Chapter 32
Petra
My knees buckled, power flaring in my hands as they hit the table, and for the first time, I hated the blood in my veins.
I hated the black spots left behind on the wood, hated the blisters that bubbled up in their wake, the storm brewing stronger inside me with every passing second. My entire identity, my entire life…
“Which brings me to your choice.”
Tyrak’s words ripped me from my spiral. “My choice,” I repeated back to him, as if I’d completely forgotten this was the entire point of this conversation.
“You are the Daughter of Katia, Petra. And as the daughter of Rhedros as well, your powers are unparalleled in this world. You can follow in the footsteps of the Forgotten Saints and set this world ablaze to start anew, in hopes such destruction would take Malosym this time. That is your first option.”
I shook my head. “No. ”
“I thought you’d say that.” Tyrak shifted in his seat, his tongue running over his teeth before he spoke again. “Since you are in his bloodline, you have the ability to kill him. But Malosym is strong. Far stronger than you are. You can kill him, though, Petra. You have the power to do so.”
“I’ll do it.”
“But…” He shifted uncomfortably, his face hardened with something like regret. “It will require so much of your power, you will burn yourself to ash. That is your second option.”
My jaw tightened as I nodded. “I’ll still do it,” I repeated, though my stomach soured. “Easy choice.”
“Or…”
I blinked at him. “Or?”
“Or…you can carve out a spot alongside the rest of the realms, just as the Sanguilite did. Hide yourself away. Let the world burn without you and rebuild beneath a new sun, beneath new saints. You can try to push your companions through along with you, as Malosym did with Katia and the Forgotten Saints with Rhedros. That is your third and final option. There is a possibility that you survive this.”
My eyes shut, a deep, steady breath rushing out of my nose. A separate realm, just for me and Cal, for Miles and Nell and Whit, for Solise and Ma. Cal could build us our house. We could be safe.
“Dammit,” I whispered to myself, my eyes still squeezed shut. I wanted to hold on to that vision for just a moment longer before the truth smashed it to pieces.
“I’m sorry, Petra. I should’ve told you sooner. I simply could not stand by and watch you feel forced into acting without knowing there was room for another choice to be made.”
“Why wouldn’t Katia want me to know this? Wouldn’t she want me to succeed? Wouldn’t she want me to end Malosym’s life for good? ”
“Not if it meant yours ended in the process. As I told you before, they hoped Malosym would never find you. And forgive me for speaking ill of your parents, but it was a foolish hope to have.”
The mix of emotions in my gut knocked me back to my chair.
Anger at Katia and Rhedros for keeping this from me, at the world for dealing me this lot, sticking me with this choice that felt impossible but wasn’t.
Terror at the unknown, at the prospect of this finally being the end.
Sorrow at the thought of saying goodbye to Cal, at the fact that my time with him was truly finite.
But most of all, an unexpected calm. I knew what I had to do.
I knew the course of action I had to take.
The path had been laid at my feet. All I had to do was walk.
“If I kill him, will his death take out the Occulti too?” I asked. My tone was surprisingly even, as if I weren’t discussing my impending death.
“I believe so. But I cannot promise that will be true.”
“And will it free Katia and Rhedros?”
“Yes.”
“Does Malosym know all this?”
“Yes. I believe that’s why he has Occulti patrolling Katia and Rhedros in the Darkness Beyond. He is afraid they’ll tell you. I believe…” He pushed out a heavy breath, wincing as he spoke. “I believe the Occulti may have attacked yesterday in search of me.”
I nodded once. It made sense. Malosym wouldn’t want Tyrak anywhere near me. “Thank you for telling me this, Tyrak.”
“I would say you are welcome, but I do not wish you to be welcome to information that will harm you. In another lifetime, my greatest hope was to have a daughter as strong and as brave as you.”
“Yeah, well, such is life,” I muttered, and a knife buried into my chest at the thought of Cal. “This will stay between us, right? ”
Tyrak’s mouth pulled up at one side in a sympathetic half-smile. “If that’s what you wish.”
“Cal can’t know. I just… I don’t need anyone trying to talk me out of this.”
