the words dying on her lips. She must sense it—the sudden crackle of my power shivering through the air, the sparks of heat.
But the reckless creature barrels on.
“None of those accounts even mention what Vartenans did during the Godkiller Crusades—”
“Never call it that,” I cut her off, the words bitten out between my teeth. “Not to a god. Not if you want to keep breathing.”
I don’t tell her what we call it in Scillari. The Devouring. As if mere language could encompass the scope of that devastation, the breadth of all we lost. Everything they stole.
She swallows hard. “What should I call it?”
My smile is a dead thing, empty of warmth or mirth. “The war. The purge. The culling. Take your pick. But call it a crusade again, and we’re going to have a problem.”
“I wasn’t thinking.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “I’m sorry.”
Sorry.
She’s fucking sorry.
Would she still be sorry if she knew? If she could see inside me, all the broken bits that used to be a brother, a son, a god meant to rule. Everything her family took from me.
I should tear into the fragile offering of her remorse and rip it to shreds. Even a creature like me can recognize the danger in it. The deadly, disarming lure.
“Be careful,” I warn her. “Compassion is a poisoned chalice to offer a beast.”
Because she doesn’t know. She can’t know what it costs me to let her live. To let her stand here and pretend to give a shit about my dead.
I turn and walk back to the door before I do something I’ll regret. “Lessons start tomorrow at dawn,” I call over my shoulder. “The northern garden. You’ll be training with Amara. Don’t be late.”
The doors boom shut behind me. I lean against the wood and exhale, slow and controlled.
There are a thousand reasons immortals go mad, a gradual rot that eats you from the inside out. So we seek our own destruction, chasing the welcome dark at the bottom of blood-glutted seas.
Even monsters grow weary with the weight of memory.