Chapter 29
Chapter twenty-nine
The Hollow City is magnificent.
Silks flows down the obsidian walls, reflecting the light of a thousand lanterns floating merrily throughout the videntis.
The carved faces of the temples, and immaculate stone mansions, have all been shined to perfection, music and laughter spilling from their thresholds into the streets.
The leaves of the morphellia reach toward the sounds of life, their emerald vines as stunning as any decoration.
I wander slowly through the corridors of the city, skimming my fingers across mural after mural.
Revelries beneath ethereal night skies, painted in indigo and amethyst. Adventures beneath the heat of the sun, painted in warm tangerines and sunflower yellows.
Sirens with their hair streaming around them in violet waters, their song a winding spiral of froth and foam.
Nymphs in the forest, and dryads between the leaves.
Will-o-wisps in the branches and beasts in the shadows.
The spears of the Silva Lucia in the Grove, and the wings of pixies in the Hollows.
My heart expands with each step, my own worries slipping from me as they’re replaced with the emotions each painting means to evoke. The pain of the past, the beauty of the future—all of it opens up inside me, spilling through my veins. Effervescent and satiating.
A year ago, I stood atop my apartment building certain I’d never hear music or laughter again—certain I was doomed to an eternal existence devoid of anything beautiful. Now, I am surrounded by it.
And though I’ve never held faith in anything spiritual, I offer a soft prayer of gratitude to the star above for this moment; for the small reminder of why I chose to anchor myself to this island.
It had never been only about saving Niko; it had been taking something beautiful for myself as well.
Something that can still be mine, so long as I give myself to it.
I meander through the twisting streets, sipping slowly on sweet wine.
Past ornately decorated storefronts, and restaurants with tables overladen with delicious looking food.
People and pixies and dryads mill around every level of the videntis, while sirens stream past the windows playing their own mischievous games.
I am tipping back the last few drops of spirits a half an hour later, when a painting stops me short.
The piece is nearly three stories tall, towering over the edge of the videntis as if keeping watching over the Hollow City.
But it isn’t its detailed grandeur, nor its immense size, that tangles my breath in my throat—it’s the subject.
The Carrion King.
Beautiful. Horrible. Kind. Ruthless. The painting captures the dichotomy of Niko exquisitely, encapsulated in such painstaking detail, for a moment, I feel unmoored by his presence. And even further, by the clear feeling evident behind each brush stroke—reverence. Love.
Because despite the repercussions of Niko’s actions—the death, the plague—he will always be the man who saved them all from the Aeternalis.
Just as he will always be the man who saved me from a lifetime of numb existence, no matter what he’s done since.
Is that why I cannot seem to dig him from the marrow of my bones? Why I cannot extricate him from the threads of my heart?
Marina flickers into view beside me, her appearance so unexpected, I nearly trip over my own feet. My heart flies up into my throat as I catch the nearest part of the wall, steadying myself before I tumble headfirst into the gaping maw of the videntis.
The few times I’ve seen her in the past year, she’s been dressed for battle in black crafted leathers, her white-gold hair pulled tightly into a bun at the nape of her neck.
Tonight, though, I’m struck dumb, as I take in the loose curls flowing down over shoulders left bare by a stunning dress.
Made of black silk, it cinches at her tiny waist and flows softly to sweep over her bare toes.
She looks ethereal in the light of the Hollows, like she was made to flit between the morphellia vines and dance beside the stars.
And even more beautiful than Marina’s dress, is what the distinct cut of it reveals.
The neckline dips below her sternum, and the silk at the back of the dress gathers at the base of her spine, baring her gnarled scars to the world.
As long as I’ve known her, she has kept the evidence of her torment hidden.
But tonight, she wears them as she would fine jewelry—with pride.
Marina nods to the painting of Niko. He’d be horrified to see himself wearing that color.
I let out a surprised laugh. “Yeah, I don’t think purple is his tone. Really brings out the dark circles under his eyes.”
The corner of Marina’s mouth tugs upward, and I feel like I’ve won something though I’m not sure what.
But then silence stretches between us once more, thick with unspoken guilt and regret.
I ball my fingers into the iridescent fabric of my own dress, the soft cyan I’d chosen for tonight suddenly seeming far too bright.
