Chapter 39
SORROW
They all avoid the exiled prince. I don’t blame them.
The creature is a mess of tears and snot.
It hides in shadows, red eyes staring around as though we’re a house of horrors.
No. No one bothers with it. No one but I.
And one day, that snotty beast will turn against the Elmswoods. It’ll belong to me and me alone.
— LOST JOURNALS OF PRINCESS DELPHINE, SECOND DAUGHTER OF CARUSH
The empress’s face quivered each time she looked my way as we trailed the ash pathways to Vyrus’s temple.
Obsidian cliffs towered over us, trembling with anger at her trespass.
Ifan threw me in the corner next to a woman, her hands bound.
I peered closely. She cracked open her pearly eyes, her black skin stained by the tracks of golden tears, and my heart sank.
This was no mere mortal. This must be the coveted Deviant she’d discovered.
Though as her rasping breaths seeped through her pale, broken lips, I wasn’t sure how much longer the poor woman had.
‘She needs water,’ I demanded, rounding on the empress.
The damned woman giggled before shoving her face in mine. I steeled my spine, gripped my still-sodden skirts, fighting back shivers.
‘Oh, she needs more than water.’ She grasped the woman’s chin, tilting her face. ‘Don’t you, dear.’
The Deviant flinched, shifting between the empress and me, anger shining behind her proud eyes as the empress let go.
I blinked, desperate to focus on the temple where the brotherhood had worshipped Vyrus, back when each God had their own shrines.
Thick clouds, ready to spill their dark fury, billowed behind the crumbling onyx columns.
Why would the volcano react now? Was it tied to the God?
The roof, once a mass of pure Vyrium, had caved in centuries ago when pirates had learnt the value of the rock.
I shivered against the chill wind blowing across as Eiriulf and the only remaining brother battled to light candles around a circular altar.
The throat-splitting Anomaly set a huge tome upon the lectern, bronze flickers sparking in the dust motes.
The empress’s boots landed with a harsh thud as she spun in circles, Vyrus’s heart glinting in the ailing light.
Ifan approached his empress, stumbling and shaking, before presenting her with a bowl.
It was so damn hard for me to make out, but from the bronze glints, it must have been Vyrium too.
Did she truly harbour the belief that she had the power to raise the God?
That he’d tear the world to shreds for her?
To what end? None of this made sense. Though as the abbot raised a huge shard of Vyrium and a dagger, his hungry eyes on the Deviant barely clinging onto life next to me, my skin prickled at the thought her intention may be darker still.
I turned to the Deviant, my breath catching as her skin split and fractured, allowing the merest glimpse of sunlight from within. I swallowed against the pain she must have endured.
‘Do you know her plans?’ I asked, terrified my whisper was too loud. Her white eyes held my gaze and a brief smile hooked up the corner of her mouth before fading.
I huffed. ‘Your gifts?’
She closed her eyes as more fissures split her face, more rays of light piercing her flesh as her tongue dragged itself across her dry lips.
‘Gifts?’ She coughed out a laugh. I started; her voice was so soft for one who looked as though it had been an age since a drop of water had crossed her lips. ‘My sweetest child, I appear to have the gift of bad luck.’
‘That’s something we have in common then.’ I lay my head against the ashy rock as the ground writhed, thundering once more. The volcano hadn’t erupted in over a thousand years. ‘Damn you, Evella.’
The Deviant’s eyes cracked open and she seemed to shift to shield me as the empress sat down before us. The dagger, the bowl and the Vyrium laid out before her.
My chest hollowed. I’d escaped before, but I’d had the wolf, Matthias or just some damn luck. What did I have now? My breath caught at the realisation her deranged face may be my final vision.
‘You don’t have to do this you know,’ I said, thankful the desperation writhing through my veins didn’t show in my voice.
‘And what is it you think I’m doing, Asmar?’ She twisted the dagger in her pale hands.
The sky above shattered, fractured by the lightning splitting the darkness, and I couldn’t hold back the tremor racking through me. I could only pray Matthias and the wolf were heading back to Asmar, ready to retake his throne. To fight again. But I knew them too well.
I sneered, refusing to let her see how she terrified me.
‘You want to summon Vyrus.’ The Deviant gasped, shuddering against me, but I didn’t have time to check on her.
I didn’t possess the strength to defeat this woman and her forces, but I had my words.
I had the blood of two Gods thrumming through my heart, pulsing through my veins.
The love of those souls, who I called family, whether through blood or trial, coated my skin and I had to protect them.
Only, I wasn’t sure I was enough.
‘I can see why you’d say that,’ she said, swinging the heart before her, her brown eyes locked on the ruby. ‘Perhaps I do. Perhaps that’s the reason I tore the world apart for this.’ She raised the heart.
