Chapter 14
Chapter fourteen
There is nothing in death, but the shadow isn’t death. It wants. Aching. Unrelenting.
In my years spent on the run, there were times I’d been starving, the hunger pains in my belly unbearable. This is so much worse.
This hunger will not be sated. It balloons behind my ribs, washing into my pool of magic like a morbid tide. More. More. More.
Something wet drags over my throat. I shiver despite its warmth, and again as it sweeps over my forehead. Pain erupts at the contact, and my eyes fly open to find the Aeternalis hovering over me. His eyes are closed in rapture, a moan vibrating from his blood-stained lips.
He leans in, licking at the few drops that have rolled from a cut at my forehead to gather at my brow.
With a savage snarl, I wedge my feet against his chest and kick out, sending him flying off me.
He lands with the agile spring of a cat, his expression feral as his tongue swipes slowly over his lips to gather every last drop.
Pan throws his head back with a groan, his depraved excitement now evident in the tight pull of his trousers. But it isn’t only his twisted arousal that sends horror sluicing over me like an icy deluge. It is the sensation of being watched, heavy and pervasive.
For a moment, I believe it’s the little boy the Aeternalis had drained to keep himself alive.
But when I turn there is no sign of the child.
There is only a shadow lingering behind me, though the sun’s rays do not reach this corner of the cabin.
My breath tangles in my lungs, and for a moment, I pray this is a dream—pray that I haven’t somehow allowed the shadows of rage outside of me.
But it is not a dream. The shadow lingers, silent and watchful, its malevolence seeping toward me.
It is my own silhouette with any remaining softness sliced out, leaving only the darkest wants, the most depraved desires.
It is unending rage and selfishness, a lifetime of hurting others before they could hurt me.
To look at the shadow is to glimpse the worst parts of who I am given form. Displayed openly for everyone to see.
No, no, no.
“Isn’t it lovely?” Pan purrs, rising to his full height. His own shadow shudders behind him, both of them watching mine with lecherous intent. “I must say, cousin…I’d imagined your depravity to be something splendid, but this…This is more glorious than even I could have imagined.”
Head throbbing, I climb to my feet, intent on keeping a wary distance from my shadow. But when I step, it does, too. It mirrors my every movement, and the slow panic of being trapped descends over me.
“How—how do I put it back?”
For my secrets and selfishness and want of power are acceptable hidden behind my bones, but here, in the open, they are infernal. No one will want me as their queen if they see the truth of me. No one will want me at all.
Pan cocks his head with predatory malice.
“Your shadow is only your true self. You cannot hide it. You must embrace it.” He prowls toward me, and I measure his steps, nearly stumbling over an ottoman.
“You nurtured it with your ruthlessness. You watered it with your cruelty. You warmed it with your selfishness. And now, it is yours to wield as you please. You will feed it with the power of others, and it will be your weapon with which to conquer worlds.”
A keening cry comes from the deck of the ship. Oh god, the children.
I hadn’t saved them from Pan’s control at all.
They’re still here, trapped with not only his horror, but mine.
Because at their cry, my shadow lurches toward the sound.
Harrowing hunger ravages through me. I bite my lip to keep from crying out as it digs into magic, scrapes against my lungs, hollows out my stomach.
“You succeeded in severing my control over them, you know,” the Aeternalis says.
The words should be a comfort, but at his wicked grin, I feel only trepidation for what’s to come.
“Do you want to know how?”
A terrified part of me wants to shake my head and cover my ears, but I find myself nodding.
“I can no longer control any of the children in Letum, because they no longer dream. You killed every single one, Willa. Your shadow devoured them all.”
He drinks in the devastation crashing over my face with fervor, digging his teeth into his bottom lip.
Everything I’ve shoved down in the past year—the past hundred years—rushes to the surface.
It tightens my throat, constricts my lungs, weighs down my limbs, until I’m drowning on dry land.
Every breath is a painful wheeze and I sway on my feet.
I stare at my shadow and it stares back, all of its terrible wants mirrored in the empty spaces of my chest.
A dry sob barrels up my throat, the familiar urge to escape pulsing through me. I can’t be here. I can’t be here.
I paint a sloppy picture in my head, with crooked lines and messy strokes. The children, safe on the docks. And me, far away from this ship.
The Aeternalis makes no move to stop me. He only smiles, and says, “You will be back, littlest darling. For I am the only being in the universe who will love your deepest shames.”
I push my magic outside of myself, and a moment later, I am collapsing to the floor of the Lunaedon. I kneel, pressing my forehead to the black parquet until the wound smarts and blood begins to pour freely once more.
I am no longer the woman who runs from pain—I am one who chases after it like it will cleanse me of the guilt, the shame, the self-loathing.
I ruined the only man I ever loved. And now, I ruined the world he gave his life for.
Why did I ever think I could save Letum when I’ve never once been enough to save anything?
Not Celie, and not the thousands of children after her.
Did I truly think a little magic would be enough to change who I am at my core?
