Chapter 28
The thing wearing Atilia’s face circles us slowly, its shadow stretching and warping with every step. I stay where I am, planted beside Luceran, my body angled between him and the creature as if flesh alone might be enough to stop it.
Luceran stirs. His fingers find my hand, weak but insistent.
“Neve,” he rasps. “You have to go. Now. While you still can.” His grip tightens, panic flashing beneath the pain. “It only wants me. It has always wanted me. It will torment me for eternity, but you…” He swallows. “You don’t have to stay.”
I shake my head, leaving no room for uncertainty. “No.”
I lift my chin and face the demon. “You’ve already taken enough,” I say. My voice trembles, but I don’t let it break. “The people are gone. They’ve fled. There are no more souls here for you to feed on.”
It laughs softly.
“Oh, little human,” it croons. “Grief shared between two lovers is a far richer feast. Their sorrow alone will sustain my master for centuries.”
A blinding rage flares through me. “Why her?” I demand. “Why Atilia?” I gesture toward the stolen face. “Why not just kill us? I’ve seen your true form. Are you so weak you need flesh just to do your bidding?”
The demon lunges.
Teeth flash, impossibly sharp, black ichor spilling thick and viscous over Atilia’s blood-red lips. The smell of it turns my stomach.
“You are brave,” it hisses, “to speak so to a being that witnessed the dawn of the world and will watch it burn in the final days.”
Luceran’s hand clamps around mine.
“It’s a parasite,” he says, his voice faltering but clear. “It can’t survive above ground without a host. It needs a body. That’s why it dwells in the tunnels. So deep beneath the rock that even my cold cannot reach it. That’s why it calls to them. It lures them to it.”
Understanding crashes into me.
The winter. The endless cold. The lake that never thaws.
That is why Luceran does not lift it.
The winter is a cage.
A prison forged of frost and sacrifice, trapping the demon beneath the lake. Holding it down.
Luceran groans suddenly, his head snapping back against the chair as pain rips through him again. His free hand claws at his chest, fingers digging into the flesh over his heart.
The winter contains the demon.
But it is killing the male I love.
“You think too highly of yourself, Lord of Frostwyn,” the demon sneers. “Your body is a frozen tomb. I could never make a home of it.”
It lifts Atilia’s hand, turning her fingers with casual cruelty, a puppeteer flexing its strings. “But this body is warm,” it continues. “And I will use it to harvest both your souls.”
It tips its stolen face upward, toward the full moon framed by the glass dome, snow drifting endlessly beyond it.
“When you are dead, Luceran, when the frost finally thaws, I will reap every soul in Brunemar. When the earth softens, I will soak it in blood.”
It steps closer.
I do not retreat.
I tighten my grip on Luceran’s shoulder, draw myself upright, force my spine straight even as my heart hammers wildly in my chest. I pray it cannot hear the frantic beat of it, cannot smell my fear as it prickles across my skin. My gaze flicks to the fire poker resting near the hearth.
Even possessed, this is still Atilia’s body.
Luceran’s mother.
Do I strike her? Do I drive the iron point into her chest, between her eyes, fast and true?
Or would the demon simply slip free, retreating beneath the lake once more to wait, while I am left to bury my lover and his mother on the same night?
My eyes fall to Luceran.
Pain ravages him. He tries to stand, tries to intervene, but every time he grips the arm of the chair, his strength fails. He collapses back down, breath tearing from his chest. This winter, this curse, this demon is draining the last fragile threads of life from him.
I am not ready to lose him.
The demon takes another step.
This time, I step forward to meet it.
“You’ve taken strong bodies before,” I say, lifting my chin. “Men hardened by the mines. Bodies forged by labor.” My throat tightens. “Pax. Young. Strong.”
I swallow hard, refusing the tears that threaten at his name.
“Even Lady Aluna,” I continue. Luceran looks up at me then, his heavy brow lifting. “She was a powerful Fae.”
The demon’s lip twitches. It snorts, but it listens.
“Atilia is old,” I go on. “Even for a Fae, time has worn her down. Her mind may still be sharp, but her body…” I let my gaze travel deliberately over the stolen form. “…I imagine you can feel its weaknesses.”
