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Maybe we’re all just animals, I thought to myself, as I dozed off that night, my grip still loosening around Atrius’s presence. It’s nice not to sleep alone.
Atrius would need to continue further north—continue to the Pythora King himself.
Werent you supposed to be stopping him??
Vivi, he choked. His voice was warped, drowning with blood. He reached out. Stumbled toward me.
“Suppose I listen to your foolish advice, for some ridiculous reason I still can’t make sense of. What alternative is there?
“You might recall,” I said, “that I was an assassin for fifteen years.” Atrius stared blankly at me. Seconds passed. Then the bastard burst into laughter.
“Hm,” he said. “To think I let such a dangerous creature sleep beside me every night.”
“How many?” he murmured, lips brushing my ear. I couldn’t count. Not exactly. “Many.” His mouth curled. “Too many?” Ah. This was our game now.
“Vivi?” he breathed. Naro. All at once, the familiarity hit me. The sound of his voice brought it back.
And he nodded at me. The understanding snapped into place. He was presenting Tarkan to me. He was giving me this.
“You can’t. You—” I do not have a brother. Sylina does not have a brother.
“We’re used to saying goodbye to our own,” he said. “More than most vampires.”
Being here, next to my big brother, made me Vivi again.
Weaver. Talking to Naro had pulled me from between my three roles.
We know what this feels like. “I’d like to talk to you,” he said. “Business.”
Now… I had to admit, it seemed like it would take a truly incredible assassin to end Atrius.
YOU MEAN LIKE YOU?!?
“You’re keeping track.” “It’s impossible not to notice everything, with you.”
Atrius, I’d come to realize, did not ask questions. He made demands or statements. In between, he’d quietly gather information. Sometimes too much of it.
My people. All this time I thought he’d meant the House of Blood. No. He meant his people—the ones who had followed him all this way.
The pieces of myself didn’t fit together. They were ugly contradictions.
“It matters,” he murmured. Two words that could mean nothing—should mean nothing. It felt like they meant everything.
“Because we lose the past so fast. We should cling to those who made us who we are. And because, if the one I considered my brother was alive, I would want someone to do the same for him.” Brother.
I knew that a wounded soul craved another to mirror theirs. That was all this was.
kiss,
He was alive, and broken, and familiar, and mysterious, and dangerous, and safe. And for one terrible moment, I wanted so fiercely, I forgot everything else.
Not tonight. I wasn’t sure what that meant. Did that mean, Another night? I had taken a chastity vow.
And just when I thought he didn’t have anything to say at all, he spoke. Four words in Obitraen. “What did that mean?” I asked.
“Sylina does not have a brother,” she murmured. “You know this. I know I do not need to tell you this.”
Never once had I questioned my vows to the Arachessen. Not until now.
“We’ve learned enough,” she said. “Let him get through Karisine and kill him whenever you can do so safely. Then return to the Salt Keep.”
holding my blessed, cursed dagger, the order so much heavier than the blade.
“My people have learned to fight for the impossible,” he said. “We wouldn’t survive otherwise.” The words resonated more than I wished they did. “Thank you,” I said again, and Atrius left me alone without
words—I gave everything for him because he gave me everything. How many times had I thought those words about the Arachessen? How many times had I been told them, about Acaeja?
“You should stay—” he started. But I snapped, “Do you really think that’s going to work?” Apparently not, because he didn’t argue.
“Stay with me,” Atrius ground out. “Right here.” A command. Firm and inarguable.
Distantly, as if in another world, I heard Atrius shout something—my name?
And yet when Atrius abandoned his very, very dead target and whirled around, he wasn’t looking at any of that—not his own warriors or the people he had lost. Only me.
“Sylina,” Atrius was saying to me. “Stay right here. Stay right here.” And then, closer to my ear, “Vivi. Stay right here.”
hurling three words of Obitraen to his men over the sound of the battlefield. It was in Obitraen, and yet somehow I knew exactly what he was saying: Kill them all.
And I thought, Yes. Kill them all. And I did not think of the Arachessen, or the Sightmother, or the blessed dagger—or Acaeja at all.
The threads evaded me. But those hands—those were familiar.
When my sister died, people gave us bread instead. It was much more useful.
“Do you think I’m afraid of this? Afraid of you? As if I don’t feel the darkest parts of you every night. As if I don’t recognize—” “You recognize it because you feel it just as much.” His
Like he was challenging me to meet him at this most difficult terrain, somewhere that hurt, somewhere that was just as angry and broken as we were.
“I doubted why the Arachessen would let you leave. But now I see why they didn’t want you. Because you’re just like us. Just as cursed by the past. And that curse just keeps fucking taking, doesn’t it?”
“I live in dark stories. And I’ve been living in yours for nearly four months. If you’re going to invite me in, invite me.” I pushed against his chest, hard. “I already see you, Atrius. I’m not afraid.”
UGH LUV
“My prince and I. We gave her every head she asked for. Every artifact. Every slain monster. Everything. And then we went to our knees to ask for our salvation.” A single, enraged tear slid down his cheek. “And I will never forget the sound of her laugh.”
“My people would not be allowed back home after being scorned by Nyaxia. The king and queen saw us—all of us—as complicit in their son’s death.
Story
“Tell me I’m a fool.”
I didn’t want him to stop any of it. I wanted Atrius to destroy the Pythora King. I wanted him to do it slowly, painfully, relishing revenge. I wanted him to let me help. I wanted him to save his people. I wanted him to earn Nyaxia’s respect. I wanted to burn it all down with him.
Love
“Because you make me ravenous.” You make me ravenous. Those words buried in my soul. I felt the truth of them. Felt, somewhere innately, that he had said them to me once before—in Obitraen, the night he kissed me.
Oo
