Chapter 18 #2
Using the flicker of rebellion greed has against him claiming me to help me, I crawl to them.
My hands shake so badly I can barely hold the matches, but I manage.
Seven white. Seven black. Seven red. Each flame springs to life, and the greed abhors them, abhors the light, the purification, anything that isn't mine to take and keep and own.
"Cut yourself," Croesus orders. "Add your blood to mine."
I take up my athame. Press it to my forearm. The greed won't let me, tells me I'm too valuable to damage, too precious to bleed.
"Raven." His hand covers mine on the knife. "Do it. Now."
Together, we cut. My blood, dark red, human, mixes with his gold in the circle. The flames turn white-gold, brighter than anything I've ever seen.
"Say the words," he says. "I'll help you."
I open my mouth, but the greed chokes the words in my throat. Won't let me give up anything, not even the sin that's killing me.
Croesus starts instead, his voice strong and clear:
"Ex carne mea, te expello." From my flesh, I cast you out.
I force my voice to join his: "Ex anima mea, te solvo." From my soul, I release you.
"Non sum avaritia," Croesus says. I am not greed. I repeat each line.
The greed thrashes out its fury at being named.
His voice cracks slightly. "Non sum cupiditas." I am not covetousness.
"Redi ad originem tuam," I whisper. Return to your origin. "Redi ad dominum tuum." Return to your master.
I pour our mixed blood, red and gold, into the flames.
The greed screams, and then it's being ripped out of me like roots torn from earth, like bones pulled from a living body, like my soul is being flayed. Not gentle. Not clean. Brutal and agonizing and endless. It’s tearing through my throat, my chest, my soul, pulling out pieces of me along with the sin because fifteen years of avarice doesn't want to let go, has grown tendrils into every part of me, wrapped around my spine like a parasite that would rather kill its host than leave.
I'm screaming. Or maybe that's still the greed screaming. Or maybe we're the same thing now, inseparable as blood and water mixed. I can't tell anymore.
Croesus's hands are on my shoulders, grounding me. "Breathe. You're not me. Come back."
But I am him. Right now, at this moment, I'm feeling what he feels every second of every day. The hunger. The emptiness. The terrible, aching loneliness of having everything and feeling nothing.
How does he survive this?
How has he survived this for three thousand years?
The greed pours out of me in golden smoke, burning away in the white-gold flames. It takes forever. It takes an instant. Time stretches and snaps like a rubber band pulled to breaking. Time becomes a circle, becomes a knife, becomes nothing at all.
When it's finally gone, when the last tendril of avarice burns away like morning fog, I collapse forward.
Croesus catches me. Pulls me against his chest. And I can feel his heart beating, too fast, too hard, like he's the one who just purged a sin instead of me.
"You're okay," he says, but his voice is shaking. "You're okay. You survived."
I'm not okay. I'm hollow. Every nerve ending feels like it's been dipped in acid.
But I'm alive.
"That's what you feel," I whisper against his chest. "All the time. That's, Croesus, that's what you are?"
He goes very still. A statue. A held breath. A moment before the fall. "Yes."
"How?" Tears are running down my face, salt rivers carving paths through exhaustion. "How do you survive it? How do you exist like that and not..." I can't finish. Can't find words for the horror of it. For three thousand years of being a black hole that devours itself.
"I don't know." His arms tighten around me. "I just do. Because the alternative is fading. Ceasing to exist. And even this," His voice breaks. "Even this endless hunger is better than nothing. Of being a puppet to the creator."
I pull back enough to look at him. His gold eyes are bright, too bright. Wet. Is he crying?
Can angels cry?
"I felt you," I say. "When I absorbed the greed. I didn't just feel Victoria's hunger. I felt yours. Three thousand years of it. All at once."
"I'm sorry." He touches my face, wipes away tears. "I didn't want you to feel that. Didn't want you to know, "
"Know what? That you're in pain? That you've been in pain for millennia?" More tears. I can't stop them. "Croesus, you're suffering. Every second. And you hide it so well that no one knows. No one sees."
"What would be the point of showing it?" His thumb traces my cheekbone. "I can't change what I am. Can't escape the curse. So I endure. I take and take and take, hoping that maybe this time, this acquisition, this soul, this something will finally be enough."
"But it never is."
"No." He leans his forehead against mine. "It never is. Until you."
My breath catches. "What?"
"You." His hands frame my face. "When I look at you, when I touch you, when you look at me like you're seeing past the gold to whatever's underneath, for just a moment, the hunger quiets. Just a moment. But it's more peace than I've had in three thousand years."
"Croesus," I whisper.
"That's why I kissed you. Why I called you mine. Why I can't let you go." His voice is raw. "Because you're the first thing I've wanted that actually satisfies something. Not the hunger for acquisition. The hunger for connection."
