Chapter 58
EVER
Your what?” I ask. A son, here? In the Mortal Realm?
“You don’t deserve to call me that.”
I jump at the voice behind me and grab my chest, painful gasps ripping me open, my leg on fire. “Kelter. Where did you come from?”
Zandrite stretches his neck upward, the root coiling around and around. “I’m still your father. My offer to leave you the Underbroke stands.”
His father? This is why he thought Zandrite would help him? Why he was given a throne? Why he was born with cravings, the need to connect? Maybe even why he merged with Eli, his own blood, instead of dying? His father is the fucking god of love.
Kaleida stops fussing with me to gawk at Kelter. “He’s your what?”
“Time to come back, man.” Milo pokes Eli’s cheek.
“You chained me to a wall and tried to kill my link!” Kelter shouts at Zandrite.
“And I couldn’t go through with it because of you!”
“So you let a shadow of compassion through, and now you think you’re worthy of a son?”
“Do you know what I was left with after I was banished?” Zandrite asks, eyeing the roots that curl around me. “Curses. What kind of creator takes everything from the god of love except the ability to cast curses on love?”
If Kelter is his son… I whack his calf, looking up at his black-and-blue face. “You’re a demigod too?”
“I told you we are destined for each other. We’re the only demigods in existence. Isn’t that enough for you to see?”
“Eli.” Milo tries again to rouse him. “Time to step in and shut him up.”
I seal my lips, holding back a screaming rant. “How long have you known?”
“Since I was kicked out of Sonnet. My mother told me.” Guilt flushes his face, pink rising behind the freckles and blood on his cheeks.
I’ll deal with that later. I inspect Eli’s limp form from afar. Can he hear every word like he could after drowning and only can’t move or speak? Did he know, or did Kelter block this too?
Much slower than I’d like, I fit the pieces together, all the bits I overheard while hiding in the chute, and look into Zandrite’s eyes. If Kelter and Eli’s mother is Mazy, then… “You’re Mazy’s other lover?”
“I was the lover. But the whore was never satisfied with one cock, even that of a god.”
Invisible steam puffs from Kelter’s shoulders. “Talk shit about my mother, and I’ll kill you myself.”
“It’s only the truth. How do you think you ended up with a brother? Why don’t you ask him when he rouses?” He jabs a toe into Eli’s ribs. “His father fucked her while she was pregnant with you. And continued to do so while you slept in the same room, I’m sure. He was born three months after you.”
“Three months. That’s impossible,” I say, almost relieved.
Kelter’s fists shake at his sides. “Gestation is two months for Vaile, not nine.”
Why why why? It’s too much at once. But the final piece falls into place, and it’s the most gutting of all. I swallow, taking in Zandrite with fresh hatred. I keep the root tight enough around his neck to make him sweat. “You’re the reason Eli won’t let me love him?”
“He did that to himself. Well, his father did. What better way to get back at the man who knocked up your woman than to curse their child? And what a bonus it turned out to be that the curse meant for his son was his suffering too… in his son’s body.
It took me hundreds of thousands of years to risk love again, then Mazy screwed me over.
So I made sure her son’s love would always end in heartbreak. ”
My voice is a whisper. “You cursed Eli. You made him feel invisible his whole life. You made people mistrust and fear him.” I ground myself, lifting my head and locking my eyes with Zandrite’s. “You made him ask for hate.”
My heart shatters. Bloody shards pierce my lungs. I don’t have to tell the roots what to do. They simply know, tightening until Zandrite’s face blooms purple. Until his eyes bulge, and his lips turn blue.
“Wait, stop!” Kelter rushes forward and tries to loosen the roots from his father’s neck. He looks over his shoulder, rays of despair shooting straight into me.
What am I doing? I can’t kill his father.
I can’t choose if he lives or dies. I can’t choose for Calderans either.
Or Half Links. I can only free them from their mental prison, the illusion they live in—and let them feel.
Because I’m not like Zandrite or my mother, preventing any chance of happiness and love and hope along with the numbing of pain.
We’re meant to feel it all, the good and the bad. The in-between. The gray.
I release the roots wrapped around Zandrite’s throat, grimacing at the endless throb in my leg, the pain stronger as the magic dulling it wears off.
“No! Don’t let them go!” Atom slides out of the hatch onto the boneless bodies below and hurries to a stand. But they’re already out of my command.
“How did you get out of the collection suite?” Zandrite asks.
Atom races toward us, dodging a freed root that swerves his way. I try to stop it, but it dives again, straight for him.
“Stop!” Milo jumps up from Eli’s side and lunges, landing with a wobble in front of Atom. The root strikes, driving them back and back, past the bed and into the wall. Kelter is frozen between Zandrite and me, indecision wracking his face.
“Go check on them,” I tell Kaleida.
“But your bone… it’s—”
“Go.” It’s time.
I call back the rogue roots as she takes off toward the far wall, my arms outstretched, fingers flexed.
I focus on making them obey and gathering them close to my chest when they reach me.
Then I pull. And pull. Light blasts the room, bouncing off the shiny walls, the roots almost pure white. Magic jets into me. My arms illuminate.
I take more and more, pulling from the farthest corners of the teva fields.
Every scraggly root connects to these massive ones.
Magic zips along underground pathways of twisted roots, but it’s tainted.
Blackness swims in the tiny veins of the plants, darkening the magic. The white light turns to a gray glow.
Zandrite’s golden skin loses its color. His muscles waste before my eyes, his skin loosening, sagging. “No, my Teva! Don’t hurt her!” he hollers, reaching for the roots.
The more I pull, the worse he looks, as if sucking dry the source of his borrowed time piles millennia back onto his mortal body. He’s too ancient to scream. Kelter calls out to me. Indistinct words. A muted message that never arrives.
But I can’t stop. Not even if I wanted to.
Slick magic coats my bones and seeps into the marrow.
The gray layers on shades until all the light is gone.
Until a shimmery black is all that’s left.
It whirls over my skin, cold and snug. Like Eli’s arms around me.
A comfort. My pain pulses in and out, lessened but still intense.
The muscles on Eli’s back flex and spasm. His toes wiggle. He’s coming back. Finally.
I hug the roots tighter, closer. The gush of magic slows to a pulse, the final drops resisting.
It’s as though I’m stopping my own heart, squeezing the life from myself.
When not a lick of magic remains, and the roots are no more than black matter and lifeless plant tissue, I deliver one final, focused twist of my mind.
They disintegrate, leaving only a puff of purple powder behind. And the scent of clover.
It takes a long time to clear, but when it does, every root is gone.
The floor is dusted purple. I expect Zandrite to be standing there, fierce and snarling, ready to attack.
Instead, Kelter pulls away with a bloody knife.
The heavy thud of Zandrite’s knees colliding with the ground and his sputtering groan set me at ease.
The ooze of blood calms my galloping heart, but his death holds no beauty.
He falls forward, one cheek smacking the marble.
Eli stares at me as if I’m the one back from the dead.
My fingers tingle with magic.
And darkness.