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“What do most people need to hear?” For some reason, I had to speak past a lump in my throat. “They need to hear, ‘Even if it is your fault, I will love you anyway.’
“For whatever of your mistakes, Mische Iliae,” he said, quietly, firmly, “for whatever of your faults, for whatever unintended pains you may bring this world, I will love you anyway.”
“You are an event, Mische Iliae,” he murmured. “God slayer. Dawndrinker. Shadowborn queen. And I would die to taste your skin.”
Most interesting of all, he had horns.
“Maybe greatness should come not from the sacrifices you make, but the ones you refuse to.”
“What was my alternative, Mische? I needed to bring you somewhere safe. Somewhere to save your goddess-damned life. There is no sacrifice I wouldn’t make for that. Not mine, not theirs. And I have known these people for all of a few hours, and I can already tell that the thing they ‘can’t afford’ is to let you die because you were too prideful to let them help you.”
“I already told you that I would never watch you die again. I made that decision in an Ysrian prison. Have more respect for me than to think I’d break it so easily.”
“I don’t regret it,” I said. “I would do it a thousand times over. A thousand times, if it means that I get to hear you berate me for it here rather than imagine those words over your corpse. You are the sacrifice I will not make, Mische. You. Don’t ask me to apologize for that.”
“It’s all fucking madness,” he said. “You must know that.” Asar let out a dry laugh. “Yes. I do.” But Raihn’s eyes locked on mine. “You had our help from the minute you got here,” he said. “It was never a question, Mische. Not for a Mother-damned second.”
“You are a part of that life. Not just a stepping stone to get to it.”
“Never think for a second, Mische, that you were the one who brought this upon us,” he said quietly. “We’re all just trying to do what we can to save who we can, all while the gods play games with us. But as long as we have to go up against them, I’ll be damned lucky to do it with someone as fierce as you by my side.”
“So. This Asar character.” I stiffened. “Mm-hmm?” I said, too casually. “Just how hard have you fallen?” “I don’t know what you’re—” “For fuck’s sake, Mish. That entire apartment reeked of sex.” My face heated. “Gods, Raihn,” I squeaked. “And the man follows you around staring at you like you’re a goddess. And when he came to us, when we all thought we were losing you . . .” His face darkened. “I know that look. Like his entire world was ending. No wonder the man is about to go rip apart the fabric of the universe for you.”
“I know what it looks like when a man is gone. And he is so far gone for you.”
“Do you think I don’t know what this is like? To lose the—” His voice caught. “The greatest love you’ve ever known? I do know this. And it was the fault of my own mistakes. No one else’s. No, Mische Iliae. I’m not here to earn Nyaxia’s favor. I am here because someone I once loved very much believed in the power of fate. The power of even the most inconsequential person to change it. Her goddess sent me to you, not my own. And I know that there is nothing I can ever do to right the terrible ways I wronged her. Not in life, and certainly not in death. But.” He leaned closer, fury burning in the
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And my skin, where they had touched it, was now marked with streaks of red. Twisted, organic strokes like lightning, and an eye on the back of my hand. An Heir Mark. The twin to Asar’s.
“She knows, I hope. How much I love her. I know that in life, it was not enough. And I know that it isn’t in death, either. But it is all I can—” A howl of wind. The ash of a dead god scattered across the desolate ruins of the Descent. And Vincent was gone.
No. A letter couldn’t offer closure. Couldn’t invalidate every wrong or soothe every hurt. But it was an imperfect something.
“This,” he said, “is a Vathysian wedding ceremony.” My hearts—both of them, divine and mortal—stopped beating. “It hasn’t been practiced in a few thousand years,” he went on, “though there are aspects of it that are still found in Obitraen weddings today. But the more I read about it, the more it seemed . . . right. If you are interested.”
‘If you are interested.’ ” Sun take me, he actually looked nervous. “If you aren’t—” “I am, you idiot. I am interested. It’s just the most Asar marriage proposal I’ve ever heard.”
‘I am, you idiot,’ ” he repeated. “The most Mische proposal acceptance I’ve ever heard.”
“I was promised gaudy chaos,” I said. “You will have your gaudy chaos. Your friends are already here. Esme can throw together quite a party on...
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“I give you my breath.” “I give you my breath.”
“I give you my psyche.” “I give you my psyche.”
“I give you my secrets,” he murmured. “I give you my secrets.”
And at last, the final piece. This time, we spoke together. “I give you my soul.”
“From this night,” he murmured. “Until the end of nights,” I finished. “Your pain is my pain.” “Your heart is my heart.” And then, together, “I bind myself to you.”
In the darkness, I found solace. In the underworld, I found hope. And here, in this twin soul, in this love we built together, I finally found it: Home.
Septimus stood before the goddess that had betrayed his kingdom and bowed like a good little dog.
Septimus made it his business to know things, and he was simply better at it than most.
Somewhere here, in the shit pile that remained of the human nations, was an answer. A sword gifted by a goddess of justice, and a wielder who perhaps might be desperate enough to let him aim the strike. Septimus very much liked to be the solution to a problem. He flicked the cigarillo into a pile of burning corpses and slipped into the night.
