Chapter 30
Yaris’s front door is open when I stumble down his street.
The city has come to life with late morning deliveries and bustling merchants, but the foyer is too still, too silent.
I search for Finnick’s tracking link flooding in my veins.
It ripples in response, faint and barely there, like an itch on the brink of falling asleep.
If the old mercenary came to Storm searching for me and found his way to Yaris…my throat dries. I’m not sure I’d ever forgive myself. Calm the fuck down, I tell myself. There’s no sense in speculating right now. All that matters is getting to Yaris, ensuring he’s safe, then returning to Shadow.
Jace places a hesitant palm on my shoulder, tossing me a cautious glance. His lips curl into a snarl as he nods to the foyer rug. Thunderheads loom on the horizon, but this time, they’re charged with a malevolent energy that pricks the hairs on my arms.
My stomach knots. There on the carpet is a spatter of blood, red enough to know it’s freshly spilled. I draw the blade sheathed over my back, and step aside, letting Jace enter first.
Torn pages and tomes litter the front entrance. The chair, once Yaris’s evening perch, is now toppled over—one leg broken and flung to the opposing wall.
Something’s very wrong.
We traverse the hall leading to the study on silent steps. My heart rages with the impending enemy lurking in the carnage.
“Let me go first,” Jace whispers. His fist curls on the doorknob with a white knuckle grip. My heart slams against my chest as we cross into the foyer. Light spills from the corridor, flickering with an anxious dance of the candlelight.
“Jace…” I warn, but he’s already down the hall. I draw in a breath and follow suit, keeping my blade raised and ready.
The study is a place of nightmare—blood stains the faded wallpaper, broken glass crunches under my steps, and the shadows wriggle like wraiths. My boot trips over a tome, its pages shredded and scattered across the rug. The air is thicker than smog, looming with the stench of violence.
“Nova.” Jace’s voice, low and lethal, pulls my gaze toward him. He stands over the settee, staring.
“What?” My skin ices over as I join him across the room, boot pausing mid step. A strand of silver, now stained copper, dangles from the settee.
Seated on the half-destroyed couch is Yaris. His eyes are glazed and unseeing, his lips parted and breathless. The world spins too fast, the walls crash around me, and all I can see is his limp, lifeless body slumped over the armrest.
“No, gods no. Yaris!” The cry slips from me before I register it. Tears well in my eyes.
This isn’t happening. This isn’t real. He’ll wake up. Right?
Blood trickles from his open mouth, pooling under his chin. His skin sags over his face in pale hues. I know in my heart there’s no recovering from this. He’s lost too much blood, left for too long to slip into death.
What shred of happiness I’d found beside Yaris rips away, leaving the cold, brutal realization that I’m again alone in this world. Sobs flood from me, raging and storming like the thunderheads outside. Yaris is dead.
“Nova,” Jace warns. He offers me a hand but doesn’t risk stirring any more sound in the room. “His body is still warm…”
I can’t move. The blade at my side heats, pleading to be drawn.
His body is still warm, but he’s gone. My one connection left to Sovereign, to Astora, to my parents…severed by violence. My uncle.
“Nova, we have to go,” Jace hisses. A cold grief taints my skin. I know he’s right. The attacker could still be here, hiding somewhere in the house, now quiet and empty. Thunder booms outside, rattling the ceiling with a warning crack.
“He’s gone…” The words slip from my tongue without intention. My skin, blood, veins are colder than ice. Any movement might cause the brittle tissue to crack.
“We have to go,” Jace says. His arms are around me now, but I don’t feel them. Everything is numb, lifeless, dull. I can’t rip my gaze from Yaris, pleading to Morvayne to give him back. It wasn’t yet his time. There was still so much to learn, to experience, to live.
Give him back. Give him back. Give him back.
I’d cracked the cell door I keep the memories confined in.
Yaris helped me find the key. Now, he’s gone.
The gods turn their back, laughing at the turmoil raging through me.
I don’t feel Jace’s grip around my wrists.
Nor do I feel the sway as he pulls me in close.
There’s nothing, but a numbness—a hollow shell, as lifeless as the man slumped on the settee.
