Chapter 33
Chapter thirty-three
Ispend days trapped somewhere between dreams and waking, nightmares and reality.
Everything aches. My skin is too tight and my bones are too sharp and my heart—my heart flails against my ribs, each beat a desperate attempt to keep me alive, even as I wish for the opposite.
But no matter my magic, some wishes will never come true.
The reprieve of death is never to be mine.
So, I wallow in the horror of my nightmares, using their darkness as a weapon.
I cannot die, but I can be punished. I lose myself in a sea of unconsciousness, conjuring image after image of my past. I relive every misery, drown in every sorrow.
And still, it is not enough, as no matter how deeply I dig into my magic, none of my fears become corporeal. None of them slice scalpels through my skin or dip my fingers into boiling water. None of them speak at all, disappearing into the night as quickly as they come.
A few times, a soft melody weaves through the nightmares.
Notes of melancholy and sorrow, of hope and yearning, that chase away the horrors no matter how I tightly I try to hold them.
Despite my resistance, the songs slide through my nightmares, a soothing balm to the constant burn of my rage and pain.
During one of these times, the soft cadence loosens my hold on a dream of Celie bleeding on the barn floor. My sister’s suffering slips from me, and without the pain to grasp onto, I fall into the alluring song. Instinctively, I reach for the melody—reach for the yearning.
And like a moth to a flame, I am drawn back to the land of living.
I blink up at the stars carved above me.
Similar to those in the Lunaedon, but on a smaller scale, these constellations stretch along the curved ceiling of a cozy alcove.
Onyx curtains drape down along the edges of a large bed, the gauzy fabric sparkling in the sunlight streaming through the bank of windows at the opposite side of the room.
Nausea churns in my stomach, and I don’t know whether it’s the rhythmic lilt of the ship, or if it’s my own guilt surging up my throat to strangle me. I only know that with the light of day comes the memories of everything I’ve done in the darkness.
Pan’s knowing grin. Zenni’s madness-emptied eyes. The bodies of so many innocent, prone and broken around me.
And Sam. Beautiful, kind, Sam, cut down by my hand. My friend, who had only been trying to protect me from my own rage, killed for it.
I lurch upward to escape the crushing weight of regret, but find sitting no better than laying beneath it. The sharp pain radiating from my stomach at the movement only serves as another poignant reminder of everything I’ve done.
I trail my fingers to where Adira stabbed me, hating the new skin I find.
I don’t want it. I don’t deserve it.
I should live the rest of eternity with the evidence of the hurt I’ve caused the people I love most.
My chest tightens. Suddenly, there isn’t enough air on this ship. There isn’t enough air in the whole goddamn universe. And while I choke on my sorrow and regret, my shadow embraces me in its darkness, feeding on my discontent.
It only feels this way when you deny what you are, it croons in my ear. We do not need to feel empty and powerless ever again. Feed us as you fed us in the Hollows. Gorge on the pain of others and you will never be forced feel your own.
Acute fear grips me as I kick off the blankets, and tumble from the bed in an ungraceful heap.
I want to scream as my shadow follows, slinking to the floor behind me.
Something about it is wrong—something about me is wrong.
For we hurt so many people and still, that same hunger balloons and scrapes inside me.
It is not satiated with everything it took: it only wants more.
I search the room frantically for something to wear, settling for clutching one of the wrinkled silk sheets to my chest. I whirl toward the windows, and my shadow whirls with me.
Panicked tears sting my eyes. Where can I go that will be far enough away?
Where can I go there won’t be someone else for me to prey on?
I’m about to damn it all and take my chances with throwing myself blindly through the second star, when Niko drawls, “Good morning, Darling.”
I nearly jump out of my skin at the sound of his voice, whipping around to find him watching me from a shadowed corner.
He tilts his head predatorily, his tongue darting out to swipe over his bottom lip in that arrogant manner of his as he steps into the light.
He is clad only in his favorite pair of gray sweats, the intricately drawn ink over his chest and throat stark against his pale skin.
A shiny new scar slices through one of the stories, a jagged slash that stretches from his ribs to the ‘V’ of his hips.
For an absurd moment, I forget the need to escape, unable to tear my eyes away from the scar. When had it happened? When was the exact moment Niko’s body became something unfamiliar to me?
His mouth draws up into a wicked smirk. “I’d ask if you had sweet dreams, but as I’ve been here murdering them for the past day and a half, I’m afraid the question would be rather disingenuous.”
I draw my eyes from his chest to his face, a rush of heat stinging my cheeks, as I suddenly understand the reason none of my nightmares had become corporeal. Niko must have remained by my side as I slept. For days on end.
I wrap the blanket tighter around my body.
Though the wood planks are cold beneath my bare feet and the echo of the wound at my stomach still aches fiercely, I feel none of it.
Nothing beyond the rush of blood in my ears and the rush of darkness in my chest, as my eyes fall on the guitar propped against the side of the bed.
I exiled him with his worst enemy. I’ve spurned and fought him at every turn. I ruined his kingdom and rejected his love.
And yet, when I crawled back to him at my weakest moment, he did not punish me for the wrongs done to him. He stayed by my side, soothing me with his music and chasing away every horrible thing I could imagine.
Anger spikes through me like heated iron. “You should have let me drown in them,” I spit out.
Niko merely tilts his head. “I don’t think we could fit one of your tiger beasts in such small quarters. It was purely a measure of practicality, I assure you.”
“I shouldn’t have come here,” I mutter, scanning the floor again for any sign of my clothes.
He watches me with a gaze that beckons a flush to my skin. “I’d argue you should have come far sooner.”
