29. Chapter 29
Chapter twenty-nine
T here isn’t enough air.
There hasn’t been since the moment I touched Willa; since I wrapped my fingers around her delicate wrist, driven by instinct and desperation, and discovered she was not ruined by my touch, but awakened by it. Filled with such beautiful anger and tempting violence, she became the only air.
As I tear through my chambers gathering weapons, shoving my feet into boots as I go, my lungs burn no matter how deeply I breathe. And there’s no time to delineate the source of the panic pressing against my ribs, the line between my want and anger and regret blurred so furiously together, it’s impossible to feel one without feeling the others.
I’ve teetered on the edge of destruction for so many years, holding onto the kingdom so tightly I’ve bled into it. One wrong move, one miscalculation, and I’ve always known I’d lose it entirely. We’d all topple so far into an abyss, it would be impossible to right it again.
And now, the day has come: the day I’m too late.
Adira’s Grove, the sacred heart of the wild, is burning. The children we’ve painstakingly kept from the Strayed’s reach for so many years are threatened.
I tug on leather armor, trying not to wince at the heavy feel of it—trying not to think about how any pressure other than Willa’s body against mine feels innately wrong. Like I was born to touch nothing but her smooth, warm skin.
Shoving the thought ruthlessly away, I finish with the armor and lace braces over my wrists. I don’t bother with gloves. There will be no need to contain my magic today.
When I emerge fully dressed, it’s to find Willa clad in leather armor similar to mine. She twirls a sword in her hand with practiced ease, her footwork denoting her skill. I had no doubts given the way she’s handled herself, but shock threads through me at the sight of her dressed for battle all the same. There’s certainly no armor in the Lunaedon that would fit her—not the way that does. Leather encases the soft curve of her muscled legs, pulling tight over the swell of her ass like it was made just for her. Her hair had been wild where I’d fisted it, but now, it’s braided neatly down her back.
All evidence of me—of us —ironed out.
“Going somewhere, Darling?” I drawl, struggling to keep my voice unbothered. To keep myself from yanking her to me and pulling out that braid.
She whirls toward me, gripping the sword more firmly in her hand. “I’m coming with you.” Her voice brooks no room for argument, the command of warrior queen, and I swear to the second star, my power fucking sings in response. It threads over my skin, and slithers through the air around her, spiraling in morbid black designs like she’s the one who controls death.
“No.” My answer is a clash of teeth, and I turn in dismissal, dragging my ribbons back toward me.
“Niko—” A warning and a plea at once, the sincerity of her worry enough to stop me in my tracks. Willa may want my death, but I’m under no illusion that means she wants me. Certainly not enough to worry. “You don’t know how many there are, and you’ll kill yourself trying to face them alone.”
My lip curls in an annoyance I have no right to feel. Willa’s right. Now that Dawson knows the cost of my power is too much for me to pay, he’ll press his advantage. Most of the Strayed are undisciplined, flitting from one distraction to the next with no strategic goal. My brother has always been different.
He sees what he wants and takes it. Stolen away to a world of magic, yet gifted with none of his own, Dawson became a shrewd and ruthless manipulator to claw what power he could from those around him. He climbed the ranks of the Strayed on the bones and blood of others, never hindered by something as weak as remorse.
He’ll have brought enough reinforcements to the Grove, Sam and I won’t stand a chance of holding him off, not even with the help of the Silva Lucai. Not when I’m the only one who can fell a Strayed completely. Not when they’ll attack and never tire, no matter how they’re injured.
I’ve never tested the true limits of my magic. How much power can I wield before the pain overwhelms me? How many Strayed can I kill before my body betrays me completely?
I don’t know the answer.
And I fucking hate that just when I’ve felt something as divine as Willa’s touch, I have to immediately give it up in exchange for more pain. I know better than to allow myself pleasure, and yet, the moment it was presented to me, I was overcome. I hadn’t just touched Willa’s body, her power, her mind—I’d baptized myself in it.
