42. Chapter 42
Chapter forty-two
A divide has existed in Niko since the moment we met—a clear dissection between a man of sacrifice and a man of greed. A man of violence and a man of gentility. A man of indifference and a man of passion.
Our worlds are more intertwined than you think. And you, Willa Darling, will save them both.
The world could burn and the heavens could turn to dust, but you and I…we endure.
Which one is his true self? The one who’s torn himself apart over centuries for Letum? Or the one who will do anything to hold onto the small amount of relief the universe has granted? Is he the King of Carrion? Or is he simply Niko, whose given me his heart and vowed to keep mine safe no matter the cost?
Dawson shivers with delight. “It seems baby brother has not been entirely truthful with you, has he? Perhaps you shouldn’t have been so trusting of a man who wields death like it’s nothing.” He pauses thoughtfully, tapping a finger to his bottom lip. “Or perhaps, he simply doesn’t trust you. ”
I clear my throat, but my voice is lost somewhere amongst the looming wave threatening to sweep me beneath it. Not a crest of angry fire to be wielded as a weapon, but something far worse—despair. In all my years of running, I’ve kept ahead of it. I’ve run until my muscles froze, until my nerves burned, and then I ran more. All to stay clear of the desecration of despair; the miring pit that consumed Celie and my father and so many others.
Dawson glances above my head, like he can see the precarious tilt of the wave above me. “How terrible…” he simpers with mocking sympathy, “to have shown someone who you are so fully, and have them know for certain you aren’t to be trusted with their precious things. How awful to have peeled back your layers in your desperate want of love, only to end up teaching them exactly where to pierce.”
My ribs no longer feel like bone, but tethers of iron winding tighter and tighter around my lungs. It isn’t true. It can’t be true. Look at everything I’d burn to the ground for you, Darling.
But the darker spaces, the places carved out by hurt and abandonment, are less sure. For who could ever love something as damaged as me? And Niko…Niko has always seen me. Seen beneath the pure skin to the disgusting scars beneath. The ones that twist and pull, disfiguring everything that makes me human. Turning me into the wretched creature I am.
I will never be able to stand your cowardice. I’d have to be pathetic to want you.
I examine Dawson’s face, cataloguing the similarities and differences between the two brothers. They both possess the same unnerving obsession, but while Niko’s feels like a dark embrace, Dawson’s is something akin to torture. Like torn off fingernails and melted skin. Like the concrete ceiling of the Amelioration camps, and the hopeful detachment of scientists and doctors.
Dawson is a pit of emptiness—there is nothing inside him but boredom and depravity. And he knows if I tie myself to the island before I become as empty as he is, he’ll lose his advantage. I’ll slaughter every one of his followers with Niko by my side, and Dawson will be left with nothing. I’ll leave him alive only to make him face his deepest fear—growing old, powerless and alone.
My lips peel back from my teeth, as I reach behind my heart to where my magic has frozen. I bang on it until my fists bleed, kick it until my heels shatter. But the ice refuses to relent, because as I know Dawson’s fears, he’s unearthed my own.
Fear constructed of a lifetime of lies and betrayals. Of being used and abandoned. Of never being chosen.
And though the fear hasn’t completely abated since my arrival in Letum—its viscous film still thick in my throat—I won’t let it shut me down any longer. Niko showed me how to use the pain and fear; to wake me up like a jolt of electricity and wield them as lethal weapons. Without the haze of their control, I remember who I used to be. A girl who loved and fought every day to protect that love.
Niko trusted me with his pain, with his kingdom, with his heart.
I’m brave enough to do the same. To not give in to numb mediocrity or insecurities. To let my fears spur me forward instead of miring me in the mud.
Pulling my shoulders back and straightening my spine, I let every emotion I’ve pushed down for the past two centuries free. They race through my veins and spark through my fingertips gripped around the gladius. The agony, the love, the heartbreak, the pain. All of it rises up like a tide, imbuing my bones with strength, and my heart with renewed fight.
