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The way your runes smoldered would indicate that you have access to elemental fire magic.
I WAS READY for the bloodshed. Carrion Swift was not.
“Aren’t we just the same? Made from the same material as the sea and the dirt and the sky? Folded from the scraps of the gods and entrusted with a spark of magic that makes us real?”
“Not for blood, King Killer. For information. For home. For release.”
But cats did not make good pets, as far as I was concerned. They couldn’t be trusted. At least a dog was loyal enough to die in solidarity if its owner dropped down dead in their own home. I’d heard too many tales of cats eating their owners’ faces under those circumstances.
He bared his teeth, flashing gold-plated, engraved fangs as he snapped at me, trying to use them to rip out my throat.
“Scorpions, Carrion. That is the sound of a million fucking scorpions.”
“Is your mind… a dark place, warrior?”
“You are a creature of shadows. Yes, I know your kind well,” the demon said, in a wheedling voice. “A mind full of shadows is a dangerous thing. When you already live in the darkness, hell is right there at your fingertips. So thin, the veil. Are you re-ready for the dream, shadow weaver? Will you have… the strength to wake?”
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.”
“Where there is light, there is always darkness, shadow weaver. To kill a queen, you will need to visit the darkest of all places. You will need to strike a deal far more costly than this one if you hope to succeed. And the beast who lies in wait for you there will not be so easy to trick as me. She will eat you whole, shadow weaver!”
“She will tear away your soul and feed on it for decades!”
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.”
“I could spend the rest of eternity right here and die happy,” he rumbled. “I could fuck you and feast on you until the ages turned and the suns all died and burned out in the skies, and I still wouldn’t have had enough of you.”
I want you on all fours for me, Saeris. Crawling…
“Sweet fucking mercy,” he panted. “Kill me. Sit on my face and ride my tongue until I fucking die. I can’t take it anymore.”
“I could watch you fall apart for me forever.”
He had seen the rise and fall of monarchs, bargained for his life with monsters, fought off countless demons, and never backed down. It was here in the quiet and the dark with me that he surrendered.
“Sometimes, a male needs a little pain to push back the pleasure, Saeris Fane.” He ran his tongue over his bottom lip. It came away red. “Especially when his mate is this fucking incredible.”
“Strange how we can be tired here, while we already sleep,” Fisher said drowsily. “To fall asleep within a dream is to commune with the gods.”
A flurry of paper stargazers greeted me when I entered the library. Their wings rustled as they flitted around my head, darting this way and that, inspecting the newcomer who had entered their sanctuary. One of them hovered in front of my face, its tiny paper head tilting left and right as it took me in, waiting to see if I posed a threat.
I’ve found, the quicksilver rune has always been the hungriest. The first to awaken.”
It slammed out of me in a tide of glittering black sand and shadow so overwhelming that it swallowed the street we were standing in. And then the ward. And then the entire city. My magic encompassed all Zilvaren. For the first time in history, the shining banner in the north fell into darkness.
Fisher thought my Alchemist’s blood prevented the quicksilver from affecting me the way it had affected him once, but was it true? If I stepped into this quicksilver now, would it drive me crazy? Would it just kill me? Come. Come to us. Join us… Or was entering this pool now the only thing that would save me? Was this the key to my magic? Was this something I had to do to bond with the quicksilver? To show it that I trusted it?
You can do this. When you had no one else to lean on, you relied on yourself. When no one rode to the rescue and saved you and Hayden from dying of thirst, you saved yourself. Save yourself now, Saeris. You’ve got this.
Gods, I hated it. But I loved it, too. I had to. It had given me Saeris. Without the quicksilver, we would have lived out our lives in separate realms, never having known each other. Sometimes, it was as though it connected us.
“Erromar means mercy,” he said, in a reverent voice. “Selanir means honor.” “Huh. Mercy and Honor. The gods named my swords for me, then.”
“Or maybe those are traits they decided to bless you with.
Life was so unsafe right now. A million hurdles lay between us and peace. I couldn’t remotely begin to comprehend how we were going to overcome it all, and yet the world fell away. Nothing could touch me here, in his arms like this. I pressed my face into the crook of his neck so hard that his leathers muffled my words when I spoke. “What took you so long?”
The quicksilver in his eye flared a little as he gently ran his fingers over the inside of my wrist. I’d noticed it, of course: the veins that had once been green-blue there now shone metallic silver through my skin.
My soul is on fire. Tell me yours isn’t.”
“My soul is on the winds,” I panted. “You’re carrying it away.”
So many people were afraid of this male. Yvelia was full of Fae who would gladly have seen him strung up and put to death. He’d destroyed an entire city. He had gone to war. He had slain a dragon and faced the Iron Death at the Ajun Gate. Earlier, he’d ripped a male’s head off with his magic and hadn’t batted an eyelid. He was a creature of violence—it was his creed. But he was also this, too. When he loved, it was with everything he had.
“I can speak into your mind, but it’s still a mystery to me. I feel as if I should already know your every thought.”
“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—”
“Fuck me, Osha.” His voice was rough from sleep. “That sound haunts my fucking dreams. I want to make you moan for hours.”
“We have lifetimes of this ahead of us. Lifetimes to explore each other.” Shit, that felt so good. “Lifetimes? We’ll… lose our minds…”
He soothed me, murmuring softly to me in Old Fae. “Irrellieth ka tintar shey an mé correshan dow.”
“I said, ‘I’m going to drown myself between your thighs.’ Or something close to that. There’s no word for what I’m trying to say in High Fae. Correshan means lethal bliss. Death by pleasure, perhaps. Old Fae was a far more descriptive language.”
His arm banded around my ribs like a vise, and he fucked me hard until I came apart. Our bodies formed a bridge to heaven, and both of us ascended. The whole of Cahlish heard my screams.
“I am a vampire. I feed on the blood of the living.” He bared his teeth, showing them to me. Gold, engraved, and vicious. “They ripped my canines out when I wouldn’t kneel and shoved these in my mouth so I couldn’t feed. But I still drink, Fisher. Ask me how.” “It doesn’t matter.
“It’s an element, really. Brimstone. A kind of magic all on its own. It gives the fire sprites life.” “And it kills the rot,” Carrion said.
Saeris wasn’t one for unnecessary tears. She cried when she was angry, not when she was sad. But I knew that she was sad this morning, as she opened her eyes to watch the sun peek over the mountains, and a lone tear chased down her cheek.
“A dream is just a fabrication. A manifestation of what could be. In-between places, and whispers of other realms. I had a feeling the sun wouldn’t affect you here.”
“Peace, Osha,” I whispered into her hair. “The rot. Ammontraíeth. Everlayne. Our problems aren’t going anywhere. They’ll be right where we left them, waiting for us when we wake up. For now, let’s just take a moment to breathe. We deserve it.”
Your choices had to be your own. I saw that in the end. I see it now, too. Every day. 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.”
“You’ll have to face the sun for me, too, in that case,” she mused. “Gladly.” “And I will become your shadow.”
“You should know, Saeris… I am my father’s son. My strength has always been my shadows.”
You will read things that will prevent you from facing the challenges in front of you for fear of the ones ahead, to the ruin of us all.