There is no coming back. No unknowing. No matter how much I try to forget—the feel of her is ingrained in my skin, in my head, on my tongue.
I storm toward the door, pressing my palm to the shadowed magic. “I’ll be fine,” I mutter, more to the door than to Willa. It’s easier not to see her fury; or worse, her worry.
Her scowl is palpable, as she follows me into the hallway. “You won’t,” she insists furiously. “And I can help. I want to help.”
I spin to her with a grimace, my heart thumping in my chest at her earnest expression. This is the Willa I see beneath what the world has made her—the woman who doesn’t run but is strong enough to withstand the storm. She’s beginning to find the courage that was stolen from her—the courage to not only to survive, but to live. It makes me want to get on my knees before her, humbled in a way I rarely am as king.
But instead, I fist my hands at my side and sharpen my gaze. I’ll make her hate me if it means keeping her away from the Strayed, away from the twisted inclinations of my brother. Willa has been through enough.
“And what help would you be?” I sneer derisively, raking her over with a dismissive gaze. “You have no control of your power, and you’d sooner disappear into thin air than fight.”
Willa’s lips press into a colorless line, and I hate myself a little more.
But rather the cowering, she plants her feet. Tilts her chin. Sets me with that same fierce expression as the first night we met.
Now, I understand what’s behind the wall—the things that have tempered the steel into an impenetrable fortress.
“I’m coming,” she insists, twirling the sword in her hand, before tossing it deftly in the air. In one fluid motion, she catches the hilt and raises the tip of the blade to my chest. “And you’re wasting time by arguing.”
When I open my mouth to do just that, Willa presses the tip of the blade more firmly into my sternum, and I nearly laugh at how many times she’s had me beneath her thrall—and how few I’ve had her beneath mine.
“Do you think I survived this long by being useless, Corpsey? I don’t need fancy magical powers to stab someone. I’m quite capable of doing it the old-fashioned way. Now, quit being such an arrogant bastard, and let me help.”
My death curls around my wrists as I stare at her, taking in the fierce glimmer of her hazel eyes, the pouted curve of her lips. I can’t tell her it isn’t arrogance urging me to lock her in my chambers, to tie her to a chair if I have to: it’s something far more dangerous. Something I can’t afford to examine.
Something born the moment I took her mouth for mine; not just a seed planted, but a fucking forest that’s ensnared every existing part of me. Something terrifying enough to keep me from ever doing it again, even if that’s all I can think about.
Whatever awaits me at the Grove won’t be any more dangerous than whatever is growing between Willa and me.
I drink in the hope on her face, the brave determination evident in the firm line of her jaw. And I memorize it—the breathtaking way it looks when Willa draws herself out of the cramped pit of fear she’s contorted to fit into and allows her wings to open fully.
And then I kill it with the same brutality I kill everything else around me. Twisting my face into a vicious mask, I look Willa up and down with a tinge of disgust. “A few parlor tricks of magic and a twist of a sword is hardly enough to hold one’s own in battle. Surely you know that.”
Her face falters slightly beneath her mask, a crack to dig my claws inside. To pry her apart and fill with her own insecurities.
A voice inside me pleads silently for her not to believe me; to see beneath my facade the way I see beneath hers . It hammers against my ribs like it’s trying to escape, but I lock it away.
“A moment of courage doesn’t change who you are at your core.”
Willa’s breath catches, and for a terrible moment, I half-expect her to cry. But she masters herself with brutal poignancy, as that same steel wall, the one I’ve worked so hard to break through, slams down around her face. I watch as she curls back into herself, as she seals herself back up. Away from me.
“I have enough to worry about without having to make sure you haven’t walked straight into a trap. So do us all a favor and go back to being the woman who does nothing when the world burns.”
This time, when I turn around, she doesn’t try to stop me.
She doesn’t say anything at all.
By the time Sam, Tiernan, and I reach the Grove, corrosive hatred runs so thickly through my veins, I think it’ll eat straight through my skin. The devastation on Willa’s face is burned behind my eyelids, and with each blink, I hate myself all over again.
