Chapter 38
Chapter thirty-eight
One moment, I am lost in the obsidian of Niko’s gaze. The next, there is only blinding light.
Blistering heat races through the air as Niko pushes me to the floor, curling his body over mine. The wooden planks of the ship groan as his death wraps around us, a shield against the fiery mayhem raining down.
“Willa,” Niko breathes against my ear, his voice a cooling balm in contrast with the ravaging chaos. Ever the unflappable king. “Can you get us out of here with your magic?”
I hesitate, tight fear gripping my chest. I haven’t touched my magic since I nearly killed Sam; what if I make everything worse?
A ribbon caresses my cheek, its icy touch soothing the heat of my panic. “I’m here, Willa. I promise, I won’t let the shadow take control.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, repeating his words to myself in a desperate attempt to believe them.
To let them settle the buzzing in my head and the electric currents in my veins.
But it is only the rush of ruin that presses against my ears, and every time I try to pick up my brush to paint, all I see is Sam bleeding on the ground. Because of me.
I grit my teeth, hot tears of frustration pricking at my eyes as the flames rage closer.
I try to shove the image of Sam from my mind, try to hold the brush and paint Niko and I away from here, but the lines are too careless.
The painting is too messy, too blurred, and it slips from my grasp before I can push it outside myself.
Panic grips me, slimy and viscous. It mires me in place. “I—I can’t!” I cry.
Niko doesn’t admonish me for my failure.
Instead, he pulls me up from the floor and shoves me toward the bank of windows at the far end of the quarters.
His death races ahead of us, shattering the glass.
My stomach flips as I watch the purple glass fall to the purple waves, realizing how he means for us to escape.
We’re going to jump.
“Good thing we’ve already tested your swimming prowess,” he says with an insufferable wink, as we wade over broken glass to step up to the edge.
The roar of flames crashes against the rush of water through the compromised hull, all of which should scare me far more than the twenty foot drop. But my head spins as I watch the violent slosh of the sea, and panic claws its way up my throat.
Taking a leveling breath, I push thoughts of falling from skyscrapers—of nearly drowning in water much calmer than this—from my mind. I lace my fingers through Niko’s and close my eyes, readying myself to jump.
But Niko tears his hand out of mine, darting back inside the flaming cabin without a word.
“What the hell are you doing?” I hiss, whirling to see where he’s disappeared.
Smoke has filled the cabin, noxious and thick, and no matter how I squint, there’s no sign of Niko.
I leap to the side as a few planks beneath my feet give way, throwing my hands over my head as more crash down from above.
Fire races up the walls, over the ceiling; it crawls over the wood, devouring everything in its path.
“Niko!” I shout.
A sharp noise cracks through the chaos, followed by a deep groan, like the entire ship is contracting. I curse Niko, determined to dive into the wreckage just so I can strangle him, when a flaming mast crashes through the ceiling.
The Indomnitus tilts precariously, sending me careening off balance.
The breath flees my lungs as I land hard on my back, scrambling to find purchase before I tumble further into the wreckage.
Sparks rain down around me like a hellish shower, singing my hair and skin.
Shattered glass slices my palms and knees and shins as I flip over, crawling toward where I last saw Niko.
Smoke shreds my throat as I scream his name. The ship emits another groan, lilting back to horizontal. I clamber to my feet, gritting my teeth against the pain of the glass digging into the soles. Rage slithers up my throat, clearing away my remaining panic and honing my thoughts.
I just got Niko back. I’ll be damned if I lose him so soon.
I reach for my magic. I don’t paint any sort of picture—I just gather handfuls of my power and thrust it from my chest. It shimmers outside of me, its glow lighting the smoke in odd colors.
I throw it into the chaos, willing it to search for its counter.
Willing it to wind through the destruction to find Niko.
“Where are you, you necrotic bastard!?” I shout furiously.
A cloak wraps around my body, and I’m yanked backward against a solid wall of muscle.
“Star above, I’ve missed that wicked mouth,” Niko purrs.
He tucks me into his arms, and pulls us both into the sea below, his laughter still ringing in my ears.
***
The swim is grueling, the icy sea crashing against us like it’s determined to drag us to the depths.
