Chapter 45
SORROW
Blood coats each tattered bloom. The bower lies desecrated. Thorns cling to me, scrape my flesh as I tear them apart, desperate to find him. Desperate to hold him. I collapse, sobs wrenching me asunder. He has gone. Gone and I will never see his smile again.
— TATTERED DREAMS OF THE WOLF QUEEN
A trembling hand swept down my face. With a gasp, my eyes opened, meeting nothing but the shadows that would be my new constant companions. A faint ringing echoed through my ears. But the volcano had stilled. The quaking abated. The world frozen.
‘She’s…’ Asher sucked in a tattered breath as his voice broke. ‘She’s gone, Sorrow. Dead…’
I knew exactly who my captain meant. His voice trailed off. Boots scrambled over rocks as the wicked sun warmed my tearstained cheeks. By my side, I sensed the Goddess, her even breathing. A faint gilded warmth on my skin. She lived. Matthias’s sacrifice had gifted Evella her heart.
‘My queen?’ I exhaled, while everything within collapsed on a loop.
Gently, I placed my numb fingers below my eyes. ‘I’m… she hit me. I’m blind.’
The softest hands cupped my face. Enfys laid her forehead against mine, sweeping away the tears with her thumb. The depth of her magic swept through me. I knew the bruises paled, bones knit together, my nose straightened.
But even a healer who unknowingly carried the blood of Vyrus wasn’t enough to repair my ruptured heart. And, as I blinked, as I’d always known, she could never repair my vision.
Shaking my head, my captain sobbed, a cracked, raw sound. But there was no time to mourn the loss of my sight. Not when I’d lost my very soul.
Enfys’s fingers gripped tighter, her chest heaved. ‘I’ll try again. I’ll—’
I peeled away her fingers, clinging to her hands. ‘Don’t waste it. Not on me.’ I dragged in another breath, while my mouth worked, somehow unable to form his name, to say it out loud and make it real. ‘Go to him. Heal him. I beg you, Enfys. Please…’
‘Gone, Sorrow.’ My body crashed as Evella spoke. ‘Matthias is on the other side.’
My captain grasped me, clutched me as though he could prevent me from shattering.
The wolf nuzzled into my neck, whimpers trembling through him, knowing even he wasn’t enough to prevent me falling apart.
Asher’s shoulders shook beneath mine. The loss of Matthias was a claw shredding my heart.
Grief had never been a stranger to me. He’d gleefully cleaved me apart over and over, but this one?
This death? This destroyed me. Devastated my essence.
How did my lungs keep breathing? The heart pumping my roiling blood with a will I couldn’t understand.
‘Asher,’ I sobbed against his chest, fisting his tunic. ‘How?’
‘I’m sorry,’ his voice broke against my cheek as he pulled back, his trembling fingers swiping away my vicious tears. ‘He loved you so… so much. M… He bought you time, Sorrow. Took the hearts.’
Enfys’s breath hitched. I wondered what thoughts swirled through her mind as she stood in the presence of the Goddess she revered.
The other she abhorred. The warmth of the wolf receded and I knew he’d gone with her.
I lay against Asher’s solid chest, his hands stroking my hair as my tears soaked his shirt.
Dragging in a tattered breath, those fucking threads tugged, twined as one and yanked so hard I cried out.
‘Enfys,’ Evella’s soft voice called out to my sister. ‘No one, not even I can bring him back. He’s—’
‘Shut up,’ I snarled, ignoring my sister’s gasp. The threads weaved together. The balance. They knew something.
‘My sweetest Sorrow. I am your protection. I am his protection. And I swear, I will protect him till the moment you pass over and join him.’
‘Fuck you,’ I hissed, setting my unseeing gaze towards the sound of Evella’s too-calm tone.
‘Sorrow…’ The captain’s fingers threaded through mine, and I pulled away, dragged myself to my feet as my head tilted. The threads pulsed in time to the frantic beat of my heart.
‘My queen—’
‘Damn you, Asher,’ I hissed. ‘I need to focus. Say one more word and I’ll dismiss you from service.’
He snorted. ‘After this I’m resigning.’
I lunged out, meeting nothing but thin air. The ribbons slithered, tentative and scared, through the rubble and ash to a form we knew more than ourselves. To a king who’d loved too hard, a man I needed more than air.
