Chapter 94
She didn’t see Kol’s blade of shadows.
She’d hardly heard his soft-spoken words. “My turn, little goddess.” That’s what she thought he’d said, before his darkness plunged her world into ice.
Mariah couldn’t feel the pain. Not really. It simply melded with the agony already tearing through her soul, weaving together like the tangled threads of her magic until there was nothing left but numb emptiness.
Someone screamed. She didn’t think it was her. The voice was far too deep, and she was far too numb.
The strength in her legs failed. She dropped slowly to her knees, hitting the soft grass with a thud. Her chest was wet, and she was cold, so very, very cold. Her dagger sat in the grass a few paces away, clean and shining and mocking in the ashes of her family home.
She wondered who lied to her. Had it been Sebastian and Ciana?
No, they wouldn’t. Maybe it was the gods.
Maybe in their eternal lives, they’d taken a sick joy in watching her scramble around the continent like a rat desperate for its next meal.
Maybe that was the real reason Callamus had left, so he could laugh at her mistakes from afar.
Not that it really mattered. None of it mattered, not anymore.
Something warm hit her, solidness wrapping around her cold weakness. Rain and sandalwood, but it smelled right this time. She couldn’t stop herself from using the last of her strength to turn, burying her nose in that warmth, and drawing a deep breath.
Or as deep as she could manage. Thick liquid bubbled in her lungs, the taste of iron flooding her tongue.
Blood.
She didn’t care. He was so warm, so perfect, all the things she needed and craved. And she was so, so cold.
“Don’t you dare close your eyes, nio.”
Had she? She hadn’t realized. Not until she fluttered them open, latching on to that crushing, beautiful, haunting tanzanite blue.
The color was a little blurry, though. Was that her? Or was he crying? She opened her mouth to ask, but no words would come.
Andrian clung to her with a desperation that would have warmed her if the ice hadn’t already taken root. “No, nio. Not like this. You cannot leave me. Not after everything. Do you hear me?”
She blinked. Yes, she heard him. Of course, she heard him.
That didn’t mean she could listen.
Something warm splashed on her cheek. A tear. “I’ll be your king,” Andrian croaked, voice cracking. “I don’t care anymore. I don’t care about any of it, other than you. I’ll be whatever you want me to be. All you have to do is stay.”
“All I ever wanted was you.” She tried to push the words down their bond, but even that…her magic was slipping through her, falling away, unraveling from all the places it hid. She couldn’t find her bonds, not even that shadowed one that never closed.
“Please,” Andrian begged, his voice falling into a broken whisper. He brushed a palm over her face, and she wanted so desperately to lean into it. “Please. You promised me that we would do this together. Together, nio. You cannot break that promise.”
She coughed. The sound rattled in her chest, wet and ragged. Breathing was so hard, her chest so heavy. She wanted to speak. She tried to speak.
“Don’t…stop—”
It was all she could manage. More copper coated her tongue, dragging all the words she wanted to say back down her throat.
Hands sank into her hair. More tears hit her face. “I’ll never stop. But I need you. Please. Don’t leave me alone. I know my love is a curse, but you were supposed to be the exception. The one who broke it.” His forehead met hers. Again, so warm.
“Everyone always leaves me. Don’t make me let you go, too.”
Mariah found those eyes again. That crystalline purple blue, as familiar to her as her own. If there was a part of her that wasn’t already shattered beyond repair, those eyes finished the job.
A smooth, smoky chuckle wrapped around her dimming world.
“How embarrassed those moon goddesses must be, putting all their magic into a mortal body.” She flicked her gaze away from the tanzanite, finding burning red.
Kol smiled, brushing the lapels of his jacket.
“It didn’t have to be like this, you know.
But when you land a blow, it’s only fair that I return the favor.
It’s not my fault that your attempt failed, and mine, well…
” He chuckled, his eyes hardening with maddened wrath.
“Thank you, by the way. For returning what you stole from me. It feels good to be whole again.”
Wheels rattling down a worn, dirt road. A carriage lurched to a stop.
“Ah!” The dark god clapped his hands, turning. “Just in time.” He glanced back over his shoulder. “I wanted to make sure you saw this before you left us.”
The carriage door opened. A man with deep red hair stepped out—Ydros.
He was followed by a middle-aged man. There was something familiar about him. A memory stirred in her mind, but everything was slower, like moving through a river of molasses.
She did know the next person to step from the carriage, though.
Wild golden curls. Freckled cheeks stained with tears. Amber eyes that were now shadowed and heavy, her usual sunlight gone.
Ciana released a wild, wailing sob, sagging forward. An arm latched around her middle, a hand clamping around her mouth, hauling her back.
Mariah remembered.
The Blaise family. The ones who’d tormented Ciana—who’d filled her with invisible scars. Leon. Lucas.
Mariah wanted to cling to life. She wanted to fight to stay. Not just for Andrian, still cradling her to his chest. But for Ciana, for Sebastian, for her family, for all the people in this world who needed someone to fight for them—
Yet she was drowning. Her head had slipped beneath the surface, lead weights tied to her ankles. No matter how much she clawed and scraped and fought, there was no hauling herself back from this.
The world grew darker, fuzzier. She searched desperately in the haze, finding that haunted tanzanite again.
In a moment of peace and clarity and revelation, she knew that she had failed. Ultimately, utterly, and completely.
Mariah held on to Andrian’s eyes for as long as she could. She knew he was talking, begging, pleading. The vibration of his speech rumbled through the empty husk of her body. She could feel the void approaching, the yawning chasm of space pulling her in.
She no longer had any strength to fight it.
A final, rattling breath. A weak, whispered exhale.
Then even the tanzanite flickered out, darkness swallowing her whole.