For what I’ve done to her. For what I’ve done to Letum.
For not being able to withstand the cost of the power it would take to end this once and for all.
Sam’s magic brushes over my skin in a soft caress, and though all I’d like to do is close my eyes and revel in the oblivion he offers, I wave him away. “Save your strength, Sammy. Don’t waste it on me.”
Because even a beautiful magic such as Sam’s, borne of a gentle soul and kind heart, has a cost. Every moment of comfort his power gifts is a moment of anxiety Sam must endure himself. And with Adira being in danger, I’m certain his worry must already be eating him alive. Despite the decades of strife between them, Sam needs no magic to feel Adira’s pain when she is his heart.
I’ve watched him love her for so long, but never truly understood how it felt to have something so vital live outside of yourself. I always wondered why he’d even bother, why he hadn’t just kept his love to himself when Adira clearly didn’t want it.
Now I wonder if Sam never had a choice in the matter. If he’d lost the grip on his heart and soul slowly enough that by the time he realized they were gone, it was far too late.
“We’ll get there in time, Sam,” Tiernan assures him with a pat on the knee. The boy is one of the many powerless inhabitants of Letum, but he needs no magic to carve apart the Strayed. He’s younger than Sam and me, stolen from Willa’s world long after I’d escaped Somnya and sailed away.
Though I don’t know the details of what happened to him, I can guess well enough by the pleasure he derives from each drop of their blood he spills.
Sam nods, still staring out the window into the glowing depths of the forest. “Adira is more than capable of protecting herself,” he says. His gaze drifts to me. “But at what cost?”
Neither Tiernan nor I have an answer for that. At least, not a soothing one. So instead, I give him a promise. “I’ll tear Dawson apart before he ever has a chance to get near her.”
Sam shoots me a grateful look, but I don’t need his thanks. Just as Adira is Sam’s heart, he is mine. Him, Tiernan, Marina—they are the reasons I haven’t given myself over to death and darkness. My reminders of why the sacrifices and the pain will always be worth it.
As the acrid smell of smoke permeates the carriage, the ease between us slips away.
“Fuck,” I mutter, dread slicing through me like a scythe as the tree-city comes into view.
The Grove is wreathed in smoke and chaos. The curtain of moss and vines usually shielding the city from the outside world is aflame, oranges and yellows licking up the foliage and flaring into the canopy above. Fire races from branch to branch, eating through buildings and sending rope bridges careening to the ground. Grove-dwellers race between trees, dragging scorched bodies from buildings, dousing flame where they’re able and fleeing when they can’t.
The wheels have barely stopped rolling when Sam charges out of the carriage and out into the noxious air. Heat buffets against us like a boiling wall, as Tiernan and I duck out behind him. My vision blurs, as I struggle to get my bearings in the thick smoke, blinking back tears to determine where the attack is originating.
It seems to be everywhere.
Strayed scale trunks; they dart between branch and flame alike, sowing chaos and reigning terror wherever they land. Their clothes burn and their bodies bleed, and still, their eerie laughter ricochets through the shadows, intertwining with the harrowing screams of the Grove Dwellers.
There’s no sign of Adira or Dawson, nor any of the Silva Lucai. My death spirals out ahead of us, searching for the unmistakable feel of the Strayed. Colder even than death and far emptier, it doesn’t take long to understand where Dawson has led the majority of his forces: the Nyawa.
Rage flares through me, icing over the decayed remains of my heart and crackling down to my fingertips. If the tree of souls burns, so will Adira’s people.
“The Nyawa!” I shout to Tiernan. He only nods, pulling two axes from the belt at his hip. Without preamble, he sends one flying toward a nearby Strayed. It hits with a sickening thump, and the boy tumbles face-first into the dirt. Tiernan yanks the weapon back out matter-of-factly, not sparing the boy more than a glance, before he races after Sam.
Tiernan grew up with the oldest of the Strayed. He knows better than anyone the toiling depravity that lives in the spaces their magic should be. The evil that grows in place of their humanity.
