Chapter 23
Chapter twenty-three
Ikneel beside Wendy, a pervasive cold sinking beneath the stiff fabric of my dress.
It leeches the feeling from my fingers and toes, the numbness spreading steadily from my limbs to my chest. She is beautiful, even in death.
I find pieces of Celie in the slight upturn at the corner of her eyes, hints of my mother in the delicate angle of her chin and the full set of her mouth.
The longer I look at Wendy—the more lost pieces of myself that fit themselves together—the more bereft I feel. But I shed no tears, nor do I howl in anguish. I keep my grief trapped inside my body, as I have no right to it.
I’d only known Wendy for a few minutes—her death shouldn’t hurt like this. Maybe it is not truly grief of her at all, but sorrow for what I’ve lost. For a few brief moments, I hadn’t been alone in the universe. I’d had a family, something to tie me to my own history.
I reach for Wendy’s hand, her fingers already cold as I wrap them in mine.
Is this how Pan has felt for thousands of years? Always reaching for something to hold onto as the expanse of time rages around him? Always searching for something that won’t abandon him?
In this moment, I understand something of him even as I wish I didn’t.
I slide Wendy’s vacant eyes shut gently, before wrapping her in my arms and imagining us both at the edge of the Lunaedon grounds.
The castle rises above us, lanterns glowing through the inlaid windows in muted shades of scarlet and tangerine.
I don’t know what Wendy’s final wishes would be, so I decide to keep her close.
It may be selfish not to take her back to the mainland—to keep her in a world she never wanted to return to—but I can’t bring myself to leave her somewhere she’ll forever be alone.
I paint her shrouded in silk, tucked beneath the earth and cradled by the roots of a magnificent garden in a corner of the palace grounds.
Wildflowers of every kind spread over her final resting place, their petals a riot of color beneath the starlight.
Vines and leaves climb up the fenced boundary, winding between the intricately carved stories.
I brush soil from my dress, uncertain how to feel.
Because despite the bitterness of loss, for the first time, new life blooms on the grounds of the Lunaedon.
By the time I make it back to my chambers, exhaustion pulls heavy at both my limbs and my mind. My thoughts come sluggishly, like I have to dig them out from beneath thick mud, and my joints ache as I sink into the heat of a bath.
I wash Wendy’s blood from my skin, watching the last of her leave me in subtle pink swirls with a numb sort of horror. And then she is gone, and I am left with nothing to hold onto, just as I always am.
I always thought the curse of my immortality was the pain of living, but perhaps the true curse is surviving long enough to see everything you once loved taken from you. Perhaps I will lose Letum as I’ve lost everything else.
Perhaps it’s what I deserve.
I step out of the bath, my shadow mirroring my every motion though there is no sunlight to cast it. It is always with me now, and no matter how I avoid my reflection, I still feel the aching void of its malevolence.
It is yours, Willa, the shadow tells me as I dress. Only yours.
I push the words away, too tired to fight against them.
I am climbing into bed, when a soft note sounds from the piano in the atrium.
I freeze, listening intently as a few more resonate through the chambers.
Quietly, at first. And then more earnest, the notes cascading into a mournful sonance that wraps around my ribs and draws me from the bedroom.
Through the study and into the glass atrium, even knowing who I’ll find.
Niko is bent over the keys, hair falling in raven curls over his eyes, as he moves in time with the music.
Long, tattooed fingers dance over the ivory keys, coaxing a melody that feels heartachingly familiar, though I know with certainty I’ve never heard it.
The song winds through me, loosening the tightness in my lungs, unfurling the grief that’s tied my muscles into knots.
I lean against the threshold, curling my arms around myself in an attempt to hold onto my anger. It is the only thing keeping me grounded as Niko plays from memory; as he glances up from the piano to meet my gaze with a grin so wicked, I feel it in my blood.
I hate the way he looks like he belongs here—a king returned to his realm.
I hate how much it feels like he belongs here—like the Lunaedon has released the breath it has been holding in his absence. Like his presence has settled not only me, but the entire island.
Niko looks back to his fingers, and I feel the loss of his attention as acutely as the presence of it. The song crescendos and then falls, and only when it ends on one deep, lonesome note, does he return his gaze to mine.