They tested him, slithered through the sticky blood cooling far too quickly among the ruins. Writhed over his frozen form.
‘There’s a heartbeat…’ Enfys’s voice came from where I’d known the altar had stood. Where Vyrus had fallen.
‘Matthias?’ Asher asked.
‘No,’ we said together.
‘Vyrus,’ I added, stumbling over rocks. ‘We need to revive the God.’
Asher gripped me as my knee sliced into a jagged chunk of marble.
‘You.’ Enfys’s voice was incredulous. ‘You want us to resurrect the God of Vengeance?’
‘Not vengeance,’ I said, swallowing down the hope tearing at my chest. Pablo nudged my hip and I crashed down, grabbed his face. ‘The heart. Give him his heart.’
‘My sweet Sorrow.’ I clenched my jaw at Evella’s dulcet tones. Damn her. ‘I understand the pain—’
‘Do you?’
Enfys whimpered as I snarled at the Goddess.
‘Yes.’ Pablo placed the still-warm heart in my palms, and I reached out for my sister. ‘I once loved a mortal and his death destroyed me. But I know he is safe, just as I know—’
‘You said it yourself, Enfys. There’s a heartbeat. It’s not Matthias’s. But if we bring back the fucking God, he owes us. We had a deal.’
‘We really need to have a talk about your life choices, Sorrow.’ My sister’s voice broke as Evella laughed.
My threads wrapped around the heart, the faint pulse as familiar as my own.
Trembles overtook me as I called for Asher. ‘Take Enfys. Put this in his chest.’
‘Enfys!’ The Goddess my sister had vowed her life to spoke. ‘This is a path that will only lead to more heartache, more—’
‘I’m only a simple healer. You’re sure, Sorrow?’ my sister asked, even as she pulled away, the captain guiding her to the corpse of a God.
‘No. Though I have a suspicion you’re far more than a simple healer.’ How I wish I could see this. I blew out a breath, steeled my spine. This was no time to lament what I didn’t have.
Pablo crept beneath me. I gripped him tightly, grateful I’d taken a chance on a dying cub others would have left to perish. I cocked my head, trying to make sense of every scrape, crash and scratch. My wolf nuzzled my hip. Did no one have the sense to tell me what was happening?
‘Is it working?’ I called, impatience claiming my thoughts. ‘Is he—’
A solid blast of scarlet exploded at the fringes of my sight. Enfys cried out for Evella. I may have lost my sight, but I knew the God stood among the shattered remains of his temple once more.
I tugged on Pablo and we stalked forward. That damn God had made a deal with me. If he failed to honour it, I’d tear his heart out myself.
‘Evella,’ he said, his voice didn’t come immediately, and when he spoke, it sounded thin and tired. ‘Good to see you. Alive.’
The Goddess he’d created, the one he’d failed to destroy us for, huffed. ‘Vyrus.’
Pablo led me before the God. ‘Bring him back,’ I demanded.
Evella sighed. ‘Sorrow, I—’
‘Don’t,’ I warned Evella. ‘Don’t.’
She let out an exasperated sigh. ‘But—’
‘No,’ I cried. Evella may not be able to revive the one I loved, but Vyrus wouldn’t leave this temple in one piece unless he honoured the vow he’d made. ‘We had a deal, God. A deal.’
He barked out a laugh. ‘And who are you to defy the Gods, sweetheart? Do you have any idea how much power runs through—’
‘Power I granted you, God.’
A hand pressed against my arm. I didn’t need to see to know it was Evella.
‘I tried, Sorrow. You’ve no idea how hard I tried.’ Her hand lay against my chin, tipped my head till her glow pierced the shadows of my eyes. ‘It won’t work. I only wish to protect you. Protect you from the pain. I have tried.’
‘I know,’ I said, dragging my chin out of her grip, tilting it to where I felt the God stood. ‘But he hasn’t tried.’
Evella sighed. ‘Vyrus? The God of Vengeance?’
‘Not vengeance,’ I hissed.
‘Creation,’ the God and I said as one.
‘I’ve had enough of fate, enough of being forced to play cards in a game I never asked to join.
We’ve been denied our time over and over.