By the time we reach the shore, we’re both gasping and exhausted.
Dragging ourselves up the beach is nearly as taxing as the swim, my limbs shaking beneath me as I crawl through the black sand.
Salt grits between my teeth, and my stomach wrenches as I cough up sea water and smoke.
Niko collapses on his back beside me, his death splayed listlessly over his chest. He winces as his own coughs wrack his body, and his fingers spasm at his sides.
I want to go to him—to offer him something to feel other than pain. But my fear of losing him still coats my skin just as surely as the wet sand, so instead, I shout, “What the fuck was that?!”
He blinks up at the second star, each breath rattling through him. “I needed to get something.”
“A cloak? How was that important enough to risk your life?” I spit back, my words icy and sharp.
But I don’t soften them, because if I do, everything that lies beneath will come spilling through.
The anguish of seeing him lifeless on the ground; the empty hollow where the beat of his heart should have been. “You can’t fucking do that, Niko!”
My voice breaks beneath my grief, and I struggle to hold onto the anger as it is so much easier than my sorrow.
“You aren’t immortal anymore. You can’t treat yourself like you’re some expendable thing.
Do you understand me? You aren’t expendable!
Not to me!” I shake my head, my tone softening. “To me, you are vital.”
Niko nods. “I’m sorry,” he says roughly. A ribbon slithers toward me, wrapping around my hand. Holding me, because he is in too much pain to do it himself.
I crawl to his side and lay beside him, draping my arm over his heart. Easing my panic and my anger and my fear with its beat.
After a few long minutes, Niko’s breathing returns to normal. He twists, reaching into the pocket of the cloak he wrapped me in, before extending his closed fist to me in offering.
Eyeing him warily, I push myself up to sitting. My limbs feel like they’re made of jelly, aching and tight, but when I see what Niko’s dropped into my hand, they go entirely numb.
My breath stalls in my lungs as I gaze down at the small silver bracelet, my anxiety and anger giving way to shock. “How did you—"
The words die in my throat, unable to reorder the emotions roiling through me into anything comprehensible.
Niko rolls to his side with a pained groan and pushes himself up.
His death lies beside him in a tangled heap, as exhausted as he is.
Black sand coats his back and chest, and his hair falls into his eyes as he plucks the bracelet from my palm with shaking fingers.
A muscle feathers in his jaw as he bends to fasten it around my wrist, like it takes all his remaining energy to complete the small task.
All at once, the ball of emotion in my throat splits wide open, spilling over me a torrent so powerful, I nearly gasp.
Niko’s ship—his freedom, his love, his home—was under attack, and instead of saving it, he’d chosen to use his last moments aboard the Indomnitus protecting something that wasn’t even his.
“I never thought I’d see this again,” I tell him, now looking at him instead of the bracelet. The tremor of his bottom lip, the sincerity in his gaze. “Where did you even find it?”
He shrugs wearily. “Your apartment.”
“You…you found my apartment?”
Despite his exhaustion, Niko cocks a grin at my clear shock. “Despite your belief kings are useless, I have my ways, Darling.”
A small laugh escapes me. I should have known Niko would find the one thing that was mine in the entire expanse of the mainland. He has always been adept at unearthing the truest parts of me, even when I hadn’t wanted him to.
“It was Celie’s.”
“I know,” he replies softly. “I spent a lot of time in your apartment, and this was the only thing that was personal. The only thing that felt like you.”
My heart wrenches, for while I was wandering through the Lunaedon like a ghost in Niko’s home, he’d been haunting mine just the same.
“I took it before she went to the camps. It’s the only thing I’ve ever owned that’s actually mattered to me. I wasn’t wearing it the night I fell.” I bring my wrist to my heart, feeling connected to my sister for the first time in a long while. “Thank you.”
Niko nods, swallowing roughly as his gaze drifts back to the sea. The Indomnitus’ beautiful black sails and majestic masts are now nothing more than a memory. Icy rage flashes across his features, as he watches the burning vestiges of his ship sink slowly beneath the violent waves.
The Indomnitus represented something Niko never had—family and freedom. And now, he’s been forced to watch his dreams be swallowed by the sea twice.