I’m no longer on my feet. My chin clips Jace’s shoulder as he tucks me against his chest.
“There’s nothing we can do for him now, but keep you alive, Nova,” he whispers.
His breath is mint and dewdrops on my ear, but there’s no energy coursing between us.
I once begged my feet to run, to flee to a place where Jace Ashborne couldn’t reach me.
Now, I’ve sunken so far into the abyss, I fear I might never find my way back to him.
Yaris is dead. My uncle is dead.
Amidst the pain of that realization, there’s something else.
Whoever murdered him, was looking for me.
If I wasn’t so hells bent on fighting for a life just out of grasp, he’d still be alive.
Living and breathing. Had I just rolled over and accepted the hand I’d been dealt, like everyone else on this fucking continent, he wouldn’t be spilling lifeblood on the floor.
This is my fault. My fault.
Jace wraps his arms around me and clutches tight, like he, too, holds the pieces of me together. Without a backwards glance, he starts for the door, trailing the dark hallway with furious steps.
My fault. It’s the only phrase that surfaces when I search for my mantra.
“Well, isn’t this a surprise…the son of Shadow himself and Finnick Derald’s silver-haired bitch.
” A man, shrouded by a crimson cloak, appears from the foyer at the end of the corridor.
He clasps his hands and takes a step forward, his gleaming black boots clicking on the silent floor.
Jace stills to a halt, his breath lapsing along with the seconds ticking by.
“I’ll admit, I’m taken aback, seeing you over your borders, King Ashborne,” the man says.
Shaken, my gaze darts between the blonde-haired stranger and Jace.
His midnight eyes sparkle with something that pricks the hairs on my arms. He isn’t the insufferable, albeit beautiful, man I’ve grown accustomed to. No. Glittering there in those inky swirls is something terrifying, heartstopping. Death.
“What are you doing here, Samkiel?” Jace’s voice is low and frigid. His grip tightens around my waist as Samkiel saunters toward us, blade drawn. The gilded sword, speckled with red gemstones, flashes with another clap of thunder as he approaches.
“Same thing you are, I’d imagine. Why don’t we go have a seat in the study, we’ll talk this out like men. Or perhaps you can’t stomach my handiwork?”
My fists curl around Jace’s tunic. Where there once was nothing, now there is only rage. An old friend. A quiet confidante. My lungs expand. My heart stammers. Relief in the face of this familiar fury sweetens my tongue.
I don’t know who this fucker is, nor do I truly care. He slaughtered Yaris. The promise is bitter and singed with violence, but I swear it anyways. His death will drip from my blade.
“Get out of my way, Samkiel, before I hurt you,” Jace growls.
“Not until you give me the girl.” Samkiel smoothes back his blonde waves.
“Over my dead fucking body.” Gruff, merciless warning threads through Jace’s words, but Samkiel merely chuckles.
“That can be arranged, King Ashborne,” he says with the snap of his fingers. Metal clanks and reverberates around us. Boots scuff. Blades draw.
Ten, maybe twenty, soldiers, donned in Smoke uniforms, appear from behind Samkiel. “Now, sit. Let’s talk this out before things get out of hand.”
Jace shifts me in his arms, drawing my ear to his parted lips slowly enough to keep from being noticed. “How many of these fuckers can you kill, Nova?”
My eyes widen. He doesn’t say, run or go find help. No. His words are the venom coursing through my veins.
My lips spread into a villainous, vengeful fucking smile.
Grief is a powerful ally, when directed correctly, and right now, those salty tears staining my cheeks are evidence enough that I’m half-fucking mad. “All of them.”
Jace lowers me, buying enough time for me to slip a shortsword between us.
“Hand your plaything over, Ashborne. I’m sure there's plenty of Shadow women, far cleaner than this one you can bury your cock in,” Samkiel says, an arrogant smirk drawing up his teeth.
I want to scream. To claw at his throat and rip out his vocal cords so he can’t ever spew such vile bullshit again, but a strong hand grips my wrist.
Jace’s eyes meet mine. “Like I said, Samkiel—over my dead fucking body.”
