36. Closer
Chapter thirty-six
Closer
Athanasius
Ambrose tears her away from me. She was here and then gone, like the wind and I'm suffocating from the lack of her.
I roar, and the sea answers. It thrashes, boils, surges around me like it, too, has lost something. My rage shakes the trenches. Creatures flee. The pressure down here could kill a mortal a thousand times over, and I still want more destruction.
“Calm down!” the witch snaps, sharp as bone. “He’s lacing his spells into food. This one’s meant to make her compliant. Maybe erase her memories—at the very least, her memory of you. Disconnect her. Sever your bond.”
My chest sinks inward, folding around something fragile. Grief. A human thing. I hate that I recognize it. “Tell me what to do, witch,” I say, voice raw. “Tell me what to do, and I will see it done.” Where is that fool? “Servant!” I bellow.
The old man scrambles out of the darkness like a rat from the walls. His eyes are wide, bones trembling under too-thin skin. “M-Master?”
“See to it she has what she needs. You will do exactly as she asks—and nothing more. If you fuck this up, I will tear the skin from your muscles and make you walk like that for a week.” He nods. Whimpers. Good.
The witch clicks her tongue. “I need time to gather a few things. Meet me in the Atacama Desert. Three days.”
I nod once, pull a bubble of breath around her and the fool, and launch her toward the surface.
Then it’s just me.
I sit in the black, endless deep, and fold in on myself. I center on my heart—not human, not even close. It’s a swirling core of dark matter, folding in on itself like a star on the brink of collapse. My blood is the vapor of dying suns and birthless galaxies, humming with the ache of absence.
My avatar is gone. No—my consort.
The word unsettles me. I've never had one. Never wanted. And now, the loss of her grinds through my bones. My teeth ache. My spine feels brittle. The hollowness reaches so deep I feel like I could split open and become a trench myself.
“It’s dark as fuck down here,” Caspian mutters, dragging me out of the spiral.
“Calm down,” Moireth says ahead of him, sure-footed in the gloom.
“What was that? Oh my god, something touched me.”
“Caspian—please.”
“No, I’m dead serious, carry me. You know I don’t do dark spaces.”
I glance up and watch, faintly amused, as Moireth hoists him like a backpack.
He latches on like an opossum—limbs wrapped tight, muttering curses as they reach the edge of my open throne room.
With a thought, I pull light into the chamber, illuminating the vast black stone, the carvings along the walls.
“What?” I ask.
“Don’t be rude,” Moireth scolds. “We may have a lead on our precious Ambrose. His sisters were kitchen witches. Have you spoken to Ione? She’ll need to be careful—”
“Of anything she eats,” I finish. “We’ve found out the hard way. Whatever he’s feeding her is robbing her of reason, of memory. Of me.”
“Damn,” Moireth breathes. “Well, the good news is—I might know where she is.”
“Where?” My voice cracks like lightning. “Why not start with that?”
Moireth just smiles, sly. “Everywhere and nowhere. Omnipresent. She’s between time and space. Hiding in a pocket—just need to find which one.”
Caspian groans, eyes still darting around.
“Somewhere Mediterranean, if I had to guess. Maybe the Strait of Messina. I hate it here. No offense, Harbinger of Final Silence, but I’m scared as fuck down here.
And I know Ione would be, too. You need to put up some lights. Or, like, glowing fish. Something.”
I chuckle, low and bitter. The smallest drop of warmth slips back into me.
But when I look at my hands, the blood is there—trickling between my fingers. Not mine. His.
Ambrose.
I’ll tear that mage to pieces. No—death is too kind. Too clean. I’ll keep him alive. Cage him in silence and darkness, and visit him from time to time, just to watch the rot take him. Let his mind turn itself inside out in the absence of light.
I smile. “Meet me in the Atacama in three days.”