Chapter 15
Chapter fifteen
Time has done nothing to soften the edges of the Carrion King’s beauty.
All contrasting shadows and light, the way he watches me from the water’s edge feels like an attack.
And when he smiles, vicious and arrogant as ever, it is a dagger lodged between my ribs that has exquisite pain piercing through the numbness I’ve been buried in since the moment he left.
The air between us sparks with electricity as his ribbons unravel from their place at his throat, the black silk devouring the light of the will-o-wisps winking in the empty sockets of the skull island.
The shadow at my back flickers in rage, watching as Niko’s death skates toward me to dance happily at my feet.
Though they don’t touch me, my heartbeat slows and the tightness in my muscles unfurls, like my body has been waiting all this time for their presence.
I can’t seem to breathe. Can’t seem to do anything but stare and stare.
The Carrion King isn’t dead. He’s home.
“I know simple manners have never been your forte, but it’s considered rude to gape at someone without speaking,” Niko drawls with a lazy grin.
Words are buried far too deep beneath my shock, and the sound of his voice when I was so sure I’d never hear it again, only compounds it.
He tilts his head, obsidian eyes running from my head to my toes in that obsessive way of his. My skin warms wherever his gaze touches, my head swimming. I’m terrified to move—like one wrong breath will fracture this moment, revealing it to be only a dream conjured by my sorrow and desperation.
“Have I rendered you speechless? Shall I prepare myself for swooning next?”
A ribbon softly brushes against my cheek.
The icy sting of pain is a catalyst, and suddenly, everything I’ve felt in our time apart—the anger, the guilt, the dread, the longing—explodes in my chest. I close the space between us in two large strides, and strike the Carrion King across the cheek as hard as I can.
Niko’s head snaps sideways, his ribbons spearing into the air around us. His jaw tightens, and as he’s reaching to touch the rapidly blooming welt—or perhaps, to give me a bruise to match—I throw myself into his arms.
There is no thought beyond the need to feel the beat of his heart beside mine; the need to feel the life pulsing through him with my own hands.
Niko catches me without even rocking back on his heels, burying his face in my hair as I bury mine in his chest. The shadow that’s loomed behind me since I killed the island’s dreams seems to disappear entirely as I breathe Niko in.
The tears I haven’t been able to cry begin to drip silently down my cheeks, and I savor how they fall, because it means he’s really here. He’s alive.
“Hello, Darling,” he whispers into my hair, his own breathing uneven and ragged. He holds me tighter, digging his fingers into my skin, like he’s been as starved for me as I have for him.
“I thought you were dead,” I whisper back, my voice little more than a ragged sob. “I thought Pan killed you, and that I was the one—that it was my fault.”
Niko brushes sticky strands of my hair from my face, before trailing his large hands down my spine. “Do you have so little faith in me?” The question is a quiet laugh, the sound of it a deep rumble that vibrates between our bodies.
“To survive?”
“To find my way home.”
I take a deep breath, daring to finally look at him fully.
He is beauty and darkness, both a nightmare and a dream.
I drink in the fathomless depths of his eyes, made darker by the makeup smudged around them; I devour the fan of his long lashes over his cheek, and the small scar dissecting his upper lip; I savor the golden hoop decorating one side of his nose, and the diamond stud in the other.
The sight of him is pure pleasure, a gift I don’t deserve but revel in nonetheless. His face blurs as more tears gather along my lashes.
“I didn’t—” The rest of the sentiment lodges thickly in my throat along with my shame. I didn’t think you’d want to come home. I clear my throat, trying again. “The Aeternalis…he as much as told me you were dead.”
Niko’s death pierces up toward the ceiling the moment I speak the name.
And though his expression is just as lethal as his ribbons, the intensity with which he searches my face leaves me breathless.
I resist the urge to squirm beneath his gaze, wondering what he glimpses beneath my skin.
Does he see the sorrow, the failure? Does he know I’ve destroyed the dreams of his kingdom just as surely as he destroyed the mainland’s?
“Peter has always had an overactive imagination,” he growls. “It would take far more than a poorly aimed bullet to kill me.”
He draws the tips of his fingers over my cheekbones and down to my lips, his eyes tracing his touch like he’s memorizing me anew.
“The sunlight suits you,” he says quietly.
“No, it doesn’t.” The words are out of my mouth before I consider them. They catch Niko’s attention, lifting it from my mouth to my eyes.
“Is that your way of fishing for a compliment?” He arches a brow. “Quite unseemly for the Queen of Dreams. The sun may suit you, Darling, but false humility certainly doesn’t.” I shiver as a ribbon crawls up my calf and slides over my thigh like silk. “Anyone can see the way your skin glows.”
I lift my chin. “The starlight is what suits me.”
He goes still at the reminder of the way I looked bathed in starlight and nothing else. When I was his and he was mine.
“And as beautiful as Letum is in the daylight, I’ve spent every moment of the past year longing for the relief of darkness.”
Niko searches my face, his obsidian gaze ruthless and guarded. Like he cannot dare to hope without being destroyed entirely. “What are you saying, Willa?”
I don’t know what I’m saying or why I’m truly saying it. His unexpected return has unmoored me, and all I know is how thankful I am those horrible moments on the Lunaedon balcony were not our last together.
“How are you here?” I ask, grasping for an anchor as my head swims—something to hold onto in the current of emotions threatening to pull me under. “How did you get through the wards? I didn’t feel them open. I…I didn’t feel you until you touched the water.”
