Chapter 92
Matheo sank to his knees. The world around Mariah paused.
Her sword hung in the air, frozen in space. The dark god she dueled melted into the shadows. The burn of exertion in her muscles, the resolve fueling her, all vanished like smoke on a breeze.
Matheo pressed a hand to his chest, ruby blood coating his fingers. He lifted his gaze up, finding hers across the clearing.
That was when the pain struck.
A blood-curdling scream pierced the air.
Mariah supposed it could’ve been hers, if she weren't drowning in excruciating agony. Nothing had ever hurt like this before. It was worse than the first time she’d shifted, worse than the strokes of the metal-tipped whip that had left deep grooves on her skin.
It was like she’d been lit on fire while her skin was flayed from her bones. Like a million shards of glass gripped her soul, tearing it out, piece by piece.
She felt every struggling beat of Matheo’s heart, just as surely as she could feel her own. Could feel the blood filling his lungs, climbing up his throat, pooling in his mouth.
Not him. Not him. Anyone but him. Fuck, take her, and leave her warm, joyous, adventurous guard behind. He had so much ahead of him, so much waiting for him. He’d found happiness, real happiness. And he was someone who actually deserved to experience it.
This couldn’t be how it ended for him. It couldn’t.
This was misery. This was torment. This was ruination. No matter how hard she ripped the grass beneath her from its roots, she could find no escape from it.
Sebastian lurched toward his brother, pulling him into his lap. Another cry pierced the air. This time Mariah was sure it was his.
Enraged shock pooled down a bond crafted from shadow.
Andrian didn’t hesitate. He launched over Matheo and Sebastian, the point of his sword aiming true.
It sank into the neck of the mudae whose claws still dripped with Matheo’s blood, snarling as he pinned the creature to the blood-soaked grass.
The other mudae screeched, leathery wings stirring as they launched back into the sky.
The legion was gone as quickly as it had arrived.
Andrian turned, finding Mariah across the carnage of the clearing. Broken pain and empty rage filled his hollow chest, the brilliance of his eyes dulled and shadowed.
Behind her, someone chuckled.
“How does it feel?” Kol murmured, his voice soft, almost sensual. “I’ve always wondered. Is it like losing a piece of yourself?” His footsteps padded the ashen grass, boots halting a few paces from where Mariah’s hands gripped the earth.
“I suspect it feels the way I felt when a part of me was stolen. Perhaps I am finally returning the favor.” The softness was gone, now just a shadowed growl. Mariah couldn’t give him the attention he wanted, couldn’t tear her gaze from her dying Armature.
No. Not just an Armature. A friend. A brother. A companion when she’d had no one else. A light when everything around her had fallen to darkness.
His bond flickered. She reached within herself, grabbing onto it desperately, throwing it open.
The magic was frazzled, a fractured mess, threads of fraying light trying desperately to hold on to a flickering consciousness at the other end.
Mariah flung herself down the bond, imagining that she could sink talons into Matheo, could somehow make him stay.
“No. No, Matheo. You will not leave me. I’m your queen, and I command you to stay. You will not leave me.” She spoke the words out loud, as clearly as she pushed them down their bond. He stirred, hazel eyes fluttering, and for a moment she let herself feel a dangerous sort of hope.
“I’m… I’m sorry.” He was so faint, so soft she almost missed the whispered thought. It floated through a darkening void, dissipating with the threads of her magic. A sob choked in her throat, but she refused to let her eyes well with tears. Refused to let the image of him blur.
“Tell Signe…that I wish we’d had more time.”
“You will tell her yourself. Stay.”
Even her command felt empty. It slipped into the void, evaporating into mist.
Mariah didn’t look away as Matheo’s eyes fluttered closed. The last of her magic woven into their bond fell into the ether.
The consciousness flickering at the other end snuffed out.
No. No. It happened so fast, that couldn’t be the end. He had so much still to live for. No no no no no—
Sebastian released another broken cry. Andrian’s helpless agony folded around the shattered edges of her heart.
And seven bonds became six.
“It is a shame to lose a strong fighter like that, though.” Kol sighed. “As much as I revel in your agony, I do offer my sympathy.”
The dark god’s words snapped something in her.
All her past rage…it was nothing compared to this. The beast beneath her skin roared, its golden fire clawing up her throat, begging to be unleashed.
Her rage was so potent, so strangling, that she leashed it tightly. She would share this anger with no one, not even that other part of herself. The part of her that was her, that was human, was selfish in how she wanted to act.
Mariah dragged her gaze from Matheo’s lifeless form. She tilted her head up, finding Kol’s red-gold stare.
She fucking hated that stare.
“Your sympathy?” she whispered. Her rage burned in her throat, clawing at her skin. “I don’t want your sympathy. I want your head.”
Kol’s lip pulled back from his teeth in a snarl.
“And I want what you stole from me!” Fury lashed from him like a flame, his voice rising.
He clutched at his chest, as if he could feel whatever part of himself he imagined to be missing.
“If you will not join me, then at least return that. Don’t let more people you love die on your behalf, Mariah. You don’t deserve their sacrifice.”
His words stabbed through her chest. She pushed to her knees.
“Do you think I don’t know that?” The tears had finally come.
They welled in her eyes, dripping down her face.
“It doesn’t change that I have taken nothing from you.
Yet you have taken everything from me.” The pain and anger and heartbreak swirled in her chest, slicing and cutting and wrenching.
Kol scoffed, rolling his eyes. “I don’t have patience for liars.”
Something stilled in Mariah. The rage bubbled, hot and burning, but it focused like steel forged in a fire.
Kol was mad. She could see it on him—in the flickering in his eyes, in the writhing of his shadows, in the tight clench of his fists.
He was unraveling, five millennia of solitary torment driving him to insanity.
She thought back to what Rulene had told her, only weeks ago, but that felt now like a lifetime.
The gods had created Kol’s dagger using a drop of all their power, including Kol’s. But he hadn’t contributed that power willingly.
And after it was forged, Kol had turned his malice on Zadione.
Because, somehow, the Goddess of Death had stolen from him to create the very weapon that would end his existence.
If Mariah wanted to end this—for good, this time—she knew what she had to do.
Mariah forced herself to relax. She released her grip on the grass, slowly unfolding her body. She stood, the muscles in her face dropping, the snarl she’d held onto so tightly falling away. She wiped her tears with the back of her hand, tugging her lips into a soft smile.
“Fine,” she said softly, almost coyly. “I confess. I did steal something from you.” Her smile pinched higher. “Do you want it back?”
Kol froze. Her skin burned as those red-gold eyes surveyed her. She held herself still, refusing to so much as flinch, even as his expression glimmered with a hint of hunger.
“I’m glad you’re finally seeing reason,” he said. “How do you plan to return what I’m missing?”
Mariah took that as her invitation. She stalked forward, steps light as they treaded over the grass. Flame and shadow flickered in Kol’s eyes. She didn’t stop until she was nearly in his embrace, until she could smell his scent of ashen rain and burned sandalwood.
He was still as she leaned into his space. Her chest brushed his, sparks shooting over her skin. The beast in her grinned as her lips ghosted over the shell of his year.
“Like this,” she said in a lover’s whisper.
And slid her grandfather’s dragon-winged dagger between the hollows of Kol’s ribs.