I hurtle after him, hearing the battle long before I see it, the clamor unmistakable even over the roar of fire. Metal clashing against metal. Sounds of rage and gore filtering through thick, black smoke.
The Strayed have the Nyawa surrounded. Some carry flaming torches, feeding the billowing fires with wild peals of laughter. Others are armed with swords and bows, axes and spiked clubs. Their eerie cackles and whooping cries of delight send an icy chill sluicing down my spine. The faces of children and teenagers, twisted in such depraved malice, never fails to affect me.
But tonight, it’s more than their youthful faces. More than their evil.
It’s the organized way they move.
Like an infantry.
They advance in unison, rough-crafted shields raised against the Silva Lucai’s barrage of arrows. And at the back, watching with wild fervor, is my brother. I don’t need to draw closer to see the unhinged madness lining his smile, nor the calculating determination in his eyes—eyes the color mine used to be, before I’d anchored myself to the island. A deep, clear blue.
My death spirals out from me, and the black sludge of rot and violence in my veins turns to acid. Pain lances through me as it races from my heart to my fingertips, and I let out a wild snarl as I push it outward to where my ribbons dance wildly in the air.
I’ll decompose his organs one by one, flay his rotted skin from his body.
My death spears for the nearest Strayed, impaling three of them through the chest. Their bloated corpses fall at my feet as pain shoots through my nerves, sizzles over my skin. I breathe it in just as I breathe in their death, moving slowly forward toward where Sam has disappeared into the fray.
It’s easy enough to track his path as bodies crumple unconscious wherever he steps. Together, him and Tiernan fight their way toward the Nyawa where Adira and the Silva Lucai have set up their boundary. My head pounds, and my death steals two more lives, as the Strayed rush Sam and Tiernan, blades flashing in the air.
Tiernan cuts one at the knees, another through the belly. Wounds that would kill in any other world, but only temporarily delays them in this one. Under different circumstances, I’d be following his lead, using the sword at my hip to maim rather than kill. But it’s far too late to shield myself from the pain of their deaths. Far too late for anything but ruthless brutality.
Sam barrels through the wall of bodies, sword drawn, power seeping from him in wave after wave. I feel his terror for Adira in each of his movements, the princess buried somewhere in the midst of the fighting. Tiernan covers his back, and I follow behind, slowly moving toward the tree of souls. The Strayed begin shouting, the warning like a chill in the air.
Decay. Rot.
Carrion.
My breath ricochets in my lungs as my death spirals outward, cutting down anyone who comes too close to Sam and Tiernan. I grunt, burrowing deeply into the rotted corpse of my heart; pulling from the depths of my death; working to push the horror outward.
Such a heavy thing, death. Weighted with sorrow and tragedy, with love and relief.
My vision goes dark as it strains my bones—shreds through my nerves, through my skin, and billows out from me like a black cloud. And wherever it lands, the Strayed fall.
Clenching my jaw so hard my teeth clack, I force my feet to keep moving through the pain. My throat is on fire as my power streams from me in deadly waves, my muscles locking, threatening to seize. But I keep moving. It’s a familiar agony, one that’s followed me every moment of the day since I shoved a hook through the Aeternalis’ heart. Since I sliced it through his stomach and watched his blood splash over my feet. Watched as every bit of life left the eyes of the man I loved so deeply, the man who stole my innocence and twisted it for his own pleasures.
Strayed fall dead around me, their corpses rotted to the point of unrecognition. An outward manifestation of what exists in their souls and mine.
I blink wildly, attempting to focus enough to find Sam through the chaos. Black creeps in from every side of my vision, and I claw my way through it toward where I feel waves of soothing relief radiating a few feet to the left. I hold onto the familiar feeling of my friend, allowing it to draw me to him, beckoning a peace I’ll never be lucky enough to feel more than temporarily.