Niko’s fingers freeze, and his body tightens against mine like he’s preparing for battle. “I was told you were a tad busy at the time of my arrival.”
My stomach plummets like I’ve lurched over a cliff. “You’ve…you’ve been here for an entire week?”
The words are slow, a dangerous dare. For if he arrived when I was in Caelum, it means I am not the reason for his return. It means he did not rush to me the moment he stepped foot on the island, unable to stand another minute apart.
His silence is confirmation enough. I wrench myself out of his arms with a furious huff.
Niko watches me carefully, tracking my movements like I’m an animal ready to pounce.
And truly, he’s not far off, as the moment I step away, my relief is swallowed by hurt, by anger—by the hunger of the shadow at my back.
“Why didn’t you tell me? I’ve been—” I cut myself off with a sharp curse, as the shadow behind me draws closer. It brushes against me, a caress not to comfort, but to incite.
I see the moment Niko notices it—the moment his eyes narrow with pure, undiluted fury. Shame crushes my chest, leaden as a boulder.
My shadow leans toward it, drawn to my misery. I attempt to shrug it off, to ignore the addictive syrup of its whisper in my ear: Gods are not ashamed of their power. It is he who should be wrapped in shame. He, who should be strangled with it.
“I have been tearing myself apart with the guilt of your death, Niko. Why…” My voice breaks. “Why didn’t you tell me you were home?”
He licks his lips, drawing his eyes from my shadow back to my face, almost unwillingly. I’ve somehow forgotten how it feels to be beneath that onyx gaze—like being showered in madness and euphoria at once.
“Tell me, Darling…would you have given me a hero’s welcome if I had? Or would you have set that shadow on me the moment I stepped foot in your kingdom?”
My shadow jerks in response, the hunger of its void burgeoning in my chest.
Niko laughs, the cruel, wicked sound of the Carrion King. “Forgive me for being wary of your reaction when the last time we met, you shoved me through a ward with my worst enemies.”
Guilt sluices through me, viscous and cold, as he continues, “It isn’t as if you regretted your decision and came after me immediately. Why would I assume you’d be happy to see me when you left me on the mainland to rot for a year?”
I swallow roughly, fury and regret clogging my throat in equal measure. “Why are you here then? Why did you come back?”
For you.
A pathetic part of me longs to hear him speak the words; to soothe the jagged edges of my insecurity, and tell me he’s been as tortured by our time apart as I have.
His eyes flicker back to where my shadow lingers, malice sparking over his features. His voice is little more than a primal growl. “To get back what’s mine.”
Niko’s answer hits me square in the chest, and I stumble back like he’s hit me. “Wh—what?” I stutter, hating the vulnerable waver in my voice.
“You well know the possession of death, Darling. You’ve felt its wrath since you stole from it, haven’t you?”
He studies my reaction—watches me stiffen as a deep hunger pain shreds through me, and the shadow rises behind me like he’s called it to attention.
Pure wrath flashes in Niko’s eyes as he hisses, “Now imagine stealing something from me.”
His fists clench at his sides, and his death spears toward where the shadow’s fingers claw at my shoulders.
Niko grits his teeth, the muscles in his neck going taut as he slowly winds his ribbons back into submission.
“Imagine sullying the beauty of what was once mine. Imagine ruining the light with darkness.”
Devastation showers me in a deluge, the weight of it nearly sending me crashing to my knees. The Carrion King has not come back for me; he’s come back for his kingdom.
Because he knows I’ve ruined everything he trusted me with.
“You’re lying.”
It’s a hope, a wish—desperate and fleeting. And when Niko laughs, the melodic sound burying itself behind my lungs, it winks out like a snuffed candle.
“You’ve taught me well enough what happens when we’re not honest with each other. I will only tell you the truth from this moment on…no matter how much you may not like it.”
My shadow drags its claws from my shoulders to come around my throat. Niko tracks the movement like he would an enemy, his mouth twisted in a poorly contained snarl.
“So, when I tell you I will shred myself apart to take back what’s been stolen, Willa…believe me.”
My world has shattered so many times before, but never the way it does now—like this time, I’ve shattered with it into pieces finer than dust. And there is no one left to collect the remnants.
Beware the King of Carrion.
My shadow squeezes my throat until I can hardly breathe, its warning ringing in my ears.
He will take everything that is yours. He will leave you with nothing.
As I stare at Niko, my shadow devours my guilt, my sorrow, my hope, until there is nothing but rage burning at the surface of my skin.
And I let it scorch through me, because it is better than emptiness.
I let it devour the blood in my veins and the magic behind my heart until I am nothing but darkness and vengeance.
He’s done it before. He will do it again. He stole your happiness and now, he will steal your island.
I’ll be damned before I let anyone take what’s mine. Not Pan. Not Niko. Not anyone.
I’ll destroy the entire goddamn universe before I give it up. I will take your guilt. I will take your shame, my shadow whispers. There will be nothing to hold you back from your power.
Niko is perfectly still, death wreathed around him in pestilent swathes, as he watches my shadow wrap me in its embrace. As he watches me lean into it. Choose it, as he will never choose me.
“Willa—” he says in a low voice. A warning.
But he is the one who should heed the warning.
With a bellow of rage, I let my shadow loose on the Carrion King.