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“This is how we win. This is how we’ve always won. My father, my grandfather, all the Principates going all the way back to Orion. They won by trusting that good would triumph over evil, and I have to do the same.”
“I promised I’d do anything for you.” She curled her fingers into a fist. “Maybe you didn’t realise how far I was willing to go.”
She could feel him watching and wondered what he’d do if she swallowed it. “Don’t swallow it.”
She had loved the city through his eyes. She wished she’d given in more often.
“Those difficulties are because she is resisting, because she can resist. This—she is the animancer.”
There was plenty of monster in Ferron, lurking beneath the surface.
“Oh, Marino.” His thumb trailed along her neck, following the scar below her jaw. “If I’d known what pain you’d cause me, I never would have taken you.”
It was all his fault, but she could feel herself eroding, desperate to have something in her life that was not pain. That was not dead and gone.
“You said she was afraid of shadows. If she’s going to keep adding things perpetually, you should make a list and put them up on the wall somewhere.”
However, this ring was hand-forged rather than transmutationally crafted; she could see the hammer marks that had beaten a scaled, almost geometric pattern onto it. A bizarre thing for an iron alchemist to have. “A symbol of our relationship,” Ferron said,
“Ferron,” she said, the idea abruptly occurring to her, and she wondered why she’d never thought to ask before. “Was it a punishment for you—being made Undying?” He glanced at her, his face empty. “How could immortality be a punishment? It’s what everyone wants.”
A southern ritual had no place in the North, but she’d given everything for the war, and it had not been enough. Superstition was all she had left.
“Don’t die, Marino. I might miss you.”
“Stay,” he said softly, and his head dipped so close she felt his breath in her hair. “You know, there’s something about you, Marino, that inspires the most terrible decisions from me. I’ll know better, but then I’ll still…”
“I must admit,” he said in a low voice as though making a confession, “if anyone had told me you’d become so lovely, I would never have come near you. I was rather blindsided when I saw you again.”
“Oh yes, your rose in a graveyard,” she said, lip curling. “Was the array for me, too?” “Who else?” he asked, his voice empty, just a touch of irony in it. “Aurelia, perhaps.” He smiled. “Right. Quite forgot about her.”
“I must say, Marino, you’ve ended up being quite expensive.”
“After you nearly bled to death here, I thought, at least I can keep her alive. She deserves to have someone who cares enough to try to keep her alive.
“She’s dead,” he said. “You are not. My loyalty was to those least responsible for her suffering, but if the Eternal Flame has decided that you are an affordable casualty, I will not be noble or understanding. I can exact dual revenge. I will make them pay if they get you killed.”
“You made me as expendable as I am now. And you didn’t even want me, either.”
“You are not replaceable,” he said, his hands trembling against her shoulders. “You are not required to make your death convenient. You are allowed to be important to people. The reason I’m here—the reason I’m doing any of this—is to keep you alive. To keep you safe. That was the deal.” He searched her face. “They didn’t tell you.”
He touched her cheek, tilting her face up and kissing her. “Use the ring, call me, if you ever need anything.”
She gave a small smile, struggling to stay awake, afraid it might all fade away if she did. “I’ve always thought my eyes were my best feature.” “One of them,” he said quietly.
“You’re mine,” he said against her lips, his fingers sliding along her throat, tangling in her hair, holding her fast as he dragged her nearer.
“You’re mine. You swore yourself to me. Now and after the war. I’m going to take care of you. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. You don’t have to be lonely. Because you’re mine.”
“Because I have warned you, if something happens to you, I will personally raze the entire Order of the Eternal Flame. That isn’t a threat, it’s a promise. Consider your survival as much a necessity to the Resistance as Holdfast’s. If you die, I will kill every single one of them. Given that the risk to their lives is the only way to make you value your own.”
“What exactly is it that you think I do with all my time? I kill people. I order other people to kill people. I train people to kill people. I sabotage and undermine people so that they will be killed, and I do it all because of you. Every word. Every life. Because of you.”
Someday, she promised herself, someday I am going to love him in a moment that isn’t stolen.
“I’m sorry—I’m sorry—I’m so sorry for everything I did to you,” he said, his voice hoarse and broken. “I love you. You left, and I’d never told you.”
“I don’t want to choose. I always have to choose, and I never get to choose you. I’m so tired of not getting to choose you.”
“Oh dear,” Kaine said, standing over him, pure malice in every word. “Seems you’ve lost your fire again, Father.”
“Your mother was always so proud of you. She said you were the best thing we ever made.” Then Atreus looked at Helena. “Save him.”
“You already told me all this yesterday. You know, I do make a habit of listening when you talk.”
“Don’t,” he said through gritted teeth. “Don’t act like it’s fine.” She pulled her hand free. “It is fine if I get you instead.”
“Love isn’t as pretty or pure as people like to think. There’s a darkness in it sometimes. Kaine and I go hand in hand. I made him who he is. I knew what that array meant when I saved him. If he’s a monster, then I’m his creator.”
