The silence in my head is absolute now. It is not just her influence dampening the noise. It is abandonment. The Serpent has turned His face away. I am alone in the dark.
"The Rite of the Blackened Heart," I mutter, staring at the empty hearth where I burned the book. "The New Moon."
"What is that?" she asks.
I turn to look at her. She stands amidst the ashes, small and pale and infinitely dangerous. She has no idea that she is the centerpiece of the ritual. She has no idea that Varon’s dying breath was a demand for her heart.
"It is a doorway," I say cryptically. "Or an execution."
I slip my hand into my sleeve. My fingers close around the hilt of the ceremonial dagger. The handle, wrapped in human skin, feels warm against my palm. It hums with a dark, hungry resonance, urging me to finish what Varon started.
Cut it out,the memory of the priest hisses in my mind.Wash the stain from your veins.
I could do it. I could do it right here, in the quiet of the library. I could drive this blade into her chest and end the silence. I could offer her death to The Serpent as an apology for my heresy.
It is the only logical path. It is the singular way to restore my magic before Malek strikes.
I step toward her.
Leora watches me. She sees the shift in my posture, the sudden stillness that overtakes me. She sees the way my hand lingers in my sleeve. Her eyes dart to the hidden weapon, sensing the metal even if she cannot see it.
For a second, the empathy falters, replaced by a sharp spike of instinctual fear.
Good. She should be afraid.
She does not run, though. She stands her ground, lifting her chin, exposing the bruised column of her throat where I marked her.
"Imas," she says softly.
She uses my name. Not my title.
The sound of it goes through me like a spear. It anchors me to the floor. It shatters the resolve I was trying to build.
I stop. I grip the dagger so tight my hand shakes. I am a monster. I am a killer. I should end this now.
But I cannot make my arm move.
I stare at her, hating her, needing her, the dagger heavy and useless in my sleeve.
"The New Moon is in three days," I whisper.
I do not tell her that she is the sacrifice. I do not tell her that I am holding the knife that is meant to carve out her heart.
I simply look at her, trapped in the silence she created, knowing that I have burned the world down for her, and terrified that it still won't be enough to save us.
14
LEORA
Three days.
Three days of silence that is not peaceful, but pressurized. The estate feels like a bell jar with the air slowly being pumped out.
I stand before the mirror in the guest room, staring at the stranger looking back at me. The white ceremonial robes are exquisite—heavy silk embroidered with silver thread that catches the meager light like trapped starlight. They are beautiful. They are a shroud.
I touch the fabric at my collarbone. It is soft, a sharp contrast to the rough wool I wore as a slave or the shredded velvet I fled in. Imas sent these robes an hour ago with a single instruction:Prepare.
He has not spoken to me since the library. He has moved through the house like a wraith, a dark blur at the end of a corridor, a shadow passing a doorway. When our paths crossed, he would look at me with eyes so full of torment it made my breath hitch, and then he would turn away, his jaw locked tight enough to crack bone.