Did I truly believe that a small bit of light would be enough to balance the darkness inherent in me?
If Niko was the King of Carrion, perhaps I truly am the queen.
Queen of ruination.
Days pass, and I crumble beneath the weight of guilt and sorrow. My body is heavy and so I don’t try to move it. I curl up in Niko’s bed and stay there.
Tiernan and Sam and Adira take turns pounding on the door, but I only bury myself deeper beneath the comforter.
I hate the sunlight that pours through the windows just as surely as I hate the starlight.
Beautiful things are only a stark reminder of the horror looming beside me at all hours. My horror. My darkness.
I do not deserve the light when all I contain is empty darkness.
The magic of the island grows stale in my veins, for though its power is still fed by the burgeoning dreams of the mainland, the dreams of its own people have gone dark.
The sirens’ mourning song echoes through the kingdom, a mirror of the grief winding through my thoughts even in sleep.
A grief that will not relent because I am at the root of it.
I learned early in my life that no one cares about sadness. Sadness is soft; sadness is quiet. So I turned my sorrow to rage and made them pay attention.
But the same anger that has always protected me destroyed everything I care about. I cannot hold it close without thinking of everything it has cost me. I cannot let it go without floundering, my broken pieces swept away in the wind before I can gather any of them up.
A week passes when Tiernan tries to take an axe to the door. But the magic of the Lunaedon outlives its master, after a few hours of no progress, he is forced to abandon the effort. Sam brings food night after night, but it rots in the hallway, untouched.
I feel no physical hunger, only the hunger of my shadow.
Its appetite rattles against my ribs, drags claws down my lungs.
I scream into a pillow, thrashing in the sheets as I fight to shove it down; to think of anything but the hollow ache of it, the dark pull.
Sweat beads on my brow as I fall into a restless sleep, my dreams no better than waking.
Willa.
My name drifts through my consciousness, fragmented and warped. The tone is foreign, and I shy away from it, curling into myself. Everything hurts, everything is raw and empty.
They are coming for your throne, Willa. You must not let them take it.
I want to scream at the voice; to tear into it with blades and demonstrate all I’ve given in service of my throne. But I am so tired—so, so tired—of proving to everyone how much I am willing to sacrifice. Of only existing in the pieces of myself I can hand over.
They come, Willa. With enchanting words and hollow hearts. Beware the Aeternalis. Beware the Carrion King.
The name snags something near my heart, and my eyes fly open.
But as I blink away the vestiges of unconsciousness, I find I am still entirely alone except for the shadow still looming above me.
I cannot see the buttery rays of sunlight filtering through the windows, nor the constellations of Letum carved into the onyx headboard. I only see the shadow.
For a wild moment, I wonder if my grief has driven me mad. Has seeing the truth of myself so clearly in the light of day finally pushed me over the edge of sanity? Have I conjured imaginary voices to soothe the unbearable edge of loneliness?
They come Willa.
Had there truly been someone whispering those haunting words in my ear? Or was it my own paranoia and fear speaking to me in unconsciousness?
Before I can consider it further, something shifts in the air. It is the same as when the Aeternalis arrived in the kingdom: the magic behind my heart pulls painfully taut, rising in a sudden rush from where I’ve kept it smothered.
I taste the sweetness of dreams along my tongue, feel the surge of nightmares in the frenzied beat of my heart.
The shadow writhes above me, and I try to ignore its frenetic movements as I dip into flow of Letum’s magic. I am not practiced at deciphering the feel of things yet, so it takes me far too long to sift through the flow of power to determine where the disruption is originating.
It is not a ward opening at all. Someone is touching the heart of my island.
Only one person would dare go into the Crocodile to touch what’s mine. Only one person would survive it.
Pan.
As if it’s been released from an iron prison, rage careens through me, washing the world in shades of crimson. I lurch from bed, my shadow following silently behind me as I shove my feet into boots and buckle weapons at my hip.
There is no thought to self-preservation as I paint myself into the Crocodile—the dark jagged strokes of rock, the clean lines of my father’s barn—there is only ruination.
If I am fated to ruin everything I touch, I’ll be sure to take the Aeternalis with me.
A moment later, the hush of the cave presses against my ears.
My father’s decrepit barn rises above me, and this time, I don’t hesitate before I push through the door with a snarl.
Past the blood-stained concrete where I once found my baby sister.
Past the rope hanging from the rafters where my father chose death over me.
Magic floods through me as I find the stone steps leading to the heart of the island, buried beneath a pile of old boxes and broken tools. Hunger gnaws at my stomach, and I no longer care whether it is mine or the shadow’s, so long as it is fed with Pan’s blood.
I tear around the final corner, and the world freezes.
Or perhaps it’s me that freezes, like lightning halted mid-streak across the sky.
Because it is not the Aeternalis crouched beside the shore of the expansive lake—not the Aeternalis’ elegant fingers that reach toward the island’s lifeblood with an air of ownership.
It’s Niko.