I should pull away. Should remind him this is temporary, that I'm leaving in less than a year, that whatever this is can't last.
But I just felt what he feels, experienced his curse. Just lived inside his pain for fifteen minutes that felt like eternity.
And I can't walk away from that, away from him.
I kiss him.
Not because he's claiming me. Not because I'm too tired to resist. But because I choose to. Because I felt his suffering, and I want to ease it, even if just for a moment. Because under the gold and the greed and the three thousand years of endless hunger, there's something worth saving.
He makes a sound, surprise and relief and desperate need, and kisses me back like I'm water and he's been dying of thirst. Like I'm air and he's been drowning.
Like I'm the first sunrise after three thousand years of night.
His hands are in my hair, on my back, pulling me closer like he's trying to pull me inside his skin.
The kiss is hungry but not greedy. Desperate but not demanding. It tastes like blood and salt, his power and my tears, and something underneath which might be hope. That might be healing. That might be the first moment of peace he's felt since the fall.
When we finally break apart, we're both breathing hard.
"Stay with me tonight," he says. "Don't go back to your room. Stay here. With me."
"Croesus. "
"Not for sex. Not for anything except..." He stops for a moment, then starts again. "I don't want to be alone tonight. And I don't think you do either."
He's right. The thought of going back to my empty room, of lying in that bed alone after feeling what he feels, after understanding his pain...
I can't do it.
"Okay," I whisper. "I'll stay."
His private chambers are nothing like I expect.
Not a dragon's hoard or a throne room or anything ostentatious. Just a bedroom, large but simple. A massive bed with black sheets. A fireplace that burns with golden flames. Windows that show impossible views: desert sunsets, ocean waves, mountain peaks. All of them fake. All of them beautiful. Not going to lie, I’m relieved to see something besides ambiguous golden light out the window at this point.
"Sit," he says, gesturing to the bed. "I'll get you water."
He disappears into an adjoining bathroom. I sit on the edge of the bed, looking down at my arms. The forty-seventh tattoo is forming, I can feel it burning itself into my skin. A coin. Simple. Elegant. The mark of greed.
The mark of understanding what Croesus is.
He returns with water and what looks like a first aid kit. Crouches in front of me, starts cleaning the cut on my arm with careful, gentle hands. It’s not necessary. It’s already healing easily.
"You didn't have to help me," I say quietly. "You could have let me do the ritual alone."
"No, I couldn't." He wraps my arm with clean bandages. "Your blood wouldn't have been strong enough. You needed mine to break my curse. And even if you hadn't—" He looks up. "I couldn't watch you suffer through that alone. Not when I know exactly how it feels."
"You suffer through it alone every day."
"That's different."
"How?"
"Because I'm used to it." His hands still on my arm. "You're not. And you shouldn't have to be."
I touch his face. His skin is warm, solid, real. "I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"For not understanding before. For thinking you were just a monster. Just an angel who takes because he can. I didn't know you were trapped. That you're suffering too. So much more than I ever imagined."
"I am a monster." He leans into my touch. "The suffering doesn't change that. I've still collected three hundred thousand souls. Still made deals that destroyed lives. Still chosen my survival over everything else."
"But you're not just that." I lean closer. "You're also this. The angel who gave me his blood to save my life. Who asks me to stay because he doesn't want to be alone."
"Which one is real?" His voice is barely a whisper. "The monster or this?"
"Both." I kiss him softly. "Both are real. And I'm choosing both."
He pulls me closer, and we sit there on the edge of his bed in silence. Just breathing. Just being, existing together without hunger or greed or the weight of three thousand years between us.
Eventually, he says: "Sleep. You need to rest."
I crawl under the covers, they're softer than anything I've ever felt, probably worth a fortune. He joins me, fully clothed, staying on top of the blankets like he's giving me space.
"You can come under," I say. "I don't mind."
He hesitates. Then slides under the covers beside me. Pulls me against his chest. And for the first time since I arrived in the House of Gold, I feel warm.
Not just physically warm. Warm. Like something inside me that's been frozen for years is finally starting to thaw.
"Raven," he murmurs against my hair.
"Yeah?"
"Thank you."
"For what?"
"For staying. For seeing me. For--” He stops. "For choosing both."
I close my eyes and let myself relax into his arms. Let myself accept this moment of peace.
Tomorrow, I'll have to face what this means. I’ll need to figure out what I'm becoming, what we're becoming, what any of this means for my plan to leave in a year.
But tonight, I'm just going to sleep beside an angel who's been alone for three thousand years and remember what it feels like to be held.
"Goodnight, Croesus," I whisper.
His arms tighten around me. "Goodnight, Raven."
I fall asleep feeling safe.
And for the first time in weeks, I don't dream of drowning in gold.
I dream of flying.