My skin heats, as I fight the urge to fidget beneath the intensity of his stare. He doesn’t appear at all inclined to speak, nor to explain his presence here. He only watches me, drinking in every detail as he always does—without me ever offering any of it.
And there is a relief in it, just as there is in his death. A relief in not having to pretend to be fine, or be good, or be anything; in not having to pour my heart out or explain away my darkness. Niko sees it all as it is. He always has.
“What are you doing here?” I finally ask, my voice hoarse and tired.
“Here?” His brows lift in feigned innocence. “In my own palace, you mean?”
I grit my teeth, my agitation rising in a hot rush.
The loneliness, the anger, the betrayal.
It only takes a few words from him to release them from where I’ve locked them.
“You abandoned the Lunaedon same as you left everything else. It grieved your death as we all did, and I don’t think it would appreciate you pretending like that never happened. ”
Now, it’s Niko’s jaw that tenses, but rather than responding, he rises from the piano bench and steps toward me. I’ve somehow forgotten how tall he is; forgotten how his lithe movements demand the attention of my gaze, how his mere existence draws the air from every room.
“What are you doing here?” I ask again, planting my feet as he approaches, my body rising to attention.
“Our conversation got cut short the other day,” he drawls, the obsidian of his eyes devouring every bit of starlight pouring in through the windows. “I thought we should finish it.”
“Cut short?” I repeat incredulously, throwing my hands on my hips. “You tossed me in a lake!”
Niko waves the sentiment off, as if him tying me up and nearly drowning me is neither here nor there. “You can swim,” he replies as if that settles the matter.
Niko’s presence is a shock to my system, a jolt of unexpected adrenaline sizzling through my veins.
Everything suddenly feels too sensitive, like both my skin and soul are raw and exposed.
I cross my arms over my chest in hopes of settling the race of my heart, but it only serves to heighten my awareness of the way my breasts are now pressed high together; aware of the fractional way my nightgown rides up the tops of my thighs.
The air turns thick in my mouth; grows stiflingly hot against my skin. “I don’t have the energy for a fight.”
Niko’s eyes narrow on me, his gaze suddenly as lethal as the ribbons swimming above his head. “And why is that?”
“Hmm, I wonder,” I snap in mocking. “Maybe it’s because I just spent half the night burying your ex in the front lawn.”
Niko’s death stills around him, his expression one of mild interest. “Wendy?”
“Do you have other lovers running around the island I should know about?” I snipe sardonically. He opens his mouth to reply, but I cut him off with a hot glare. “Yes, Wendy. Pan stabbed her through the heart. She’s—she’s dead.”
I don’t know what I expect from Niko—remorse, maybe, as he claimed to have loved her once. But those obsidian eyes contain no pity, no regret; only the same fervent determination he’s always lived by that allows him to cut down anything standing in his way.
Wendy. Me.
Neither of us have ever mattered to the Carrion King the way this goddamn island does.
“Dead…” he muses, his gaze calculating. “By Pan’s hand?” He lets out a rueful laugh, dragging a hand through his hair. “It would seem fate has an even darker sense of humor than I do.”
I dig my nails into my palms to keep from clawing that irreverence from his face. “You truly have no guilt, do you?”
He tilts his head like I’ve said something amusing, and white-hot rage courses through me. “I told you on our first morning together…” Niko grins. “Guilt is for the provincial.”
“You’re the one who forced her back here!” I grit out, my voice near-trembling with anger. “You’re the reason she’s dead, Niko, and you don’t even care.”
“On the contrary, I care deeply,” he replies, fingering a ribbon absently, “as her death is far more meaningful to me than her life could have ever been.”
“You’re a selfish prick.” I shake my head in fury. “You don’t care about anything but your own goals and you—” My voice breaks. “—and you never have.”
Niko’s gaze is unrelenting. “My selfishness spoke to you once upon a time.”
The reminder curls through the air along with his death, the silky ribbons reaching for me like I’ve beckoned them home. I catch myself leaning toward them—catch myself aching for the relieved silence of their presence—and stiffen.
Niko used me to save his kingdom, and then he used Wendy to return to it.
If I allow him even an inch between the plates of my armor, this time will be no different.
He’ll crawl between weaknesses, fit himself into the deepest parts of me.
He’ll mold my heart to his liking, and then he’ll wield it like a weapon until he gets what he’s after.
I raise my chin. “Are you here to take back the kingdom tonight?”