Chapter 91 Nikolai
Nikolai
Iexpected pain when the truth came crashing through the walls. I didn’t expect my soul to be torn in two. The searing agony flits into panic and then helplessness as Omi gets caught in the crossfire and Taera flees.
I’m already tearing amulets from my pockets and pressing them into Omi’s hands. One glows for one final moment, then dulls. Nothing. Omi, already mostly encased in blood glass, doesn’t awaken. Their breaths are shallow and sharp with pain, even unconscious.
“Please,” I whisper, but it’s too late. Another source I can’t save. This is my fault; Omi should never have been punished for my failings. Agony is easier to bear than shame. I cling to it like a lifeline.
I throw an illusion over Omi before their face and clothing fragments away.
They whimper in their unconsciousness; the sound shreds me.
Racked with tremors of guilt, I pull the small knobby relic—a larger version of the one they gave Taera—out of my robes and press it into their palm alongside the too-late amulets.
Their breathing softens. When I draw away, however, the effect is immediate.
A duplicate of myself appears at my side.
“Look what you did,” my shadow mutters, shaking his head. “Another one.”
I can’t look at him. I can’t look at myself.
“Get away!” Sasha’s voice cracks like lightning.
He storms toward us, white-hot fury blazing through his mask.
I force myself to stand, to step back, drawing the blood glass with me so he can reach Omi.
He drops to their side, roaring a sound I never want to hear again.
He sweeps a hand across Omi’s face. A white mask appears—the neutral, default protection of identity.
A sign of respect. A sign of finality. No longer a magician.
I’m no longer needed here, no longer wanted. I stagger away, unsure whether to go after Taera in the state she’s in, or to finally make the right choice—too late—by letting her go.
“Don’t do it,” my shadow tells me when I find my feet leading me after Taera. “Go hurt someone else.”
“But I need her,” I whisper. It’s the most broken truth I’ve ever spoken.
“That’s your problem, not hers.”
I can’t even bring myself to be angry at Jezebel. The only one to hate is myself. And the worst part? I don’t know what I regret more: lying to Taera or her finding out.
Blood glass ripples around me, and I force a breath of calm. Then another. I glance back at the ring of light obscuring Omi like a curtain, now held in place by Sasha. I already know Omi’s fate.
“But this time, Taera will be the one who has to live with it,” my shadow says. I can’t get away from him.
“No.” I shake my head. “She doesn’t deserve that.”
“You’re already ruined. And now you want to break her, too? Again?”
“Just—shut up!” I try to think, try to ward off the blood glass that’s steadily encroaching on my shattered mind, hungry for every splintered emotion. I turn and run, letting the Halls take me where they will.
The walls are humming with magic tonight, vibrating with the chaos I’ve unleashed. The same corridor loops again and again, and my ragged breathing is the only sound echoing off the glassy surfaces. I’ve long since abandoned my costume for plain robes, now damp with sweat.
“Just go to Taera,” my illusion tells me.
“You just told me not to,” I snap.
“You told yourself that,” he replies. “You think I exist?”
I drag a hand through my hair. “She’s convinced that everything between us is a lie,” I croak. “Everything.”
“Is it?”
I have to show her it isn’t true, that she isn’t just another conquest. I have to convince her—whatever it takes—that she’s different.
“She’s more…” I say. In ways that I can’t even begin to describe.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not just lying to yourself to keep using her?”
“Stop!” I slam my palm into the wall. It fractures, spiderwebs outward, blood glass dancing up from between the cracks.
I push away from it, running again, outrunning my own mind as well as the crystalline evidence of my ragged emotions.
For the first time in years, my mask is on the verge of breaking.
I have to focus on the lines, the light, the coloring of my features.
I might only hurt Taera more, but I have to try to explain what she means to me, even if I don’t have the words.
“Jezebel already condemned you with the truth. What’s left to explain?” my shadow nags at me.
“How I feel.”
“You think that means anything?”
I pinch my eyes shut. I don’t know. Truly, I don’t.
“It has to.”
The image of Taera is clear in my mind.
I have to find her.