There isn’t time to hear Samkiel’s response.
Jace barrels down the corridor, his hands drawn and aimed straight for the man.
He isn’t armed with anything but a pocket blade, the same one, I realize, he carried back at Fleetwing’s.
Revenge outweighs the jolt of concern pinging through me, though.
Jace Ashborne isn’t Jace fucking Ashborne for nothing. He can handle himself.
The outcry of soldiers pounds down the corridor, and I steady myself for their impending attack. I’ve been here before. Killed like this before, but this is different. Those that have fallen to my blade were transactions in the business of blood.
Yaris’s death makes this personal.
I’m going to enjoy this.
The soldiers stampede down the hall with raised swords. My mind quiets and I settle into the lethal choreography I’ve memorized.
A short-haired guard whirls his blade toward me, barely missing the crown of my head as I lunge for his dominant side. The quick jab through the seams of his chest plate has him gurgling for air. Withdrawing my blade is more satisfying though, when he thuds to the floor.
I sidestep as a second soldier attempts an attack. A glorious rush of violence courses down my veins, igniting my body until I’m a blazing fucking inferno. My attacker’s lips part when I duck and drag my blade’s edge across his throat.
My eyes jump through the chaos. Soldiers shove and claw their way toward me, but only a handful make it past the King of Shadow.
Jace has his back to me, but he, too, masters this deadly dance.
He’s smoother than water as he plows through body after body, an unstoppable force of darkness, death incarnate.
The blade sheathed to his back stays put.
Whether he’s showing off or prefers the ease of a damned pocketknife I’m not sure, but there’s little time to question his methods.
Samkiel barks a command, letting his soldiers file in through the corridor head first. Man after man falls to my blade as I carve and cut and kill my path toward him. Jace throws me a nod, the delicious violence glinting in his eyes equal in fury to my own.
Samkiel is mine. He’ll make sure of it.
When I’ve pulled my blade from the last soldier, the house quiets.
I don’t waste breath as I fly down the remaining hallway, closing the distance between me and my raw, scorching vengeance.
My breath is ragged in my throat and my pulse throbs in my ears, but I don’t care.
I need this kill. I need to watch life fade from Samkiel’s eyes as I claw out his insides.
A part of me is terrified of the pure wrath I’ve become, but that part is easily silenced.
Jace reaches him before I do, but Samkiel doesn’t flinch as he wraps a hand around his throat, he simply draws a bitter smile over his lips.
“This isn’t over, Ashborne. I’ll get what I want eventually, I always do,” he whispers. Before I can wield my killing blow, Samkiel’s body flickers, like he’s made of smoke, then evaporates into dust.
Without his body for resistance, I lose balance. My boots squeal on the blood-coated tile as I slide toward Jace, falling straight into his outstretched arm.
“What the fuck?! Where did he go?” I cry.
Clasping his arms around me, Jace catches me.
His familiar scent wafts through me, but there’s a tinge of something new.
A hint of coppery blood and a musty, ancient spice.
His body thrums like the cosmos themselves course through his veins.
My breath hitches as I glance at his fingers winding around my bicep.
“Jace…what the fuck…?” There’s too much to process all at once.
First, we watch Samkiel, a stranger only to me, vanish into thin air. Now, my heart slams against my chest, and it’s not the come down of bloodlust that’s setting its tempo.
Jace’s fingers are painted a star speckled shade of onyx. The color trickles up his knuckles like he’s been dipped in ink, stopping below his palm.
And his nails…Astora help me…they’re pointed, sharp, and no longer human.
“Nova, your head…” Jace’s words are distorted and rushing like I’ve been plunged underwater. I bring a shaking hand to my hairline. My fingers return stained red.
“Your hands…Jace, what the fuck is wrong with your hands?” My skull pounds with the fading adrenaline. Pain ignites over my brow, blazing and hot.
“We need to get you to a healer.” He drops his hand to his trousers and tucks his claws into this pocket.
“No, I’m fine. Your hands, Jace, what’s going on?”
I don’t hear his response though. Dark speckles flicker in my vision, and the world spins too fast. Jace takes one final step toward me, and everything turns to night.