11. Chapter 11
Chapter eleven
I should have let Willa drown in the goddamn lagoon.
It was the middle of the night when she tumbled through the wards, but rather than sleeping, I’d been staring down an empty bottle of rum and wallowing in self-pity. Her arrival had been like a jolt of electricity—a lightning strike that burned straight through me; that at once stopped my heart and started its beat again in a new rhythm.
It’s been two centuries since anyone traveled through the wards, and far longer since someone traveled from Willa’s world. Reality has always been too solid there—a thick shroud that keeps most magics from working. I’ve only known of two people that could ever open them from that side, and if Willa did, even by accident, she was exactly who I’ve been waiting for.
So, I’d reached through my tether to the island and told her to fight. It had been a knee jerk reaction, grounded in drunkenness and a despondency that’s sunk more deeply into my bones with every passing year. If Willa traveled through wards I thought impassible, perhaps she could save a kingdom I’ve thought long dead.
And because of my desperate decision, Letum is in upheaval.
The Strayed know of Willa’s arrival and must have the same suspicions about her origins. They haven’t been bold enough to attack Caelum in a quarter-century, my power enough of a threat to keep them corralled in their caves on the south side of the island. Even now, an hour or more after I drained the life from each one and tossed their rotting corpses into the harbor, the roughshod pound of my heart has yet to calm. A slimy film of fear remains on my skin, repetitive thoughts of what would have happened if I hadn’t been at the Pixie.
And now, I’m staring at some beast on my palace grounds that looks like something straight from a child’s nightmare. Ridiculous, imagined, and vicious.
Willa heaves, emptying the contents of her stomach. Her hair is wild around her head and her cheeks are smudged with dirt and peppered with gore. The sleeve of her dress is shredded, the slashes of skin beneath stained red with blood. The sight of it beckons a storm of emotion—hot and cold currents running so wildly through me, I can’t decide whether I’m terrified or furious.
“What the fuck happened?” I demand hotly, settling on the more manageable of the two emotions.
She glares up at me, her hazel eyes burning. “You tell me, King Putrefied. I thought your palace was supposed to be safe.”
I ignore the jab, even as her words slide through my chest, serving to further unsettle me. Nothing should be able to enter the grounds of the Lunaedon unless my magic has keyed them to the gates. Taking a leveling breath, I push the thoughts away to contemplate later, and I kneel beside Willa. When I reach to examine her wounded shoulder, she shrugs me off with an annoyed hiss.
“I’m fine. It’s just a scratch.”
I glance at the beast’s ivory claws doubtfully and raise an eyebrow. “How is it that you were pinned by those and only came away with a scratch?”
Willa shrugs. “Just lucky, I guess,” she says, but she doesn’t sound at all lucky. Her voice is hollow and wrung out, and her entire body trembles violently. For the first time since we met, Willa doesn’t appear larger than life. She seems—small.
An absurd part of me considers shedding my cloak and wrapping her in it, but I’d probably get stabbed in the throat for my trouble. So instead, I make a humming noise of disbelief and settle for offering her a hand up. She stares at my gloved fingers for so long, I’m certain she’ll refuse and tell me to go fuck myself. But after a stilted moment, she places her hand in mine.
Willa sways as I help her to her feet, but for all the blood soaking her dress and skin, she appears mostly unharmed. Her hair swings as she finds her balance, and beneath the sharp scent of blood, is the scent of her.
I yank my hand away as my ribbons dig into my skin so roughly, I bite my lip to keep from crying out. After the fight with the Strayed, every inch of my skin feels raw—like it’s been peeled back from my bones and regrown—and Willa’s presence only compounds the pain. The obsessive way my death reaches for her, the force of its yearning: I don’t have the strength for either right now. All I want to do is curl up on my bed and wait for the agony to abate.
Unfortunately, I can’t just leave Willa out here with rabid beasts roaming the property, no matter how lucky she is.
