Chapter 54
EVER
The fall is over before I can properly panic.
The landing is soft and… fleshy. The smell makes my eyes water.
I crouch, too weak to stand, my thigh and foot throbbing and wetting whatever’s beneath me with a layer of blood.
But the pain is still dampened from the roots’ rush of magic.
I wiggle my toes and feel around. Skin. Hair. Noses. Eyes. Lifeless bodies.
But the feel is all wrong, the size and shape.
The faces are flat except for the tip of the nose.
No teeth sit behind the lips, no skull behind the face.
I trace my hand down, despising myself for not pulling it away.
A woman’s bare chest, but no collar bones, no ribs. I lift an arm. It flops in half.
And I gag. It’s nothing but skin, maybe a thin layer of fat. A boneless, bloodless body.
I feel the walls next. Knots of twisted roots form three of them, the final a metal slab. Hopefully a way out. It’s dark all around except narrow lines of light entering where the metal meets the roots, not enough to see much in the tiny space, but it’s my only glimpse of what’s beyond these walls.
A deep voice rumbles. I peer through a gap. Cold metal squashes my nose flat.
I can’t take in the scene fast enough, can’t think and feel and plan at the same time.
Zandrite’s chambers, no doubt. Huge. I can’t even see the whole thing.
The black marble walls and floor contrast the dirt of the rest of the Underbroke, sleek and shiny.
Light stones are embedded along the ceiling in an evenly spaced grid, each held in place by dried vines in an X over the stone.
A god-sized bed occupies the center of one wall, a patchwork quilt made from the hides of creatures on top.
A throne even bigger than the one in the arena is plopped in the middle of the room, made with the same black marble as the walls.
Small white pieces like bone chips jut out from the otherwise smooth material.
Zandrite sits against the tall back, the tips of his fingers pressed together, elbows balanced on the wide armrests.
As always, his chest is exposed. And still hairy.
Roots thick enough to hold an entire house securely to the ground wreathe and twine around the throne like a living wall of protection.
Eli, Milo and Kaleida stand a few paces in front of Zandrite. Kaleida’s blue shirt is torn, exposing the dark skin of her side. Half-dried blood sticks to her cheek below a neat slash. She’s fierce and stubborn in her stance, chin up and hip popped at a sassy angle.
And Milo—this man has my heart in a way I never expected.
He lost half his shirt somewhere along the journey, exposing a shoulder and part of his chest. His pale skin is streaked with dirt like a child’s fingerpaint masterpiece, but it doesn’t hide the almost gaunt frame of his body, as though he spent his life giving his bars away to someone else in need, his sisters, perhaps.
Or maybe that’s how he’s built, wiry and strong.
His hair is wild, sticking straight up in parts, matted in others.
He stands one step closer to Zandrite than everyone else, brave and determined.
And once I’ve looked at everything and everyone except him, I can’t avoid it any longer.
My gaze falls upon Eli. His loose curls have lost their shape on top, but the ones on his forehead hang in perfect ringlets.
Somehow, that makes him feel far away, untouchable. My heart knocks around my ribcage.
Fury smolders in his eyes, visible from all the way over here. He’s still shirtless and barefoot and as beautiful as ever with this new untamed look he didn’t choose, though I never minded his rigidity—those tightly laced boots and packed pockets.
If he feels my heart rampaging about, he doesn’t show it, doesn’t look my way. Always the master of his feelings—until he’s not.
My few seconds to assess the room are up, and I spent them thinking about everything except how to take out a god with too much arm hair, how to make the killing blow.
Or stab. Or whatever method presents itself.
I’ve seen enough death to figure it out.
I can do this for Eli. I can save him from his own mind.
Zandrite stands. The purple roots rearrange around him on high alert. They seem to act on their own. “I’m not sure I’ve ever had a private performance of the evening Scrape in my chamber before. How many want to play? I’ll need to call on some Trophies to choose from.”
Eli curls and releases his fingers at his sides, undoubtedly itching for his knife. Milo moves in front of him, adopting a protective stance, all the more meaningful now that he knows Eli can’t die. The roots sway toward him.
“You have something of mine,” Eli drawls, his casualness unnerving. He flops a hand onto Milo’s shoulder and hauls him back to his side.
This isn’t part of the plan.
Zandrite smiles, the hauntingly beautiful and sickening kind that signals it’s time to run. But I can’t. And none of them appear to get the message. “You as well.”
I shiver, the delight in his low voice like poison traveling down my spine and hollowing one bone at a time.
“Why don’t you get your coward ass out from behind those roots and face us? What do you want?” Kaleida throws the questions at him, fearless.