By the time I reach Sam, each breath feels as though my lungs are laced with nails, and I’m swaying wildly on my feet. The Silva Lucai open rank around me, and I nearly weep in gratitude as I stumble behind their shields. I thread my power back toward me, if only for a moment, to keep from being consumed entirely. From losing myself so fully to the feel of death, I no longer remember what it is to live.
Curling forward, I brace my hands on my knees and attempt to gulp down enough oxygen to soothe the ice burning in my veins. Swallowing down the bile filling my mouth, as my death slithers over my skin, flays open my flesh, leaving me open and raw. Flaming arrows fly over our heads. Some find their mark in the trunk of the Nyawa, silvery sap streaming from the wounds in the bark like blood.
I stagger through the warriors to where Sam and Tiernan have found Adira.
Tiernan glances at me quickly, his alarm at my sallow appearance clear, but he makes no comment. Sam has eyes only for the princess. She stands behind a line of her warriors, mud and gore alike splattered over her face, her usual bare skin wrapped in leather armor similar to mine. Her spine is unnaturally straight, her eyes churning like a terrifying squall over the sea. She doesn’t look at Sam, nor me wheezing beside him.
As I follow Adira’s line of vision, horror twines low in my stomach.
The Princess of the Wilds is using her power.
Though she stands beside us, she is behind enemy lines. Climbing into the heads of the Strayed, miring herself in the swamp of their madness. Churning their thoughts until they only belong to her.
A facet of her power I’ve only ever seen her use once before. Centuries ago, when Pan threatened this very same tree in a fit of jealousy over Adira’s territory. She’s never told me, even years later, what the cost had been—the cost of breaking another’s mind so thoroughly, it can never be repaired. I only know it was so great, Adira didn't speak to anyone for months after the incident.
That she’s using it now means things are just as desperate as they feel.
Sam must realize it, too. He places his hands on either side of Adira’s face, the only skin on her body left bare by her armor. I’ve not seen Sam touch her in over fifty years, since the schism borne of hurt and love gaped opened between them. His fingers caress her cheek, turning her away from where she watches a Strayed writhe on the ground, tugging ruthlessly at their hair.
Anyone else would balk beneath the weight of Adira’s otherworldly stare, but Sam only meets it calmly, soothing his hands over her cheeks. He doesn’t shy away from her fearsome power, though she could fracture his mind with hardly a thought.
“Come back to me,” he whispers, just loud enough to be heard over the din of battle. Adira doesn’t respond as another Strayed drops to his knees, blood welling beneath his nails as he claws at his own eyes. The Strayed’s ability to feel pain drained away along with the magic the Aeternalis stole, but the screams that come from the ones affected by Adira shred through the air, like somehow, she’s reawakened their agony.
“Niko and I are here,” Sam says. “You don’t have to bury yourself in the horror alone.”
His fingers move over her cheek and jaw, in gentle, deliberate stokes. “You don’t carry the weight alone anymore. I’m here. We’re here.”
Time moves painstakingly slow, as the battle rages around us. A Strayed gored by a Silva Lucai spear rises, only to begin screaming once more, clutching at their head like they can dislodge the madness Adira has planted there. Fire rages through the canopy, as more and more of the bridges that connect the Grove Dwellers come crashing to the ground. My own skull pounds, and my mouth goes dry as the rot of death floods my veins.
“Come back to me, Addy.” Sam’s words are barely audible, but something in them—the acceptance, the love, the worry—causes Adira’s gaze to finally snap to his. Her irises rage and churn, a cataclysm of unearthly origins. One that recognizes no humanity: no love, no friendship, no tenderness. Only power.
“Addy,” he pleads softly. A terrifying moment passes, and I ready myself to jump between them. To keep her from planting insanity inside Sam. But then, Adira blinks. Once. Then again.
The storm in her eyes clears, the raging power dissipating like it was never there, and she collapses against Sam’s chest. He tucks her against him, wrapping her small body in his arms. And Adira allows it—a moment to be still, to be loved despite the horrible magnitude of her magic. Her fingers clutch at his chest, holding on even as the world burns around them.