I grit my teeth and turn to examine the creature, attempting to focus on its odd appearance rather than the throbbing ache of my nerves. “What in the fuck is this thing?” Skeletal wings lay sprawled over the ground, it’s enormous mouth now slack with death. “I’ve never seen anything like it. On the island, or anywhere else.”
“Yeah, me neither,” Willa mutters, without meeting my eyes. In fact, when I turn back to her, she begins to shift restlessly beneath my gaze.
In our short time together, Willa has alway met my eyes—usually, with brimstone and fire, locked there in a challenge. That she doesn’t now has me turning back to the animal thoughtfully.
A tiger’s body. Red glowing eyes. Giant fangs that would be more at place on a dinosaur than a mammal. And wings.
The thing looks like a child’s drawing. Imagined, unreal.
Hope sparks like a lantern in the hollow of my chest. A kernel of flame that eviscerates the dread, the fear, the regret.
And when I turn back to Willa, I see her through new eyes. How many times have I prayed to the second star? How many times have I begged in dreams? And now, two hundred years later, the answer has appeared before me in the form of a small, savage woman. My instincts about her were right and I no longer need Adira to confirm them.
Willa may not know it yet, but she will be my salvation. My penance.
Even if I have to tear her apart to make it so.
Energy thrums through my body as I burst through the palace doors, my earlier exhaustion having given way to fervent determination. The pain, the desperation, the fear—none of them matter now. Not when I have Willa in my grasp.
Sam stands in the foyer, his brows leaping up his forehead as he takes in the bedraggled sight of us—me, reeking of decay, my ribbons frenetically winding around my throat, and Willa, covered in blood and clutching the tattered remains of her dress tightly, lest it drop to the floor.
Without bothering to explain, I usher Willa into one of the Lunaedon’s many libraries, careful not to touch her even as she tries to dart around me.
“Sir, perhaps we should draw a bath—” Sam begins, but I slam the door before he can finish, whipping to Willa with a maniacal excitement.
Her face is pale and strained, her hair plastered by gore and sweat into tangled ropes. A better man would do exactly as Sam suggested and take her upstairs to clean up. Allow her to rest until the shock of the day has eased, and then have a proper conversation.
But I’m not a good man. And I’m done waiting.
Willa straightens her spine and plants her feet, as I prowl toward her. For a moment, it’s hard to remember she was the one attacked with the way she’s always poised to strike. My death sings through me as I take in the way her body responds to my advances, something dark and hungry sparking alongside my hope.
I invade her space, stopping just short of actually touching her as I lower my face mere inches from hers and whisper, “You are immune to the plague.”
It isn’t a question, and Willa doesn’t answer. Only purses those wicked lips, and glares up at me so hatefully, I finally see the resemblance. Her face isn’t identical, the features watered down through the generations, but as I stare at her, I catalogue the undeniable similarities.
The slight upward tilt of her eyes. The delicate angle of her jaw. How had I not fucking seen it? I’d had my suspicions, but how had I not immediately understood the source of the magnetism that existed in her, the force that drew me closer and repulsed me simultaneously? The force that made me want to drown in her eyes; that made me want to sully and destroy every bright thing inside her?
How had I not looked at her face, and immediately been reminded of both my greatest mistakes?
“You lied to me, Willa.” My voice is low, a perilous scrape that sounds of death and rot. She stiffens, sensing the dangerous shift in my mood even as she raises her chin in defiance. “Tell me where you’ve seen that beast before.”
She scoffs. “What does it matter? It’s dead now. Ruined…just like everything else you touch.”
She doesn’t know how right she is. “Where, Willa?” I growl.
The air between us seems to pull tight, a tether on the verge of snapping if either of us dares to move. Her breathing hitches as she searches my face; as my ribbons slither from my arms, slowly inching toward her. She’s seen their malevolent power, but she doesn’t back away. Instead, she takes a stubborn step forward, closing the last inch of space between us.
Shock spirals through me. Not only does Willa not fear death—she chases it.
