Chapter 8 #3
“You have the sweetest pillow talk.”
Freya throws up her hands. “I give up. You two deserve each other.”
Daire laughs. “Likely.”
She jabs him in the chest with her finger. “He could have killed you.”
Daire shrugs. “Unlikely. I trust him.”
I stare at him in surprise, blushing.
How can he make me feel like this?
“I should have told you before.” I swing my legs over the side of the bed, and my two demonic lions prowl to block me, as if I would run from my fate down the rocky path that leads away from the Void Pyramids.
My heart hurts at the excitement I can feel from my two closest companions. Shadow and Devil are eager to return to their home, the Void. They have been waiting eagerly for tonight.
It is their beginning, rather than their end.
Everything began with the Void.
Everything will end with the Void.
Tonight, Shadow and Devil complete their mission to return one of the royal line of the House of Sin with them.
They let out a warning roar.
“What?” Daire cocks his head.
I keep my gaze fixed on the space above my head, which is an equal distance between the gleaming tips of the three pyramids.
I can sense something primal shifting in the air. It presses down on me.
I swallow.
It’s coming.
Almost time.
I press my claws into my knees; if I don’t tell him now, then I will never have the chance to.
“I should have told you how much I admire you as a warrior. You are not a courtesan nor a pet. We fight well together. In the Crocodile House, it was like we had been born to battle together with our animals side by side.”
I hear the hitch in Daire’s breathing, even though I don’t look around. “See? Sweet and unhinged. It’s why we’re fated.”
“Do you forgive him?” Freya crawls across the nest to me, resting her hand on my shoulder. “Do you forgive us both?”
Should I give her the easy answer or the honest one?
I mustn’t die with lies on my lips.
“I love you.” I glance up at the moon. Crimson is now dripping over it.
“I have given you both my protection. I have honored you as my King and Queen. I forgive your deception because I understand it. But I haven’t forgiven the death of my mother at Daire’s hands because of what it led to.
I haven’t forgotten it. But I have found a type of acceptance. ”
“I’m sorry…” Daire’s voice is choked.
“I don’t need your apology,” I say, simply. “We are all what we are. You may have taken from me, but you have also given to me. The scales are balanced.”
Above me, a patch of night sky has become darker than the rest.
It looks like shadows are clawing to get out.
It’s starting.
I become numb.
Everything truly is balancing…both starting and coming to an end.
I watch the stain spread across the heavens.
Suddenly, Daire shifts closer.
He sniffs, as if he can smell the ancient world seeping into ours. “What in the name of the Shadow Devils is that?”
“Not in the name of the Shadow Devils, my dear,” I quietly reply.
Daire grabs Freya’s hand and pulls her to sit next to me.
Constellations near the gap between the pyramids are losing their sharpness, their light swallowed by something unseen.
The darkness seems wrong.
It’s hungry.
A murmur rolls through the air.
But it’s not thunder.
Instead, it is something older — primal.
It vibrates through the stone beneath the plateau and the limestone pyramids. Bats wheel frantically away into the night.
I command the bats to fly with my moths as far as they can back toward the city.
Let them live at least.
Daire’s ravens caw but bravely remain with him, huddling uneasily on the top of the Eternal Royal Nest.
Above, the fabric of the sky begins to stretch like black silk being torn by invisible hands.
“What’s happening?” Freya’s voice is high and frightened. “Is this part of the ritual?”
“In a way.” I stare at the wound in the sky.
Around it, stars warp, buckle, or flicker out.
I sit stiller than I ever have.
By the Void Devils, let me have one moment more.
Just one.
Freya’s thigh is warm against mine. Daire has wrapped one wing around me and the other around Freya like he can shelter us both.
He can’t.
My heart should be racing, but when it comes to the end, I am frozen in the face of this nightmare.
I have already made my decision.
There is a calmness in knowing that I alone can stop the end of the world.
And all it will cost is my life.
What is that worth anyway?
The crack in the heavens spreads wider like a fanged maw suspended between the Void Pyramids. I feel dizzy looking into it because there is no bottom to it, only an abyss and vast currents of shadows.
For a moment, I think that I can smell the scent of extinguished suns.
Daire grabs my chin.
His fingers press harshly into my skin, as he drags my gaze away from the mesmerizing sight.
His eyes are wild, while he forces me to look at him. “I said that I trusted you, bastard. But now, the world is cracking apart. This is more than the Blood Moon ritual. Damn your fangs, what the fuck is going on?”
“The Void Devils are breaking through the veil,” I reply, “to devour our world.”