His brows flick upward in amusement. “I want the girl.”
Eli swallows tightly. The feather light movement of his fingers near his pockets distracts me, every move deliberate and calculated. He brandishes his knife with the calmness of a late sunset and steadily points it at Zandrite. “And I want my brother back.”
My bones jump. What is he thinking? Why drag Kelter into this when he wants nothing to do with us?
Zandrite’s reaction isn’t at all what I expect.
He strides forward, smacking roots that follow too closely, loitering around his face.
Standing well over a foot above Eli, Zandrite studies him, taking in his angles.
“How unfortunate. I thought we could ignore that little detail if you didn’t know.
You’re not back only for a dramatic visit with an old friend. You’re back as Mazy’s accident.”
“No need to bring my murderous mother into this.”
“A little late for that, don’t you think? It has been since the day I showed that beauty how a god makes a woman come.”
I want to slam the metal hatch upward and attack at a run. Zandrite slept with his mother?
Eli rubs his thumb on the knife handle, tiny controlled strokes. “Give me my brother, and you can have the girl. A simple trade.”
Another act, but it won’t work.
“Why would you give her up for him?” Zandrite jerks his head to the side, signaling. “I saw how you looked at her in the arena. You’d threaten every man in sight if someone breathed in her direction.”
My eyes travel beyond the roots, past Eli and Zandrite, to the far wall I can barely see, blocked by everyone else. But two legs are visible. Two chained ankles. Two tan bare feet.
Kelter. A prisoner again? I thought he wanted to be here, that he found a home among these people.
“My brother is my blood,” Eli says.
But Zandrite considers him again, staring long enough to make the back of my eyelids itch with impatience. “I don’t need you in the middle of this. She’ll come for her link.”
Eli’s abdomen tightens with a ripple of muscle. “The only man she’ll come for is me.”
I can’t stop the smile pulling at my cheeks.
Neither can Zandrite, which makes my own smile vanish. “I’m starting to reconsider killing her so quickly. Why not one final mortal fuck before I go?” Zandrite asks, toying with the idea. The tip of a root caresses his neck.
Asshole of a god. I got this. I try to change its course and wrap the root around his throat, but it whips to the side and smacks Eli’s cheek.
Shit.
He freezes, only for a second, a dumbstruck look on his face. I know he wants to look my way but can’t. Then he strikes, his knife sinking into the god’s heart with precision, with ease.
Zandrite laughs, a horrid sound to go with his hardening body, the animosity on his face. The purple roots react with violent swings and wallops toward Eli, Milo and Kaleida, who jump back and block the blows. Zandrite watches the roots proudly. “I care for them. They care for me.”
Out out out. I search for a handle on the hatch, shoving sacks of skin aside and groping along the square frame. Out. Let me out.
Milo and Kaleida try to run, but a root grabs Milo’s ankle and drags his body across the floor. His fingers scrabble for a hold. Another follows Kaleida as she darts toward Zandrite’s massive bed.
No! Leave her alone. My heart screams what my mouth can’t.
The root pauses, the tip twisting side to side as if torn on where to go… as if it heard me. I said leave her alone! But it doesn’t stop. And now I’m talking to plants. It jerks free of my mental hold and chases after Kaleida. Why can’t I control them like before?
With his bloody knife gripped tight, Eli battles a root, dodging its attempted blows one after another.
It can’t keep up with his pace. He normally controls his strength and hides his senses and speed, but it’s in full effect right now.
Every move is swift and flawless, a blur.
I can only imagine how he could fight without me holding him back.
The root dives toward him again, and he buries his blade to the handle.
The root trembles. My hands quake, my breath sharp and ragged as if I were the one stabbed. My chest aches, pain radiating from my heart and out and out.
Six roots go after Eli at once.
I grab the stone around my neck and squeeze.
Is impending doom a necessity to talk to me? Ametrine lilts.
Hi. That’s it.
Hello, love.
Panic unleashes my words. I can kill this asshole. I slaughtered hundreds of Vaile in the woods. But I have as much control over this magic as I do my mouth.
That’s enough. All you have to do is trust.
You have no idea how hard that is, I mutter.
I do. You’ve carried me in your heart all these years. I’m not asking you to trust me, just to have some faith in yourself, Ever. If you only believe in one thing, let it be you.
With that, she leaves me. I release my necklace and check on Eli again through the gap.
Four roots wrap around the length of his arms and legs in winding loops.
He struggles, and another slips around his waist, making the full circle and tightening with a stomach-turning crack of his ribs.
He grunts, his head pushing back in pain.
The last root inches up his spine as if teasing him, then slowly around his neck, over his mouth.
Fuck no. That man is mine.