My death reaches for her, sliding in the air along the curves of her body, determined to fulfill all her desires. Agony shreds through me as I keep them from caressing that silky skin; from nestling between her breasts and devouring every bit of her vibrancy. Willa—with that furious anger spilling from an unending well—she’d be such a feast.
I grit my teeth and growl, “Tell me!”
Willa jumps, and satisfaction threads through me.
“I—” Her words freeze in her throat, and she shakes her head with a doubtful mutter. Then she narrows her eyes. “What do you know about the plague? You told me the wards are too thick to travel through. But you’ve been to my world.”
I watch a ribbon curl through the air between us, tantalizingly close to her throat. With another snarl that causes Willa’s eyes to flare, I jerk it away. A sharp breath shoots from me as black edges my vision, and it takes a full moment of attempting to gather my thoughts from where the agony has scattered them to remember she’s asked a question.
“Your world and mine are more intertwined than you realize. And you, Willa Darling…you’re going to be the one to save them both.”
Willa’s breath hitches, and the color drains from her face entirely. I hadn’t glimpsed a hint of fear when she faced down the bloodthirsty beast, but now, it shines plainly in her eyes. She takes a step backward. “You have the wrong person.”
“Oh, I don’t think I do. You’ve seen that beast before.” I step around her with a cruel grin, my ribbons slithering in the air behind me as I circle her like prey. “In your mind.”
Willa stiffens. “That’s crazy.”
“Is it?” I cock a brow. “That beast has been buried in the recesses of your imagination since you were a child. A projection of your hidden fears, brought to life.”
Her throat works as she swallows. “The rot has seeped into your brain Corpse King.”
I let out a humorless laugh. “You’ve no idea.”
She glares at me over her shoulder, as I lean close enough to breathe her in once again. Blood and lilies. “Imagination isn’t real,” she insists, but for the first time, her voice wavers. My death slithers around us both, tethering us together in a suspended stasis.
For a moment, my study fades away. There is only Willa and my pain. Both suddenly feel buried in my bones. Inescapable. Fated.
“How can it not be real when dreams are the truest thing we have?” My voice is a whisper against her skin, caressing the juncture of her throat. I stare at the spot, imagining stroking it with my fingertips. Tearing at it with my teeth. Destroying her delicate neck the same way I’ve been destroyed. “They are stripped of every lie we tell ourselves and every lie the world tells us. There is nothing more ardent in this life or the next than our imaginings.”
Willa tilts her head infinitesimally, inching closer to the brush of my breath.
“You’ve seen firsthand what happens when imagination dies, Darling. The toll it takes on the world when there are no more dreams.”
She whips her head to me, her eyes narrowing further. Her face is a steel wall, even as her mind races with my words. I want to shred through it, to read every thought as she thinks them. “The plague?” she breathes. In surprise. In horror. “It…it kills imagination?”
“And here I was worried you were slow,” I drawl sardonically. I’d known things were desperate in her world, but I hadn’t realized no one understood what was causing the madness.
The death of dreams.
It seems so obvious.
Children leaping to their deaths, with no imagination to protect their innocent minds from the horrors of the world. The demise of music, art, and innovation with no adults able to dream up something better. A world without creativity is stagnant, and stagnancy is nothing but a slow death.
I meet her gaze, drinking in the rich brown, the vibrant greens, the splashes of gold. “Have you not yet realized where you are?” Confusion wrinkles her brow, and I drink that in, too. “A land of sirens and pixies, of dreams and death? I know stories are rare these days on the mainland, but surely, you’ve heard this one.”
Her breath catches, and I press on. “The music has died, and paintings don’t last…but the stories…you’ve collected them in your mind, haven’t you? Protected them from being lost just like every other beautiful thing. Clung to them when the world is dark and desolate? Wrapped yourself in the tales of heroes and villains to keep from ever having to come to terms with which one you’d be.”
As Willa stares up at me, an addicting mixture of horror and wonder on her face, her lower lip falls open slightly. I hoard the small movement and hate myself for it. Willa’s face is only a reminder of my agony—there should be nothing enticing about it—but for some blasted reason, I am drawn to it. Like my body is eager to relive every excruciating moment of my past.