Grief clogs my throat, and for a moment, I’m not sure if its mine or his. I just know that when I crawl back to him, burrowing into his side, it is a comfort to both of us.
“I’m sorry for your ship.”
He doesn’t look at me, his jaw working for a long moment before he replies. “I don’t need your sorrow, Willa. I need your rage.”
Though his words are soft, I feel the ache lining them.
The need for vengeance, for justice. All my life, it has felt like a bolt of lightning lodged in my chest, a physical demand that will not be sated.
In this, Niko and I are the same. Both monsters of the universe’s own making, honed by the cruelty of our circumstances.
We watch in silence as the last of the Indomnitus slips from sight, and the waves of the sea go still, as if in hallowed reverence for the grave they now hold.
Niko heaves a sigh, eyes dropping to where our fingers lay entwined. “It feels different this time.”
“What do you mean?”
He licks his lips as if he’s measuring his words. “The last time I watched my ship burn, it felt like the Aeternalis had stolen everything from me.” When he looks at me, his face is lined with an earnestness that nearly stops my heart in my chest. “But now…now, there is so much more to lose.”
Niko doesn’t need to explain, because I feel the same fear in the lining of my skin and the make of my bones.
“You killed him once. You can do it again.”
“No, Darling.” He frowns. “I can’t.”
I furrow my brow. “I mean…I know it will be harder to get close enough to him now, but—”
Niko shakes his head. “I could slice his head from his body and throw it into the sea, and it wouldn’t matter. He’s a Darling.”
“But…you already did it once. And you took your ship back from him. You’ve proved he’s not invincible.”
Niko’s expression is earnest, like he’s willing me to understand. His fingers tighten in mine. “There’s one last thing I need to tell you. And I need you to not hate me for it.”
My body goes cold with the wariness spiking through me. Just like when the Indomnitus sunk to the sea, it feels like there’s so much more to lose—so much that could break with one more well-aimed blow.
Niko inhales sharply. “Wendy spent a lot of time researching your family. She traced every line through the centuries, down to where it ended with you disappearing into the Amelioration camps.”
“Wendy?” I repeat faintly.
“Through her research, she learned a lot about the Darling curse.”
Wendy’s wild claim drifts back to me. I know your secrets because I share them. But she couldn’t have, as I watched the life leave her with my own eyes. Buried her with my own hands.
“My immortality?”
Niko rakes a hand through his hair, looking slightly sick. “You are not entirely immortal.”
I stare at him, absurd laughter bubbling in my throat.
“First born Darlings are all blessed with eternal life, but all magic comes with a cost, Willa. Yours…yours is that you can die. But only by the hand of the one who loves you most.”
“What—what are you saying?”
Niko’s death flies into the air around him.
“I was only able to kill Peter because I was pathetic enough to love my captor. And I did, Willa…I loved him truly. All I ever wanted as a child was to please him enough for him to love me back. But that love is long gone. I can do no more harm to him now, than I could to Wendy.”
“Wendy,” I repeat faintly, shaking my head. “This it—it isn’t true. She wasn’t immortal. Pan killed her. I saw it happen. And he doesn’t love anyone but himself.”
A rueful laugh scrapes from Niko. “His love may feel wrong to those of us who know it as it should be, but it still exists. It is obsessive and controlling and damaging, but it is just as powerful as any other. And in his own way…Peter loved Wendy.”
You have been taught that loves feels good, and so you did not recognize it when it hurt.
“I slit Wendy’s throat in her living room, and it did nothing but stain her couch,” Niko says, the absurdity of his words hardly registering. “I can attest to the curse’s truth.”
All my life, I thought I was cursed by immortality; by the continued beat of my heart when all I wished for was its silence. But the truth is somehow worse. I’ve never been immortal—I’ve just never had anyone who loved me truly enough to hurt me.
Until now.
The implication resounds through my blood, pounds in my skull. All my clawing, all my scraping for the smallest amount of power, and I’ve unwittingly placed it all in the hands of another.
Niko bows his head, and speaks my fear to life. “Pan will never be able to kill you, Willa. But I can.”