His half-smile deepened, taking on a sorrowful edge. “He is a good man, yes?”
My lips parted at the abrupt question, completely unexpected. “A good man,” I breathed, the words feeling horribly inadequate to describe all that Cal was. “He’s kind and he’s honest and he’s fiercely loyal. He’s… He’s the best of us.”
“Good,” Tyrak answered with a small smile I couldn’t quite read. “I could tell he was good even as a young man. I am filled with such relief he remained so despite his proximity to Malosym. I hope you know, whatever lies he told you…”
“I know,” I cut in before he could finish. “They weren’t his fault.”
He swallowed hard, some piece of him settling at my confirmation. “And Tobyas? Miles .” This question was quieter, the words stunted.
“Miles…” I started, trailing off. “He’s a good man. Of that, I am sure. But there’s a side of him, a self-loathing, cynical, angry side. I recognize it because I see it in myself, sometimes,” I murmured, this sudden, unexpected moment of introspection tightening my chest.
“I couldn’t let him die,” Tyrak whispered, dark eyes hollow and haunted. “He was just a boy.”
I straightened, my breath going still in my lungs. “What?”
“I was the one who shot him with the arrow the day Cal thought he fell from the cliffs. I was supposed to kill him. Malosym wanted him out of the way so he could get closer to Cal. I just couldn’t let him die.
” His breathing quickened for a moment before he regained control.
Silence stretched between us, rife with so much unsaid, so much that would never be said .
And then I gave him the words I knew he needed to hear, words I wouldn’t have given him yesterday. “You’re a good man, Tyrak.”
He blinked, his empty expression a picture of disbelief. “It’s easy to feel good about yourself when you hold the title of Saint. It’s much harder when you hold no title at all, just the beating human heart inside your human chest.”
An unfamiliar pain lanced through me, spearing me straight through. My brows slanted as hot tears burned the backs of my eyes. “What of the heart that beats in my chest? I am somehow the product of Saints and the product of an Extos. But I’m also the product of darkness itself.”
I’d never given much thought to the threads that had woven together to create the fabric of my soul. But now that I knew one of those threads had been spun from hatred and darkness, I couldn’t help but feel every ounce of shame clinging to each strand.
Tyrak leaned closer to me, the look on his face so sincere it almost broke me. “And despite that, Petra, you are a light.”
◆ ◆ ◆
I floated through the day, hardly listening as people with far more military experience than I discussed and planned and argued. How were we supposed to lead an attack on an enemy with a location we didn’t know in a different realm? How were we supposed to succeed against an army of Occulti?
We couldn’t. And thanks to Tyrak, we wouldn’t have to, because I was going to end Malosym’s life myself. No army. No soldiers. No horses or cannons or trebuchets.
I lost count of how many times I opened my mouth to tell the leaders to call off their armies, to stop preparations.
But each time I mustered up the courage, it was like Cal’s steady presence beside me was magnified.
I became so aware of him, it clogged my throat, kept the words from spilling out.
He couldn’t know my plan. And not because I was worried he’d try to talk me out of it, but because of what it would do to him when he couldn’t.
So I had to sit by while time and energy and resources were wasted on building an army it turned out I never needed in the first place.
Cal, Miles, Tyrak, and I shuffled through a steady stream of meetings, none of which I paid attention to.
The early evening had fallen, darkness settling over Araqina like a blanket.
My mind was in a hundred places, and none of them were here in this room.
“Queen Petra?”
“Hmm?” I blinked, staring at the face of a man whose name I’d been told but had promptly forgotten. Commander Dashiel? Dansyn?
“I was inquiring as to what you thought of the plan.”
“The plan.” The plan they’d been discussing while I’d been busy fielding off a wild stampede of worries. “I, um…”
“Queen Petra would like to discuss her thoughts in private first,” Cal offered, his voice diplomatic as he addressed the table full of leaders. “Commander Desmund, we will call upon you once she has conferred with her court.”
Commander Desmund. That was it. I nodded as the dozen or so men filed out of the room. Tyrak and Miles excused themselves, leaving Cal and I alone in the meeting hall.
