Chapter 31
Chapter thirty-one
Igive up on attempting to poison myself by way of liquor sometime around midnight and have just fallen into a restless sleep when a sharp crack rents through the silence of the Indomnitus. My heart leaps into my throat and my death spears into the air, far readier than I am in my current state.
My head pounds as I sit up, my tongue thick and dry in my mouth.
I swallow roughly, squinting into the darkness of my quarters.
It is quiet and dark, and with a curse at my death for its paranoia, I slump back into the pillow with a groan.
Though I no longer wish for respite from my magic the way I once did, I do wish it would leave me alone to sleep away my hangover.
I’ve just closed my eyes once more, when I hear another sound from the main deck. This time, the unmistakable shuffle of footsteps. I lurch from bed with another curse, nearly tripping over the same ottoman that plagued Sam a few hours earlier in my haste to retrieve my revolver.
It takes me far too long to find where I drunkenly tossed it beneath my desk, and even longer to steady my hand enough to cock back the hammer. I may not be able to kill the Aeternalis with my magic—or at all—but I can shoot him in the head all the same.
And I will for daring to step foot on my ship again.
No one else would be stupid enough to trespass unannounced, not when the want of death flows through my heart, rotting my veins and shading my vision. I level the pistol and wrench the cabin door open with a snarl that immediately dies on my lips.
It isn’t Peter.
For a protracted moment, the world slows like the Indomnitus is still trapped in the belly of the Crocodile; like I’m falling through the wards, even as I stand still, staring at the figure before me.
Willa.
I blink, frozen in place, and wonder if I’m still drunk; wonder if I’ve conjured her up in my desperation and she’ll disappear as all visions do. But as I watch her stagger, her wild, frantic eyes meeting mine in the darkness, I suddenly feel stone cold sober.
“Niko,” she gasps, my name in her mouth piercing through my trance. Her hair hangs in tangled ropes down her shoulders, stained the same shade of red as her face, her chest, her stomach—all of it painted with blood.
Without thought, I reach for her, just as I’ve done so many times in my dreams over the past year. Just as I always will, no matter the ruin that lies between us.
“I didn’t know where else to go.” A whisper, and then a plea. “Adytum. Give me sanctuary.”