Chapter 55
Chapter fifty-five
The heat of my rage has driven me forward for so long, but there is no heat to it now. It is a blizzard whipping through my chest, glacial and deadly, as I hurtle through the second star after them.
Infinite colors and worlds spread out before me, the paths to each paved with sparkling dreams. I fly past them all, my heart filled with one dream—the dream of Niko and I together for eternity. I don’t know if it’s my magic or pure fucking will that keeps me moving through the web of the universe.
But I cling to it desperately, having no choice but to follow the echoes of my own heart, and hope it will be enough to lead me to its other half.
A moment, or perhaps, a thousand of them later, I land hard on my back.
The air crashes from my lungs in a painful cough as my spine collides with the ground.
I scramble upward, blinking frantically into the darkness, and praying to the star above I’m in the right place.
That I haven’t veered somewhere wildly off course.
As I take in my surroundings, dread and determination fill me in equal measure.
The air is humid, thick with the buzzing of insects and the distant warbles of various birds.
Trees far smaller than those in Letum spread around me, their trunks still springy and new.
Beyond them lies a quaint house set between the rolling verdant hills.
I turn, already knowing what I’ll find. Three headstones.
My sister’s. My father’s. And mine.
The Aeternalis has not only taken Niko to the mainland—he’s come to the home I grew up in.
I swallow roughly, staring at the cracked gray stones. When I returned here after my escape from the camps, seeing my own name carved beside theirs felt like the cruelest of taunts. They’d gone somewhere together I could never go, and left me alone with an eternity of pain spread out before me.
The Aeternalis means to unsettle me with memory—means to haunt me with the wishes of the past the same way he is.
But I have grown. I have shattered and rebuilt. And in my rebirth, the bitter haze of memory has given way to a softer understanding.
Beloved daughter.
Not carved in mocking, but as the desperate dream of a broken father.
The past built the foundation of who I am, but it is a muted shadow in contrast to the colors of the future spread before me.
A future I will not allow him to take.
I pull my gladius from the sheath. The Aeternalis could not beat us with the full power of the island flowing through our veins, so he came to a world without magic thinking it would weaken us—that it would put us on equal footing once again.
But I have never needed the supernatural to carve my vengeance into the universe. Only my rage.
Anger I now wield like a celestial weapon, honed by injustice.
I begin toward the house.
The path is still familiar beneath my feet, like no time has passed. Like I am on my way home from an imagined adventure in the forest, Celie at my heels, her tangled hair flying behind her like a golden flag.
I climb up the crumbling porch, carefully stepping over the rotted wood.
The apparent disrepair of the house settles heavily over me, like the structure has decayed along with my memories—crisp edges softened by the wash of time.
The once-white paint has all but faded away, the wooden shingles remaining bloated with rot.
The front door is ajar like Pan left it open for me to come through but when I duck inside the threshold, the house is near silent.
There is only the soft scamper of mice that have made homes in the walls, and the scrape of the dead leaves I unsettled by opening the door.
Old furniture is scattered throughout the living room, and half-rotted curtains sway in a breeze that blows through the broken glass of the kitchen window.
I spent so long running from my past, but now I walk through it with my head held high toward my future. Up the rickety stairs. Toward Niko.
My heart lurches into my throat when I find him slumped up against the far wall of my old bedroom. His head is slumped to his chest, his hair tumbling over his forehead. A puddle of blood grows ever larger at his feet, his long fingers clutched to the wound at his stomach.
His eyes fly to mine. Eyes I’ve only ever known as an abiding black—now a clear cerulean, as beautiful as a tropical sea.
“Niko…” I whisper, racing to his kneel at his side.
Blood trickles from the corner of his lip when he tries to speak. Fear sluices down my spine that even though I’ve found him, I’m still too late. I need to get him back to Letum, and hope to the star above the magic of the island is enough to save him.
Niko locks his gaze on mine, and he gives a near imperceptible shake of his head. And though his eyes are no longer are fathomless void, death flickers behind them just the same.
Finish this, they say. Take what we are owed.
“I do relish the irony,” the Aeternalis drawls from the doorway, his voice prickling over my skin like hot iron spikes, “that the King of Carrion will succumb to a mortal death…just like any other.”
With one last look meaningful look at Niko, I rise to face the Everlasting.