So damn fate. Fuck her. From now on, I control my life.
My destiny. We made a bond, Vyrus. Your heart for my husband.
I upheld my side. If you fail me, I will destroy you.
You’re not quite as immortal as you’d like us to believe.
’ My voice shivered despite the warmth of the bitter sun.
Hands took mine, and my shivers receded as a voice as sweet as honey entered my thoughts.
‘He may not be the same, my Sorrow.’ Evella gripped my fingers. ‘He’s mine to keep safe. He’s passed over. His heart is mine.’
I held a stare I could no longer see. ‘Matthias’s heart will never be yours.
’ I swallowed as her fingers loosened. I turned my attention back to the god I’d help raise from the dead.
‘Vyrus. You promised me – my husband. Our time. You will return what fate denied us. The chance to be the girl and her boy.’
He clicked his tongue. ‘You’d be a formidable God, Villente.’
‘Deny me my husband and you’ll find out exactly how formidable.’
Vyrus took my hand.
‘I did promise. Evella and I will do all we can. I’ll make sure of it.’ He squeezed my fingers. ‘If it works, then this is farewell, sweetheart. My child.’
I nodded, unable to forge words. If this failed…
A flash exploded, my skin prickled as gold shimmered at the edges of the shadow covering my vision, and the temple exploded into a cacophony of echoey prayers as the Gods finally returned to their thrones and crossed to the other side. I prayed that they were set on retrieving my husband’s soul.
The wolf grabbed my skirts, tugged, and I grasped at him, knowing who he led me towards.
My heart hammered as we passed over the rubble, my feet shuffling and sliding, the space suddenly feeling more vast than it had been when I’d still possessed my fading sight, till finally he halted.
Placing his maw gently over my wrist, he guided me down to my husband.
A sob wrenched from me as I traced Matthias’s stubble, his skin already cold. So fucking cold. He lay on his front, his right hand severed, sticking to the pool of viscous blood. The wind ruffled his wild hair and I threaded my fingers through it, desperate to feel something, a movement, a flicker.
Had the fucking Gods defied me? Gone, and taken Matthias with them. My trembling hands slipped down, pressed against his back, pushing, willing him to take a breath. A single breath to tell me I hadn’t lost him.
A cry broke through me as I slumped against him. Enfys settled behind me, wrapped herself across me as grief finally claimed me, piercing my soul. Boots scuffed the ashy ruins as our captain sat beside us, placed his hand over mine as I clutched the only one I could ever love.
At first, I thought it was the wolf as he nuzzled my neck. The movement so slight I almost missed it. I paused, my damned sobs shaking me and I cursed as they refused to abate. Had Matthias…?
I threw the others off, ignoring their cries as I pushed Matthias over, lay my head against his chest, desperate to quell my thundering pulse.
‘Sorrow…’
‘Damn you, Asher. Do you ever possess the ability to shut up?’
Asher cursed, and I pressed myself harder into Matthias’s chest. My heart froze. His chest rose, a movement so slight, so small.
Asher’s breath warmed my ear. ‘I’ll say this and never again utter another word.’
Was that a heart beating? Was it my own?
‘His eyes, Sorrow.’ I sobbed as an arm reached around me, tucked me in. ‘His eyes are… You bloody wonder. He…’
Lives. He lives.
Matthias groaned, his lungs filling with air, and I clutched him. He jolted as life flooded him once more. My lips pressed against his as he writhed, a cry splitting the air. Enfys soothed him.
His arm, the severed arm, shifted, my own skin prickling as Enfys sealed the fissure where his hand had once been.
‘Sorrow,’ Matthias cried, his voice laced with fear. I clung to him as he coughed. His body learning how to be alive once more. I pressed my forehead against his as he bucked, his hand almost tearing his heart out of his chest.
I couldn’t hide the sobs as we lay in a forgotten temple. My Matthias returned to me with every new breath. Every frantic beat announced his second chance – our second chance. I smoothed his skin, fighting back tears as I traced his warmth.
I’ve no idea how long we lay there, as he battled through confusion and pain till finally his breathing eased, his heart calmed and I sent my thanks to the Gods, wherever they were.
We were who we’d always been. A boy and his girl, who only knew how to adore each other.