Varon smiled, a horrific stretching of thin lips. "Good. The Serpent loves a?—"
I didn't let him finish.
I didn't use magic. I didn't have any. I used the brute, physical strength of a warrior who has forgotten how to be civilized.
I drove the serrated blade up, under his ribs, punching through the frail cage of his bones and into the black, shriveled organ of his heart.
Varon gasped, a wet, choking sound. His blind eyes widened. He grabbed my shoulders, his nails digging in, but he was frail. He was a creature of magic, and without time to cast, he was nothing.
I twisted the blade.
"She is mine," I snarled into his face as the life bled out of him. "She is mine to keep or mine to kill. But no one else touches her."
I shoved him away. He collapsed against the altar, sliding down to the floor, a heap of bloody robes.
I stood there, panting, the dagger dripping in my hand. The silence in the temple was absolute. The shadows in the corners writhed, agitated, confused by the bloodshed of their own priest.
I had killed a High Priest. I had defiled a holy sanctuary.
I looked at the dead man. I felt no remorse. I felt only a terrifying, cold clarity.
I grabbed the hem of his robe and wiped the blade clean, then shoved it into my sleeve. I turned and ran, the smell of his blood clinging to me like a second skin.
…
"My Lord?"
Leora’s voice pulls me back to the library.
I blink, the gray light of the room washing away the memory of the temple's gloom. But the blood is still on my hands. The dagger is still heavy against my forearm, hidden beneath the ruined velvet of my sleeve.
I look at her. She is watching me with that maddening, penetrating gaze. Her pupils are blown wide again, sensing the turmoil rolling off me, but she does not understand the source. She sees the blood, and she might assume I have been in a duel, perhaps a skirmish on the road.
She steps closer, ignoring my command to stay back.
"You're hurt," she whispers, her hand hovering over the dark stains on my tunic. "Let me?—"
"Do not," I rasp. I push myself up, using the table for leverage. My legs feel like lead. I am physically exhausted, spiritually hollowed out.
"But the blood?—"
"It is not mine," I snap.
I stand fully, towering over her. I want to intimidate her. I want to see her cower so I can remember what it feels like to be powerful.
But she doesn't cower. She looks at the red smear on my hands, and then she looks at my face. And the empathy hits me.
It isn't a wave this time. It is a slow, seeping warmth. She isn't trying to calm me. She is trying tocomfortme. She feels the horror radiating off me, the jagged edges of my self-loathing, and instead of recoiling, she offers a silent, terrifying grace.
Stop it,I think, squeezing my eyes shut.Stop looking at me like I am worth saving.
If she knew whose blood this was—if she knew I had just butchered a High Priest on his own altar to keep him from hunting her—she would not be looking at me with concern. She would be running.
"What happened?" she asks, her voice trembling. "Where did you go?"
"I went to see a man about a cure," I lie, the words tasting like ash. "It seems the price was higher than I anticipated."
I walk around the table, putting distance between us. I cannot be near her. The gravity of her presence is too strong. Every second I spend in her orbit, I feel the resolve I forged in the temple disintegrating.