The demon growls low in its throat. For a moment, it looks down at Atilia’s body, assessing. Measuring.
Then those black, empty eyes rise to meet mine.
“What is your point, human?”
I draw in a breath and force my lip to still, my hands not to shake.
I loosen my grip on Luceran’s hand.
He fights me, weak fingers clutching, desperate, but the pain wins. His hold slackens, his hand falling limp against the arm of the chair.
“Take my body,” I say.
My voice does not shake. It rings clear, steady, stronger than I feel.
“I am young. I am strong. I am clever. Take my body and you will never need to find another again. Let me be the instrument for you… and your master. Forever.”
“Neve, no.” Luceran’s voice breaks through the pain, ragged and desperate. He reaches for me, but I shove his hand away, stepping out of his grasp just as he clutches at his heart again, his body folding inward.
The demon tilts its head.
It studies me with infinite time at its fingertips.
Those empty eyes drag over my face, my throat, my frame, as if weighing flesh and bone.
It steps closer. Atilia’s hands reach for me, fingers brushing my skin.
My breath hitches when they slide along my neck, my shoulders, when they skim over my breasts, but I refuse to flinch. I will not give it that satisfaction.
Luceran snarls, surging forward, but he barely moves an inch before he chokes, gasping for air. The demon only laughs at him.
“You wish to make a bargain with a demon?” it asks.
The word stiffens my spine. “I thought… only Fae could make bargains.”
Its laughter deepens, vibrating beneath my skin like an earthquake.
“Any being who holds the power of the old world may bargain, human. Who do you think taught the Fae?”
I draw in a breath. Steel myself.
“Then name it,” I say. “What is the bargain?”
Those black eyes rake over me again, assessing, appraising, like meat on a butcher’s block.
“Your body,” it says. “Given willingly. You will not fight me.” Suddenly the demon's eyes go wide, no, not the demon… Atilia. She gasps and for a split second something flickers there, but the demon snarls, shakes it away and takes back control. “They always fight in the end.”
My jaw tightens.
Did Aluna fight? I know Pax did. Is Atilia fighting now?
“I can keep a body far longer if it submits,” it continues, nodding as if pleased. “Yours will suit me well, so long as it holds together.”
A chill coils in my gut. “Holds together?”
It grins, needle teeth grinding together.
“All flesh rots eventually. Your skin will slough away like fruit left too long in the sun. Flies will come soon enough. They will lay their eggs in whatever warmth remains. But I promise you this…” its smile widens, “…that will not be for a very long time.”
It leans closer.
“Do you accept this bargain, Neve Devlin?”
I look down at Luceran.
His eyes plead with me. His voice is gone. I watch him fading before me, every breath a battle, every heartbeat a theft.
“You will leave Luceran alone,” I say quietly.
I lift my gaze back to the demon. “You take my body and then we leave Castle Frostwyn.”
The demon’s brow creases.
“That is the bargain. Do you agree?”
It lifts its chin slowly, dragging a finger along Atilia’s throat.
“I accept.”
It happens so quickly.
The room darkens.
Not night, something deeper. Shadows pour outward, swallowing the walls, blotting out the moon above the glass dome until even its pale glow is extinguished. The fire in the hearth gutters, sputters, then collapses into dull, lifeless embers.
I turn toward Luceran, words I need him to hear on the edge of my tongue, but before I can speak, the demon whispers.
“Neve.”
The sound of my name coils through the air like a caress.
“Come to me, Neve.”
I turn and the shadows surge.
Smoke rushes into my mouth, down my throat, filling my lungs, my chest, my veins. I choke, stumble, my eyes wide as my muscles lock and seize. Gods… I can feel it. Everywhere. Inside me. Around me. My body stops listening. I try to scream, to run, but I cannot move.
I am no longer in control.
Only my mind lingers, thin and fragile, like the last scrap of me it has not yet devoured.
I glance down and see Atilia’s body discarded on the stone. For a terrible moment she lies still. Then she flinches. Groans. Her head turns slowly, and when her eyes meet mine, they are hers again.
A voice coils inside my head.
“Do not fight. It will all be over soon. Then your pain will be gone.”
I snarl low in my throat as it pushes deeper, its presence obscene, invasive, like serpents writhing beneath my skin.