I slice the gladius through my healed palm, before leveling the sword and sending it flying toward Dawson’s chest.
He’s terrifyingly quick, reflexes honed by centuries of violence, but he isn’t quick enough to avoid the blade entirely. The sword shallowly slices his forearm, sending his own weapon clattering to the cave floor. I throw myself to the ground, diving toward the water’s edge just as Dawson dives for me.
The air crashes from my lungs as his body barrels into mine. Even with his frozen youth, he’s far larger than I am, the heft of his weight crushing my chest and making it nearly impossible to breathe as I writhe beneath him.
His eyes flash with unfettered rage, as his fingers come around my throat. And when I only laugh—when I don’t bother to defend myself, but instead, reach my hand toward the water—Dawson appears entirely inhuman. There is no soul, no magic, no dreams contained beneath his skin. An empty vessel.
“You think because you can’t die, you can’t hurt,” he hisses, hot spittle raining down on my face, as he leans in close. “I will peel your skin from your bones, little Darling. Drain the blood from your body, and fit myself inside you until I’ve torn you wide open. Until every organ, every vein, every thought is splayed before me.”
I choke as he tightens his grip; as the blood pools in my head and black edges my vision.
“And then, I’ll do it again. Every day…until your magic is mine. ”
My wild laughter echoes around us, bouncing off the high ceiling and skittering out over the water to the island’s heart. Because Dawson’s told me all I need to know in his desperation.
If anchoring myself to Letum truly brought Niko’s death, he wouldn’t have tried to stop me. He’d have waited until the transfer was already complete to reveal himself and take control.
“You lose, Dawson,” I gasp. “Just like your dead king.”
He snarls, inches from my face and squeezes tighter, but it’s too late.
Because my faith in Niko has been reinforced by fire and steel, but more importantly, so has the faith in myself. That I’m strong enough to stay true to the things that matter, through pain and fear. That I can trust myself and my heart.
It’s enough to shatter through the ice holding my magic hostage. The jagged pieces rain through me, slicing at my lungs, my bones, but instead of running from it, I revel in the agony. I use it to ground my power deep within myself, the soft girl I once was, and the girl I am now. Together, they dive into my shimmering pool of magic. And from it, I paint in a new future.
One where Letum is alive and flourishing. Where I am its queen, protector and lover of the island, and all who visit in their dreams.
With Niko by my side.
“I can’t wait to watch every time you remember, Willa,” Dawson breathes above me, his voice drifting further and further away as I grab hold of the paintbrush in my mind. “When eternity sprawls out before you, a never-ending path of monotony and loneliness.”
Another slash of my brush, and the picture becomes clearer. I hold on tight, even as Dawson digs the tip of a blade into the skin above my heart.
“ Remember how hard you fought for this .”
His words dissolve as my eyes fly open, and my magic thrusts my dreams out of me and into reality. Another blink, and I’ve slipped from Dawson’s grasp, plunged from midair into the center of the lake. Blood leaks freely from the cut on my palm, and the small, puckered wound above my heart, courtesy of Dawson’s blade. It threads through the icy water, the crimson spiraling to create a morbidly beautiful painting in the dark depths.
My breath is stolen by the cold, but for there is no panic, no frantic fighting. For just as my blood feeds into the water, I am also fed. The island’s magic plunges straight into my pool of power, but it does not flail there. It grows and grows, expanding to consume every bit of my body. I am all spectral light, all unimaginable color. It laces through the beats of my heart, digs into the tissue of my lungs. The island threads through my veins and imbues my bones, burying itself into my flesh, and sparking over my skin.
Once, I was an empty shell, but now I am full—of every feeling, every dream, every choice.
And when I rise to the surface, propelled by the light in me and around me, I understand the island isn’t made of simply imagination: it is the magic of a child’s laugh, the hope of a mother’s dreams. It is the shadows of a father’s nightmare, and the sharp edge of a sister’s terror.
The island was borne of endless possibility—of infinite potential sprawling into eternity.
Potential, that is now entirely mine.