I don’t look at him—can’t look at him. Because looking at Niko has always called the deepest parts of myself to the surface, and I am already drowning.
Every blink brings with it the image of Sam’s broken body; each breath a reminder of the innocent people who’d taken their last because of me.
Innocents who came to celebrate a night of beauty, instead struck down by my ugliness.
“Willa…” Niko begins in a soft voice that has me squeezing my eyes shut against it. I can’t stand his rare kindness; it is a knife between my ribs. If I can block out his face and his voice and his whole goddamn presence, maybe I’ll be able to keep hold of the tiniest bit of myself that remains.
Because right now, it’s slipping from me like grains of sand, no matter how I try to hold on. Stolen by the churning storm of my guilt. I don’t deserve Niko’s care, and I certainly don’t deserve the empathetic way he’s looking at me now.
Like he understands that all the air is gone from the room and it will never return; like he knows I will be choking on my own sins for the rest of eternity.
“I have to go,” I grit out.
The moment Niko steps toward me, my shadow drags its fingers over my shoulders. I dig my nails into the palm of my hand until blood wells beneath them. An attempt to ground myself in the pain; a tether to reality, to keep me from getting lost in the malevolent wants of my darkness once more.
But it’s no use, as all my walls against it were destroyed in the Hollows.
The hunger expands, pressing against my bones.
The shadow at my back looms ever larger, blotting out the sun with its sinister mass.
Darkness rolls thickly over my tongue and drips from my eyes like hideous tears.
It sweeps through the pool of magic behind my heart, saturating the golden light until it is as black as the shadow itself.
Until it eradicates every possibility except one: destruction.
Niko reaches for me, and I flinch away from his touch.
Panic and dread squeeze me like a vise, as my shadow’s attention turns toward him.
I moan in agony as hunger rakes through me, a ravening, horrible thing.
And Niko, with his unending pain and his magnificent power, would be a most sustaining feast.
I am going to hurt him the way I hurt Sam. The silence of Niko’s heartbeat still haunts my dreams to this day, and I am going to be forced to endure it again. And this time, I will only have myself to blame.
My shadow leaps, and I yank it away with a cry of pain.
It is both slippery and viscous in my grip, sharp agony threading through me at every point of contact.
But I hold on, its screech of fury ringing in my ears, as I try to shove it deep in my chest. It thrashes against my ribs, pounds furiously against my bones, and it’s all I can do to hold still against the pain.
I grind my teeth together, squeezing my eyes shut. The pressure inside me builds and builds, until I’m certain my skin will split; certain, that every horrible part of me will burst forth from the seam and devour everything around me. I have to leave before Niko is caught in the blast.
I take a step toward the door, every bone in my body screaming.
Any words of warning are lost in the tempest of my body, so there is nothing to do but run.
I’ve escaped so many times before, it is buried into the marrow of my soul.
I follow the familiar path of it blindly, with another stumbling step forward. Away. Away. Away.
But Niko knows the heart of me all too well, probably reading my decision to run before I even made it. Fast as lightning, he takes me by the shoulders and pulls me against his chest, caging me in the embrace of his arms.
I want to sob at the cooling feel of his bare skin against mine; I want to scream at how long I’ve lived without it.
But the moment he touches me, my shadow shrieks and thrashes, running its claws down the inside of my lungs.
I gasp, black edging my vision at the pain, as the shadow rattles my body like the bars of a cage.
“Let me go!” I cry in horror, writhing in Niko’s grip.
Destroy him before he destroys us, the shadow chants, battering against my bones until I whimper in desperation.
I can’t hold on. I’m not strong enough.
“Let me go! You have to let me go before I—”
Niko only holds me tighter to him, his body the only solidity in the howling sea of rage.
“Let it out, Willa,” he breathes against my hair.
I gulp down air, another resounding clash wracking my body. “I can’t,” I moan, using the last of my feeble energy to wrestle away from him; to try to spare him from the horrors at the depths of my soul.
But Niko’s arms are iron, his heartbeat steady and calm against my ear.
He is infallible, just as he’s always been, and suddenly, I understand that he will stand here with me as the darkness erupts.
Death does not balk, and neither does he, and I will be left alone for eternity with the memory of how I consumed him.
“I can take it,” Niko says softly.
I shake my head frantically. “No one can take it,” I hiss, my voice only half my own. Or maybe it is all my own, and I just never understood how deeply my ruin runs. “No one can ever take it!”
“I can.” Niko’s voice is that of the Carrion King. Commanding and sure, with an edge of viciousness. “Everything, Willa.”
His words are an echo of my own, spoken so long ago amongst shattered glass and sweaty skin. Everything. Give me everything.
“All your darkness, all your goodness…all your pleasure and pain. Give me everything. Let me take it.”
His words unravel something inside me—not the Queen of Dreams, nor the savior of the island—but the terrified girl who spent her life on the run. The most exhausted, vulnerable parts of me that wished so desperately in the bellies of dungeons for someone to ease the burden.
“I can take it, Willa,” Niko whispers against my skin, his breath cooling the burn of my skin. “Death is not destroyed by darkness. I will be your anchor. You will not be lost in the shadows.”
I meet his gaze, falling into the mad obsession still shining in the terrible void of onyx. No matter how horrid I am, no matter the ugliness I show him—Niko has never wavered. And he doesn’t now, as he nods steadily, his death wreathed around him like a halo of vengeance.
With a sob of relief, I let it all go. The shame, and the darkness, and the violence, and the hunger. All of it bursts from my mouth and eyes and skin, rushing from me like a savage shroud.
And it’s all I can do to hold tightly to Niko—to pray to the second star that it will not be cruel enough to take him from me again—as my shadow descends on us both.