And there’s truth in the thought, even if I don’t want to examine it too closely—I’ve lived with the pain for so long, I wouldn’t know how to exist without it. Maybe my body instinctively drives toward more, because it knows nothing else. Like an addict.
Willa gazes up at me, and I know her thoughts have followed mine. That the words are on the tip of her tongue, but she’s trying to trap them behind logic. Behind reason. Neither of which have a place in my kingdom. So, I lean in closer and drive her over the edge. “The star you fell through. Which one was it? The second from the right, perhaps?”
Her mouth pops open as she stares at me. As the truth of her circumstances press down on her.
“Neverland.” The word is a throaty gasp that conjures images of silk sheets and hot, slick mouths. “That isn’t—Neverland isn’t…that’s just a story,” she insists stubbornly, but she’s seen enough to question her sanity. To question how firmly the lines of truth are written.
“The stories are all real somewhere,” I reply with a shrug. “Whether your mind or another reality, does it truly matter?”
Her mouth twists in frustration, and she shakes her head wildly as she backs away from me. Swiping at her gore-covered hair, she stares at me like I’ve got her trapped. Like I’ll pounce at any moment.
“You’re crazier than I thought,” she hisses. “I suppose you’re about to tell me you’re Peter Pan?”
The name cleaves through the room like she’s sliced it with a sword. My death explodes from me, skittering powerfully into the bookshelf behind Willa. Charred pieces of paper rain down from the shelves, showering the room in snowy debris, as pain rattles my skull so suddenly, I’m forced to bend over—to tug at my hair and groan through gritted teeth until the agony passes.
“Do not speak that name again unless you wish to rot from the inside out,” I thunder.
Willa watches warily as I struggle to recall my ribbons, as I fight to feel my humanity—to feel something other than the ice of death. It takes all my restraint not to slice her throat right here, simply for having the misfortunate of witnessing my vulnerability.
I’m the King of Carrion. No one sees me weak and lives, but this is the second time today I’ve nearly lost control in front of Willa. It has to be the stress of everything—of the Strayed attack; of my death’s infatuation with her; of seeing my past written along the delicate lines of her face.
My head pounds, and I’m still leaning over my knees when Willa asks, “Where’s your hook, then?”
I let out a rough laugh, the noise scraping up my dry throat, as I finally manage to stand up straight. “So sure I’m the villain in this particular story, are you?”
She gives me a pointed stare, and I relent with a careless wave. “Stories change as they’re passed from one person to another. That detail has been somewhat exaggerated, just as my kingdom’s name has been warped by time. Allow me to set the record straight…Your world is dying because this one is dying. Letum is the product of the dreams of your world, and your world dreams because of Letum’s magic. Neither can exist without the other. And you…you’re going to save both.”
Willa begins to shake her head, backing away from me further, until she bumps into the back of a loveseat.
“Even if this is all true—” The words are stilted, like they’ve been pulled from her mouth against her will. “You have the wrong person.” She says it again, like wishing it will make it true. She has yet to learn that though we live in a fairy tale, the only wishes granted here are ones of agony.
I narrow my eyes. “That’s where you’re wrong, Darling. ”
The word rolls across my tongue gently but the way Willa stumbles backward, I may as well have struck her. My lips pull into a cruel smile as understanding crashes over her like a wave.
“Wish as hard as you want, Willa… Darling… Fredrik.” Her full name rings through the room, and I swear, the shadows of the island stand up and pay attention.
I stalk toward her, and she measures my steps, sprawling backward onto the couch without taking her eyes from me. She jumps as lightning flashes, illuminating the violet sky, followed by a giant crash of thunder that rocks the entire palace. The sound of the past and present colliding, hot and cold, light and dark. Shivers erupt over her skin, and intimate fear shines in Willa’s eyes.
“I know exactly who you are because you were born for me. And now…now, I will take what’s mine.”