Why hadn’t I picked something darker? Something to make it easier to disappear?
My shadow digs into my shoulders, like it will drag me away into the darkness I seek.
Instead, my gaze drifts from the mural back to the pixie beside me. She’d been brave tonight in choosing to bear the marks of her mistakes and trauma. Perhaps I can try a little of the same.
I shrug my shadow off, and straighten my shoulders. I’m glad you came, I sign to her, finding the words come easier from my hands than my mouth.
Her pale brows lift in suspicion. That…isn’t exactly the greeting I was expecting. It isn’t like you to so easily forget a slight.
“I wouldn’t consider cutting someone’s throat a ‘slight’.”
I can’t help but laugh at Marina’s shrug of indifference.
Exactly why I was expecting more weapons and less pleasantries.
“Why did you come then?”
Marina glances at the morphellia all around us with a wistful air. I couldn’t resist. I never thought I’d live to see another blooming. Her eyes slide back to the portrait of Niko. I never thought I’d live to see a lot of things.
But she had—because of him.
She turns to me, her eyes appearing bluer than usual in the underground light. Willa, she begins hesitantly, but I stop her before she can continue.
“Look, Marina…you don’t have to apologize. I’m not going to retaliate or banish you. I know why you did it.”
I wasn’t going to apologize. Marina’s brows furrow as if this is the most ridiculous thing she’s ever heard.
“Oh.” I fiddle with my fingers as an awkward silence descends between us, one Marina seems in no hurry to fill. “Well, alright then, I guess.”
You have been angry at me since Niko died, and hold a grudge as well as I do, Willa. What reason would suddenly deem my actions forgivable?
“You’re right.” I let a breath leak through my teeth.
“I was angry that you let him sacrifice himself, and a part of me always will be. But I understand it. He spared your life when he should have ended it. He gave you a renewed purpose, he gave you a family you could hold onto. And I’ve lived long enough to know how sacred that is, Marina.
So I understand you defending it with everything you have, even when it’s hard…
even if it means slitting my throat because he asked you to. I respect it. I envy it.”
Marina is silent for a long moment, her gaze hard. I didn’t do it for him.
I glance at her in surprise, but she presses on, Last year, I did.
Niko has never asked for anything in return for saving me.
Not once. He never even asked for an apology for being the one to have hurt him so many times.
And you have to understand, Willa…despite the stories, he’s had so little of anything he’s wanted in his life.
So, I gave him what I could…the one thing he asked of me in two hundred years, even though it meant losing him forever.
Marina squares her shoulders. But I didn’t stab you out of blind loyalty to him. I did it just as much because of my loyalty to you.
I stare at her. “You let me bleed out on the floor like an animal because you’re loyal?” I repeat incredulously. “Loyal to me?”
She levels me with an unrepentant stare.
“Marina, you can’t be loyal to us both. Not now. Not when he’s trying to steal the island away from me.”
Niko is my king, but you, Willa… you are my queen.
And just as Niko once saved me, you saved all of us.
So my loyalty is yours just as it is his.
And I will defend you for the rest of my days…
Marina’s gaze strays to my shadow, and her expression turns lethal.
Even if it’s from a blight within yourself.
I stiffen in shock, feeling suddenly cornered. Like Marina has seen to all the things I’ve tried to hide, all the reasons I don’t deserve what I have. “So you believe him, then? That I’m ruining the kingdom, and he would be a better ruler?”
Marina’s gaze turns pitying as she gestures to Niko’s portrait. You see this painting, and only see all the reasons you aren’t fit to rule. Do you know what I see?
I don’t think I can bear to know, but she continues regardless.
I see a king with half a heart, and an island fading into oblivion. You completed them both. You saved them both from ruin. Do you understand? My loyalty to you is not in conflict with my allegiance to him because you are of the same heart. Allegiance to one is allegiance to the other.
My throat pulls tight at her words, and my eyes begin to sting, as memories of Niko rise from where I’ve tried to bury them. They crest over me like a suffocating wave, and I stave them off with a shake of my head before I drown.
So many believe the basis of friendship is being liked, but I believe it to be a frivolity, Marina says. I do not care if you like me. I care if you know that I will always fight for you. Against the world. Against yourself.