Rafael held Ari tighter. She gasped for air, every tendon a wire of pain. ‘Gwen…help her. Please.’
‘Ariadne Walker wears the mask of Dahut,’ she intoned as if she was passing judgement. Maybe she was. ‘Now she has to face the truth, no matter how painful. If she lies, it will kill her. Try to take it off, and it will kill her. That’s what it does. It was part of an ancient magic. It is without pity. As I was, once upon a time. It took so many years for that to change. But I am a living thing. It is not. It is a thing of death itself. And Death must have a witness. Death must provide a judge.’
Rafael didn’t know what she meant. It sounded like she was performing a ritual. Gwen, or Dahut, or whatever she was, couldn’t help. And if the sorceress princess of Ys couldn’t help them, who could?
He stared down at Ari, cupped her face with his hands. ‘Ari, can you hear me?’
Ari looked up, whispered something through her gritted teeth and a cold breeze flooded the chamber. Rafael shuddered and held her tighter. But it was useless. He knew that now.
‘I’m here, my love,’said the figure of the Ankou, still wearing Simon Poullain’s face. He materialised out of the shadows, dressed as ever in black, his long white hair stark in contrast, and the brim of his black hat pulled down to shade the dark eyes that scoured with obvious distaste across Rafael before resting on Ari.
She gave a sob, the sound wrenched out of her by grief alone. As he watched, she reached out her hands towards her lost fiancé, the pain in her face not just physical now. She was in torment.
And Rafael felt the heart he didn’t even realise he had lost to her begin to shatter.
An unseen force tore her from his arms and lifted her into the air. She hung there, like an angel, her head tilted back as icy wind whirled around her. The light from the candles bounced off the water and up onto the roof, rippling waves of light like the sky of the underwater world of Ys.
CHAPTERTWENTY-SEVEN
‘Put on the mask,’the voices had whispered.‘You can save him. No one else can. She is coming. Surrender to her. If he puts it on, he will die. You’re already dead inside.’
And she was, she knew that now. Something had died in her with Simon. Something had died the day she got that letter…
The mask felt strangely cool against her face, as if it was sucking the life from her, feeding on the heat in her body. And when the warmth in her faded, pinpricks of pain took its place. It was everywhere, all at once. She could feel tendrils crawling on her skin, digging into her flesh, tightening around her throat.
The moment Gwen appeared, she finally understood. Ari watched her approach through a veil of tears, watched her disarm Laure and take her throne and knew her for all that she was. A spirit of the sea, endless, immortal, terrible, glorious…
The voices still whispered, a sibilant chorus, tormenting her. Rafael couldn’t hear them, she realised. They were just for her.
‘Give up. You don’t have to fight anymore. It’s over. Just accept it. You’re too broken to fix. Submit to her.’
Voices of the dead, voices that had been absorbed into the mask, all those people it had swallowed up, all those lives it had devoured. So many of them…
Rafael was talking, trying to reach her, to help, but she couldn’t hear his voice. He was drowned out. Rafael who held her so gently, who clearly would do anything to stop this, but couldn’t.
If she hadn’t grabbed it, he would have put it on. Once she held it, she knew what she had to do. She’d seen what it did to Nico. She couldn’t let Rafael put himself through that. He didn’t deserve it.
She, on the other hand…she was used to pain.
Or at least, she thought she was.
But not pain like this. It flowed like lightning along her veins, it boiled in her lungs, and all the while, the tentacles tightened, cutting off her breath, making spots dance before her eyes.
The world went cold and dark. The fire of the pain she felt became ice, and it was even worse. And then she heard him.
Just as she knew she would.
‘I’m here, my love,’Ankou’s arctic voice whispered, in harmony with the voices of the mask.
She forced her eyes open and saw him, peering at her, the look on his face one of fascination rather than concern.
All the same, she reached out for him. She couldn’t help herself. All she wanted was Simon back, and yet…
The mask clamped itself around her throat, winding tight and harsh against her skin, crushing her windpipe. Tendrils slithered under the leather thong and crushed the little bone pendant, scattering the fragments. She tried to cry out as something pulled her away from Rafael.
His voice reached her, as if through a hurricane.
‘Ari, please, you have to fight it. You have to—’