His magic is fainter in this world than it was in Letum, reduced to a faint pulsing glow behind his heart. “I shall tell the tale over the fire for the next thousand years…a lesson to all my Strayed of what awaits those who betray their kin.”
“It’s over, Peter,” I warn in a low voice. “You have clung to delusions of grandeur, but you are nothing more than a coddled child. Weak and petulant. You were never powerful enough to keep the land of dreams alive, and so it has abandoned you. It will never be under your control again.”
“You dare call me a coward, cousin?” The Aeternalis snarls, skeletal rage flashing over his features. “When it is you who has spent your entire existence running?”
He schools his face into false pity, its emptiness hollowing the air between us.
“The usurper will die here, cut off from the island’s magic.
And without him, the island will starve once more.
Do you think you’ll run then, Willa Darling, when there is nothing left to anchor you to your precious humanity? ”
Pan’s face twists in disgust as his gaze falls to Niko. Despite his injury, despite the natural color of his eyes, Niko returns his gaze with pure death. It is enough to elicit a shudder from Pan’s shadow—enough to scare him into barking, “Dawson!”
Dawson appears in the hallway a moment later. His hook shines in the darkness as he dips, practically dragging his nose over the rotted wood in his sniveling bow. “Yes, Your Highness?”
Malevolent delight sparks over Pan’s features. A malevolence I know too well—the ravening hunger, the unending want.
“You have been the most faithful of kin, Dawson. It is time you were rewarded.”
Dawson remains bowed to the floor; his head dipped in a reverence I never knew him capable of. Something near devotion lines his madness as he gazes up at his master, waiting.
The Aeternalis motions to Niko. “Your brother can be touched in this realm. And I, as the most generous of gods, will grant you the power over him you’ve always dreamed.
” He jerks his gaze to me with a depraved smile.
“Restrain her, so she can watch as I drain every bit of life from him. Until she—and everyone else—knows I hold power over all things. Including death.”
I’m ready when Dawson lurches toward me, adrenaline surging through my veins like acid. He lets out a peal of manic laughter, licking his lips as he circles me, as if imagining the many ways I can hurt.
Behind him, the Aeternalis pulls a knife from one of his weapon belts. He prowls toward Niko, relishing in the slowness of his fate, the inevitability of the punishment to be bestowed.
But the Carrion King does not watch Peter. He has eyes only for me, his gaze locking with mine over his brother’s shoulder. A desperate plea—not to escape, but to stay. And though he cannot speak, his lips form two unspoken words: trust me.
With dreaded horror, I understand what he asks of me.
Trust him enough to lay down my weapons. Trust him enough to stay still. Trust, that no matter what happens in this realm or the next, that we will always find our way back to each other.
And I do. Without falter. Without reprieve.
So, though every instinct in my body screams at me to fight, I lower my weapon.
Dawson pounces, wrenching my arms behind my back and dragging my body to his. I force myself still even as he grinds against me—as bile and disgust surge up my throat.
The Aeternalis hauls Niko up by the collar of his shirt, and slams him ruthlessly into the nearest wall. Blood gurgles from Niko’s mouth along with a guttural groan of pain. His head lolls and his body jerks, as Pan drags the blade from his sternum to his belly.
An imitation of the wound Niko once gave him.
A scream of horror and fury tangles in my throat, as the tip of the sword sticks into the bone of Niko’s sternum.
But my king does not cry out, even as the blade rings against his bone.
For Niko is the lord of pain—he does not break beneath the agony. He is honed by it. He has spent his life learning to move through it in a way the Aeternalis has never understood. And he does so now.
His lips peel back from his blood-stained teeth in a lethal snarl, and faster than lightning, he grabs Pan by the throat, spinning him up against the wall.
With a peal of laughter as wild as any Strayed, Niko yanks the knife from his own chest and plunges it into Peter’s. Straight through his exposed heart.
Dawson slams me down into the floor with a howl of fury—a cry that reverberates through me in its all-consuming grief. Savage and untethered, like a man who has lost everything.
Stars bloom behind my eyes, the room tilting precariously, as I scrabble upward to stop Dawson from rushing to the aid of his master. But in my disorientation, I am not fast enough.
I can only watch as Dawson rushes his brother, his expression a terrifying picture of madness and grief—only watch as his blade plunges through Niko’s back to spear through his heart.