I turn away from the tenderness, as bile rises in my throat along with the acidic burn of jealousy. How must it feel to be wanted despite the deepest horrors you contain? To be loved no matter the circumstance, with no requirement or expectation? With no limit?
My death spirals from me anew, as I try to swallow down my regret. Willa is the only person in three centuries who saw into the rotted chasm my magic has carved through my heart without faltering. The only person who saw what I am, and still allowed me to strip her of her armor, piece by piece, until she was entirely bared before me.
And instead of reveling in it, I’d wielded what I found in her as a weapon; sliced her open with her own securities and left her to bleed out alone.
I can’t even regret it. Not when I’ve seen what this battlefield looks like; not when my brother is lurking at the edges, directing each piece like a game of chess. Because as horrific as this is, it isn’t Dawson’s final move. It’s a test of our limits, a strategic push of my long-held boundaries.
He’s determining whether I’ll put Willa at the center of our fight to spare myself the pain.
My big brother has never understood my heart—never understood the things that drive its beat, that shatter it completely. It will be his downfall. I’ll make sure of it.
Adira pulls away from Sam. Dark smudges stain the skin beneath her eyes, and though she appears exhausted and wan as she meets my gaze, I know instinctively the sadness lining her face isn’t for herself. It’s for me—my thoughts, my pain, my sacrifices.
“Thank you for coming, my King,” she says, bowing her head ever so slightly.
Her words both surprise me and ground me to the present. If Adira is acknowledging my royal status, my dominion over the kingdom, she isn’t doing it out of deference—she’s doing it out of kindness.
A final show of respect before I’m forced to shred myself apart so surely, there will be no repairing the damage.
Adira has been so many things to me over the years: my enemy, my penance, but most importantly my friend. “Princess,” I say, nodding my head to her in equal deference. “I’m at your disposal.”
“The children are hidden in my tree house. The Nyawa cannot fall, Niko.”
I don’t reply, and Adira doesn’t need me to. We both know the cost of losing not only the tree of souls, but the only innocents in Letum. The only untainted magic. With a breath, I turn away, lowering my head to stare at my brother across the battlefield.
Strayed and Silva Lucai alike give me a wide berth as I walk toward him, all scattering like leaves in a harsh wind to escape the touch of my death. And they’re right to run, as my ribbons spiral for them all, friend and foe alike. To death, it matters not whether you’re in possession of a soul—it only matters that a heart beats, that blood pumps, that breath echoes. It only matters there’s a vitality to consume, a life to drink.
Arrows whistle around me, but my ribbons snatch them from the air before they touch my skin. Unlike Willa, I have no immortal healing, my body just as easily injured as any other. But my death protects me with a jealous fervor, because if I’m incapacitated, there’s no one to feed its thirst for violence.
Slowly, I let go of the hold I always keep on my magic—the one I keep even on the edge of unconsciousness, lest I ruin everything around me. The green moss at my feet shrivels to dust, the rot from my heart seeping into the atmosphere and staining everything with death. The black blight spills over the earth, climbs the trunks of the trees. A spiral of void, an echo of the stain of my soul; the filth that bleeds from my veins.
The stain spreads until it coats my tongue, spills from my tear ducts. Until I lose hold of my heart, of my body. Until my name is lost in the want of bloodlust; until I am not a king or a person—I am only death.
My heart pumps and my muscles scream as my death shreds through every piece of me. It devours my skin, burns my nerves, and it’s all I can do to hold on for one more moment as the pressure of it builds. My bones creak as it pummels against them, as it searches for a way out. I let out a roar of agony, keeping it trapped for one last moment: a space of time to thank the star above for one thing:
Willa .
For granting me the chance to know what it is to touch her; the privilege to glimpse the depths of her. I wish bitterly I could end thinking of the way she feels: sacrilegious, wicked. Fucking divine.
But the thought is too pure to survive a dark power like mine. Too beautiful to survive me.
It crumbles along with the world around me. Destroying everything until the only thing I’m left with is death and carrion.
With one last push, I prepare to let it all go.