“What was the plan they were talking about?” I asked as soon as the door clicked shut.
“Roast chicken for dinner.”
My eyes shot wide. “They were talking about dinner?”
“Military strategy has been known to make people hungry.” He reached over and pulled my chair to face him, pinning me with his stare. “What’s going on?” he asked, those gemstone eyes earnest.
I tried to feign something like innocence as I shrugged. “Nothing more than the normal dread.” The truth was an explosive on my tongue, begging for me to open my mouth and let it ignite. I swallowed it back, but it lodged in my throat.
“I’m so fucking proud of you, you know that?” he murmured, leaning in to brush his lips against mine.
Saints, I hoped he’d be proud of me when this was all over. “Cal,” I breathed, shaking my head and fighting to avert my eyes.
“I mean it, Petra.”
“I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“And look at how well you’re handling it.”
His hands ran up my thighs, closing around my hips as his stare intensified. I almost broke right there, told him what I was planning to do. But before I could open my mouth, he captured it with his.
The kiss was searing in its intensity, breathtaking in its force.
The room echoed with the sound of wood against stone as he pulled my chair closer to him still, my legs hiking up around his hips.
And suddenly I was drowning and he was the air I needed, my hands clawing at him, bringing him closer, like I’d die without him.
I think I would, actually. But he’d live without me. I’d make sure of it.
“I need you,” I whispered as his lips moved over my jaw and to my throat. His mouth closed over my pulse and I gasped at the contact.
And then we were standing and his hand was on my spine, pushing me down over the tabletop as he worked at the waistband of my trousers. There was nothing kind about the way he moved, nothing gentle about the speed with which he freed himself from his leathers and lined my hips up with his.
“You need me?” he growled, his hands coasting over my back beneath my tunic. “Then take me.”
I cried out as he thrust forward, the movement possessive and unguarded and perfect. My eyes were locked on the doors, sure they’d fly open any second and we’d be called to another meeting I wouldn’t pay attention to .
“Fucking Saints, Petra,” he snarled, hands closing over my shoulders as he drove into me at a punishing pace.
“You’re fucking a daughter of the Saints, Cal,” I quipped between gasping breaths, and his throaty laugh sent a satisfying chill up my spine.
“That mouth of yours,” he groaned, and heat coiled within me, growing hotter and hotter as his fingertips dug into my shoulders. My breaths turned ragged, the table screeching against the floor with every movement. “That’s it, Petra. Let go.”
Something about those words brought a sudden barrage of tears to my eyes, and uncontrollable sorrow and mind-bending pleasure intertwined to overwhelm every one of my senses. How many more times would we fall into each other like this? How many more times before I had to let go entirely?
Tears spilled from my lashes as I came undone, my climax tearing through me and echoing off my soul with the most profound sense of sadness I’d ever felt.
It was too much, completely overpowering my entire being as Cal tipped over the edge with me.
I opened my mouth to scream out that I loved him, that I didn’t want to die but I had to, that every second I’d ever spent with him had been a gift I never deserved to receive.
But all that came out was a mangled sob as Cal’s movements slowed.
“I love you,” he murmured, leaning down to place a kiss on my shoulder, but his breath caught. “Why are you crying?” He pulled me to stand and face him, a finger immediately swiping over my cheeks.
“I love you, too,” I whispered, barely able to get the words out before I shattered completely. “I love you so much, I can’t stand it.” I love you enough that I will die for you, so you can remain in this world.
“Petra–”
But his words were cut off by a blinding flash of eerie blue light I’d seen only in Eserene and my most terrifying nightmares .
Malosym! Adorex bellowed down the line, and it felt like the entire world came to a screeching halt as muffled screams sounded outside.
“It’s him,” I whispered.
Cal arranged his leathers, reaching for the sword at his hip. “Stay here!” he called over his shoulder as he sprinted from the room.
Fat fucking chance.
“Goodbye, Cal,” I whispered into the empty room, and when I was sure he was far enough away, I slipped through the doorway.
My opportunity was here. I was going to die tonight, but I was going to take that son of a fucking bitch with me.