“I am so glad this has happened,” it murmurs.
“I sensed you the moment you arrived. I knew you and I would do glorious things together. That is why I called you. I tasted your grief. Your loss. Your sadness.” It groans, and I twitch at the vulgar intimacy of it.
“Such sweet music. Oh, Neve… I will show you wonders.”
My fists clench. Tears burn at the corners of my eyes.
“Now relax,” it croons. “Remember the bargain. You gave yourself willingly.”
I am losing this battle.
But there is enough of me left to know what I want.
Who I love.
“Luceran,” I breathe, my voice ragged, torn from my chest. “Kiss me.”
His eyes lift to mine, dimmed, dulled by pain, but there is fight in him still. His jaw tightens. With a snarl of effort, he grips the chair and hauls himself upright, even as agony ripples through him.
Then his hands cup my face.
He kisses me.
My body trembles as shadows blur my vision, as darkness claws at me from within, but through it all, I feel him. The consuming chill of his mouth. The frost I have missed without knowing it.
Cold surges through me.
It spills from his lips to my cheeks, creeps across my jaw, down my throat. My skin pales, then blues, frost racing along my veins. Even my blood turns cold.
Suddenly the shadows recoil.
The darkness inside me falters, retreating from the cold stealing its ground.
“The bargain!” the demon screams inside my skull. “You agreed!”
I lean fully into Luceran’s kiss, my thoughts calm, unwavering.
“I am not fighting you,” I answer. “I am only kissing the male I love.”
It shrieks.
“You tricked me! No!”
Cold floods me.
The demon is torn free, ripped from my body in a howl of shadow and fury and crashes onto the stone in a formless, writhing mass.
The frost is already waiting.
It devours the shadows from the ground up, ice crawling over the demon’s thrashing shape. Dark tendrils lash and recoil, its breath fogging the air, but the cold does not yield.
Frost climbs higher, sealing every shred of shadow into solid ice, until nothing remains but darkness trapped within a frozen shell.
The room stills.
I stagger back, my body nearly numb, teeth chattering as I stare at the demon trapped within its prison. My hand trembles as I reach for the poker by the hearth, but the moment my fingers close around the metal, agony explodes behind my eyes.
“Neve!” the demon screams inside my skull.
My hands fly to my head, clawing at my hair as if I could tear the sound out of me.
“You think it would be so easy to end me?” it roars. “I witnessed the birth of the world. I feasted at my master’s table while souls were devoured for millennia. I cannot be ended so easily.”
Its voice crushes my thoughts like a vice. I collapse to my knees, cradling my head.
“I will have you!” it shrieks.
But even with the screams filling my head, something familiar gets through. Chatter and bickering and tiny wings buzzing.
I drag my eyes upward just in time to see Mink and Fitz, each of them clutching a lump of coal in their hands. They glance at each other, nod once, and throw.
Their aim is true, and with their deceptive strength the blow lands like a boulder. The frozen mass shatters in an instant, fragments slamming into the stone and bursting into thousands of glittering shards, too many to count, too small to ever be whole again.
The sprites cheer, triumphant and wild.
Then silence.
The voice in my head is gone.
I push myself upright, still reeling from the pain, from the cold lodged deep in my bones, but I am free. Truly free.
I turn to Luceran.
He is still slumped in the chair, arms reaching for me.
I rush to him, collapsing into his embrace, sobbing against his chest as he gathers me close and rocks me gently.
“You can let it go now,” I whisper through my tears. “You can let the winter go, my love.”
I lift my face, my hand sliding from his chest, still rasping with shallow breath, to the back of his neck. I draw him to me.
Now it is I who kisses him.
Where there was cold, I give him warmth.
My tears spill freely, running down my cheeks and mingling with our kiss as it deepens.
I feel his body strengthen beneath me, his arms tightening, his hands reclaiming me in a way that makes the terror of this night begin to fade into something distant and unreal.
Beneath my palms, his skin warms.
His blood pumps hot.
The cold drains from him like poison from a wound.
When my eyes flutter open, his gaze glows blue and gold, his cheeks flushed pink with life. He smiles against my lips.
Somehow, I find the strength to smile too.
And through the shattered window, in the rose garden beyond, a single brave green shoot pierces the snow.