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“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”
“Don’t you know? There isn’t much I wouldn’t sacrifice to make you happy, Osha.
THE DRESS WAS made for sinning.
“If any of them even look sideways at you, you stick that straight in their chests.” “I know how a dagger works, Fisher.” Most couples flirted by making eyes at each other or complimenting each other’s outfits. We did it by discussing how best to murder our enemies.
For once, I wanted to be selfish. Wanted to say fuck it and put my own happiness and the happiness of my mate first. But selfishness was not my lot in this life.
This was hard, loving him.
But this was nothing like that. This… was two stars colliding. The end of everything and the beginning at the same time.
What I cannot do is attack you like it’s real. And that’s what you need, if you truly want to learn how to fight with a sword. The stakes must be genuine for you to learn how to think and react under pressure. And I will never come at you with everything I’ve got. You are my mate. I’m in love with you. I couldn’t do that even if I wanted to. Which… he added softly, I do not.
I wanted to ask you about your new hairstyle. What prompted the dramatic cut?” She stared at me blankly. “A burning corpse set me on fire.” Gods a-fucking-live. Perfect. “Oh. Okay. I thought it was some new, edgy form of self-expression.”
I had undergone a major transformation, there was no denying that. But I kept searching for the things that were different about myself, and all I kept finding were things that were the same. The things that really mattered hadn’t changed, and that was reassuring.
“I love you, Fisher.” It was the first time I’d said it. “I love you, and nothing else matters beyond that. Wherever you are, I’ll beg the gods and all the fates to let me be there, too,” I whispered.
The high that came whenever Fisher looked at me was way better than any bliss I’d found on the rooftops overlooking the Third. There was no stopping this. And why would I want to stop it? He was more than an addiction. He was life itself.
“You taste like the end of the fucking world,” he purred. “Just kill me and be done with it. Nothing will ever be better than this.”
“Don’t worry, Fane. We’ll have a big birthday party just as soon as people stop dying all over the place.”
I didn’t know your name. I didn’t see your face. But I knew, Osha. My soul recognized a flicker of itself burning inside someone else and it knew.
Carrion didn’t say anything for a beat. But then a thought occurred to him. “If you exhaust all of your magic, you’ll be as powerless as me, then?” I scoffed at that. “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll still know how to hold a fucking sword.”
“Why am I not surprised that you have an account at a place called the Brigand’s Bank?” “Oh, I don’t have an account, Lord Cahlish.” He winked at me. “I own it.”
The next few minutes were very annoying. I had Swift’s ass in my face for at least thirty seconds, which were thirty seconds I would have to remember to blot from my memory once all of this was done.
All libraries contained magic. Even libraries that didn’t specialize in such things. Because what was a book, if not a portal into another realm, another time, another life even.
The Twins didn’t go down in Zilvaren, but they did peak in the sky. At midday, they drew close to each other, close enough for the sisters to hold hands, and the temperatures spiked to unbearable degrees. My mother’s books had told me so.
“Stop talking, Carrion,” I rumbled. “The grown-ups are about to strike a bargain.”
I wasn’t going to cut myself and seal our pact the polite way. No chance. I pierced my bottom lip with my canines, sucked the blood into my mouth, and spat it at him.
“Then tell me, Joshin. You filled me with enough venom to take down three horses… but do you scent any fear on me? Do you think I am afraid to face my demons? I’ve faced them before. I know them all by name. I’ve conquered them and bent them to my will more times than the sun has risen over Yvelia in my lifetime. I’ll face your nightmares if I have to, and I will still be the most frightening thing prowling around in the dark.”
“Until you learn how to be gentle, I will not teach you how to be violent.”
Whatever phantoms were haunting Carrion, he chose not to share, and I chose not to pry. A male’s ghosts were his own business, and I was having enough problems with my own.
“Do you ever wake up sometimes… and think… ‘Gods, wouldn’t it be nice if I hadn’t just gone toe-to-toe with a scorpion demon from hell?’” Carrion croaked.
When other people are full of the kind of fire that burns inside her, it eats them alive. It hollows them out until there’s nothing left inside them but the fire. They burn everyone around them with it, until all that remains is scorched earth. But not Saeris. Her fire keeps others warm in the cold dark. It is her strength, not her weakness. Being around her reminds you that you’re alive.”
