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Death is the only constant in my life, like an old friend who hones every one of my dark secrets into a weapon. He calls me weak and all I hear is Ordinary. He calls me doomed and all I hear is an earnest promise. His is the hand my bloody fingers reach for because there is comfort in his imminence.
I’ll be forced to spend my days at her service but never at her side. In her shadow but never truly seen. In love with a girl I’d have bowed to long before she became my queen.
Because she was meant to be the death of me, not the life of another. It was her I was meant to adore in this world and crawl to in the one after.
“I heard you scream. And nothing… nothing has terrified me more.”
“Oh, my pretty Pae.” His words are a murmur against my lips. “For once, it is I who will be your undoing.”
He is a weakness I am not supposed to indulge in. Not in this life, at least.
Then again, most people don’t realize there is more to life than power.”
“But for me… my life has always been about power. And trying to survive without it.”
“Don’t let her be your weakness.”
I remind her that Paedyn Gray has been my weakness since that very first dinner before the Purging Trials.
“You are my inevitable. In life and in death.”
I’m breathless at the sight of her, doomed by the hope of having her. It’s a beautiful ruin, a devastating devotion. This girl holds my heart in her hands, could crush it between her fingers and still have me thanking her for the touch.
“Death himself couldn’t drag me from you.”
So choose, Kai Azer. The girl. Or power. And whether or not she is worth the destruction of everything you are.”
“Being an Ordinary is not what makes you weak. It’s your heart.”
“I’m selfish, Paedyn. I burned your home to the ground just to have you and now it is all of Ilya standing in my way, tempting me to light a match.”
Power is a sickness that corrupts all those who get a taste.
You are the secret I will spend the rest of my life keeping.”
“It’s as though you were born for this.”
My duty may be to the king, but my heart, Pae, is wherever you are. It is in the palm of your hands, the pad of your thumb. So if you leave, I will follow. If you stay, I will bow. Because there has never been a moment when you did not own the only piece of me that mattered—loving you made me matter. And I ache to be full again.
When mist meets the deepest sea. When a Shadow faces its Flame. When inevitability meets its end. When I stare into the face of what it is I love most.
And for the first time in my life, I don’t fear Death. I fear him.
“It’s okay,” I whisper, my voice as broken as the body still hanging before him. The toes of my boots whisper above the sand I’m dripping blood onto. “Adena died here. I want to die here too.” Blood trickles from my ears, mingling with the tears racing down my face. “I couldn’t save her then. But I can save you now.” He stills, tears gathering in his eyes. I reach slowly toward him, cutting off the curt shake of his head. My bloody hand rests gently atop his pounding chest. “Through the chest, remember?” A tear rolls down my cheek, carving a path through the sand sticking there. “That is how I
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Regret washes over me for every moment spent pretending I hated them—every moment spent pretending I hated him.
Trapped in this room, I am forced to face reality. Forced to face the gaping loneliness within me. My very being is decaying, and love is the culprit. Love has killed every person I care about.
My feet leave the ground for a moment before landing atop his. I laugh through the tears, propped on his boots just like I had when it was a chain tethering us together, not something far more unbreakable.
“Paedyn, I love you. Like nothing else before, I love you. And I’ve been waiting to tell you since I realized your eyes are my favorite color and your freckles the only constellation worth looking at. I could lie—say that you’ve stolen my every thought and heartbeat like the thief you are, but all of me was already yours. Pae, you are my inevitable.”
She is forever lodged within me, the only pure spot on my stained soul. But for now, I do not pull away. Not until vows are wedged between us, and that ring on her finger holds a greater weight. Until then, I will have her in whatever way she lets me.
“Are you completely unaware of how devastating you are?” Kai chuckles darkly. “You don’t need a blade. I would bleed if only you asked.”
“I am power earned, not gifted. I became one of you. Observant enough to pose as a Psychic, strong enough to survive your Trials. Over and over, I have proved myself worthy of your loyalty.
In my search for comfort, it is him I crawl back to. Peace is the place he resides, and passion is a word I only understand when I look into his eyes. He is the freedom I cannot grasp. We are inevitable. We are tragedy.
“No part of you will go unloved.”
She is a vision, something so ethereal in this moment that I may just believe there is a God. She is the closest thing to a deity.
“There is nothing I regret more than not having the time with you.”
“You have your duties,” she breathes. “And I have mine. We don’t choose our fate, remember?” I stare at her, and the feeling of my heart wrenching in two nearly brings me to my knees. Her feet fumble backward until the willow’s branches are tangled around her shoulders. “But I would choose you every time, if only I could,” she whispers. “Know that.”
A broken sort of acknowledgment of my fate fills his face. I see the exact moment he realizes he is too late. His gray eyes flick between the two of us in disbelief. Even the Enforcer did not believe I would go through with it, and his hurt cuts me deep. I failed him. I failed us. Still, he musters a small smile. It is the look of letting someone go. And it tears me to pieces. He was going to save me.
I will watch her die, just as I have my wife. I will mar her heart, just as she has mine.
She is gone. I have lost her. I am lost without her. My head hangs in hands that will soon forget the shape of her. Beasts don’t get the beauty.
A queen now stands where a thief once had—brave, benevolent, and brutal. She stands victorious.
“When I discovered my need for you was greater than my wish to be you.”
“We will always be inevitable, Pae. But in this lifetime, we are doomed.
“For Kai, a distraction and safeguard against stubborn Elite kingdoms. For you, a death sentence.” My face pales. “But you just wouldn’t die,” he says softly. “The bandits, the crew, the Wielder in that Pit—none of them could rid you from our lives. And that was fine, because I was going to let this next dose of Plague take you on its own terms.” His gaze softens. “I’m not a monster. I didn’t want to kill you, Paedyn. But now you have a claim to my throne.”
“You are going to keep choosing her over me. Again, and again. But I need you, Kai!” He laughs out the words humorlessly. “I need you with me—your focus, your loyalty, your heart. All of it.”
Kai steps forward, and I’m unsurprised to see him pause at an equal distance from myself and the king. That is where he has always stood, torn in two different directions. Duty. Desire. Loyalty. Love. Like always, he strains to hold on to both. But his grip is slipping, and a cruel reality is setting in. One cannot have both.
“My fate was to save you from me.”
“Don’t say that,” I choke. “You are the king. You are my brother.” A sob weaves between each word to follow. “And we promised to always stay together. Grow old enough that the only thing we remember is each other, and that would be okay, because you are worth every one of my memories. You promised me that, Kitt.” I pull at my hair with a bloody hand. “Dammit, you promised!”
“She is nothing!” The king’s hiss has his son wincing. “And those that are nothing will take everything from you. Remember that, Son.” He lifts a stiff finger between them. “Do not make the mistake of feeling for her.”
Kitt will become so much greater than his father. Then, he will have earned his approval. Become worthy of a love he never understood.
Nothing is stronger than a woman who is told she’s weak.
I don’t wish to be your monster, Paedyn. Part of me still cares for you. But I only know how to love my brother.