The Deviant struggled to sit. More fissures sliced her skin as she whimpered.
I sneered. ‘But it’s not complete, is it? How will you raze the world when it’s broken?’
She lowered the ruby, let out a long breath, shoved her face into mine.
‘Where is he, Asmar?’ She raised a brow.
He? My flesh prickled.
‘Matthias?’
Her fist slammed into my already thudding jaw, and I blinked away the pain. Lights exploded behind my eyes; my chest heaved with the desperation to run her through.
‘You’ll be dead by the time your deceitful husband arrives.
’ She grabbed my wrist, pulled it over the bowl and dug the dagger into my skin.
Crying out, I tugged myself away as she squeezed my wrist, my blood dripping into the bowl.
‘He vexed me so. Dirty.’ She pressed harder, and I cried as my blood spilled across the bronze-flecked bowl. ‘Vile. Rebel.’
‘Careful, my empress.’ Eiriulf’s quavering voice smoothed the creases on her pale face. ‘Blood of a Deviant must be pure, not spilt, or all this will have been for naught.’
She let go. My jaw clenched as I pulled my hands towards my chest.
‘You don’t need to do this.’
She hummed as she stood.
‘I know what it feels like. To be sold to a man. You can use all this… power, this might, you’ve amassed and make this world better.’
Her eyebrows rose as she halted. My chest hitched as the words flooded from me.
‘Your legacy can be one of kindness. People could smile when they think of you. There would be… statues, temples to Delphine.’
She crashed down in front of me again, every muscle on her face quivering as she battled for breath.
‘What did you call me?’
I swallowed, sat back as she glared.
‘The empress is feared. A figure of pain, a promise of tragedy. But you don’t have to walk that path.
’ Her eyes widened. ‘Kindness is a choice. The right choice. The one your heart still clings to. I know it does.’ I lowered my voice, tears biting my eyes even though I knew my words weren’t enough.
‘You could be Queen Delphine, just as you wanted. You can help shape this world into one where no woman is ever forced into a wedding bed against her will. Where every girl will admire you. Aspire to be you. You don’t need a God to gain a legacy. ’
Delphine’s gaze slipped over to the crumbling Deviant at my side as Eiriulf carefully took the bowl of my blood, setting it within the candles.
The glazed shield snapped over her eyes. ‘Silly Asmar,’ she said. ‘I already have one God.’ She set her gaze on me, wiping a shadowy smear from her nose. ‘Do you ever wonder who protects the protector?’
My breath misted before me as I glanced to the side. To the Deviant who had tried to shield me even as her body failed. The empress placed her lips by my ear, her breath sending tremors through me.
‘Now, Mrs Asmar.’ Tears ran down my cheeks as the Deviant’s white eyes met mine.
‘How many of your prayers do you think she’s heard?
Heard and ignored. Our desperate hearts plead with her, beg her, but when does she answer?
She denied me when I needed her. Now, she’ll ensure I never, ever, ever die. ’
I swallowed as the world ruptured. The Deviant’s face, a face I’d seen painted in countless icons, a face I’d cursed and praised in equal measure, turned towards me.
‘Evella?’
The Goddess nodded, a slight incline of her head.
‘But how?’
I spun back and the empress had a new heart on a chain. Not ruby, though. This one shimmered, crystal white, veined with threads of silver.
‘Whoever possesses the heart, owns the beast,’ I whispered.
‘No,’ she said, her chest heaving. ‘To own the heart, is to possess the God.’
My breath caught. If Vyrus arrived now, she owned almost all his heart. He’d belong to her. No. I swallowed down the panic before it claimed me. He was Vyrus. Vyrus. She’d never control him.
Would she?
The empress stood, dusting down her skirts as the ground rolled beneath us.
‘You’re…’ I could barely get the words out. The magnanimity of what she wanted to achieve was beyond a nightmare. ‘You’re killing one God to summon another?’
‘Silly Asmar. No.’ She bent down, grasped my hair, tugging my head up.
‘I have no wish to summon a God. You’re.
Not. Listening. Even with their hearts, the power I’ve won is not enough.
My body will still succumb to the toxins I took in my desperation to avoid the inevitable monotony of destiny.
’ I gripped her hand, screaming as she slammed my head back into the jagged rocks with each word.
She lay her poisoned mouth against my ear.
‘I care nothing for the fate of Gods. My desire demands I become one. A new age.
‘A new God.’
Her face contorted, a fist slammed into my already thudding head and as my eyes closed and darkness claimed me for the final time, I caught the glimpse of a golden tear slipping down Evella’s fractured cheek.