“Every year that I live, it seems the magnitude of my loss eclipses the last. So yes. I love Saeris Fane, because she’s electric, and fierce, and loyal, and being around her brings the world back into focus. But I’m not in love with her, Fisher. I tried. But my heart was just too full of sorrow to make room for her.”
“Fisher.” Onyx jumped up, putting his paws up onto my shoulders, and started rubbing the top of his head against my jaw. “Just accept it. My fox is your fox, too.”
“To fall asleep within a dream is to commune with the gods.”
“You look like you have the pox,” I told him. “What? What kind of pox?” “The kind you get from doing dumb stuff with your dick.”
If you treat me like I’m the court jester, I’ll be the court jester. If I’m the laughingstock, or the drunk, or the idiot, then you’re not thinking about who I really am, are you.
“We need to send him back,” I whispered. “Belikon needs to know what I’m now capable of. That he will never bend us to his will. All of this and more.” Fisher didn’t blink. “Does he need his fingers to impart that message?” I laughed shakily, rubbing my thumb along his jawline. “Send him back. We aren’t like them.” He looked like he wanted to argue, but then his shoulders sagged. Reluctantly, he got to his feet. “You are the only thing that keeps my moral compass pointing north, Little Osha,” he rumbled.
My prince of shadows. I had been born into the light, but my salvation had been waiting for me in the dark. It was a miracle that we’d found each other.
“You have no flaws, Saeris Fane. You are perfect in my eyes, imperfections and all. I’m in love with every part of you. Your stubbornness. Your wicked tongue. Your foul temper when you’re tired. Your inability to close any door quietly—”
“Every part. I love all of you.” He blew a dark curl out of his eyes. “I’d spend the fortunes of the universe to protect you. I’d drain the seas dry. Fell every tree. I would sacrifice the sun from the fucking sky and surrender the stars, too, if I could. But those things aren’t mine to give. All I have is my life. It isn’t much, but I’d spend it and consider the price small if it meant keeping you safe.”
“The way that you love me. Some would say that is your weakness.” The lines of his face softened. “Some would say that,” he agreed. “But they would be wrong. It’s my strength.”
Trust Carrion to be thinking of his appearance while the rest of us were trying to prevent the end of the world.
“Since your parents were taken from us. Rurik and Amelia Daianthus were kind and just monarchs. They cared about the small folk. From Ajun to Western Dow, people dream that one day the Daianthus heir will return, and the cruelty they suffer at present will come to an end.”
You have a right to walk the road that stretches out before you. I will not rob you of your path by insisting I carry you.”
Oh, my Little Osha. She knew how to walk a dangerous line. “It wouldn’t be wise to provoke me to action, Osha. Not with you looking like this. I do love to mar a pretty thing.”
The Hazrax made a bizarre clicking sound—no human or Fae could ever have replicated it—and slowly shook its hairless head. “You know, you’re only the third person I have broken my silence for in over a millennium? I have to say, you’re not a very stimulating conversation partner.”
Carrion, Foley, and Hayden brought up the rear, each carrying a towering stack of books. Relief stabbed through me at the sight. In an estate full of valuables and riches, it was the books they were saving.
“The fates scorn me,” he whispered airily. “Every time I try to die, they rob me of my peace.”
“One thousand… and sixty-three years, five months… three days…” His voice tapered to a whisper. “That’s how long it’s been since I felt the sun on my face, Saeris. If I’d gotten here an hour earlier, I would have done it. I would have jumped.” He blinked his eyelids open, a stillness falling over him as he looked out at the water. “But now?” A crooked, heartbroken smile hovered at the corners of his mouth. “How can I consign myself to another endless dark when I’ve been given back the light?”
A heart ruled by hatred and fear could not experience miracles.
“We believe that animals are too pure for this life. They are all ascended beings who live in the after. Everything is perfect there. No pain or misfortune or heartbreak. But sometimes, they peer beyond the veil between this life and the next, and they see us here in the depths of our suffering, and they choose someone. One soul they want to help over any other. They come to us as… dear friends”—he cleared his throat—“when we need them most. You needed Onyx when you first got here, Saeris. He saw that perhaps, and he came.
Sometimes, words were steep hills, so fucking hard to summit.
I’d experienced more than my fair share of loss in my lifetime. My mother. My father. The few friends I’d been stupid enough to make when I was younger, back in the Third. There were bodies piled high in the mausoleum of my memory.
“He isn’t just a fox. He’s family. And if Saeris says she’s going to save him, then she’s going to.” “Such blind faith?” “In her? Yes,” Fisher answered.
