“Of course,” Ivy said. Then she paused. “I can’t think of anything. What do you want me to say?”
“Tell me of your Circle.”
Ivy stumbled over a rock. She righted herself quickly, matching her stride to Vale. She didn’t want to think about the Circle. When she did, her thoughts went back to those whom Vale had killed the last time they were in the mortal realm.
“Well,” she said hesitantly. “The ones you killed weren’t very nice. So that’s… good?”
Vale rumbled threateningly. “You should have told me. I would have spent longer killing them.”
“They weren’t awful,” Ivy said. “They just weren’tnice. None of them were, really. At least, not to me. It was… strange, actually. Someone at one of the last towns we passed through said they made me a scapegoat for all that went wrong. I did make a lot of mistakes, but not enough to deserve my treatment. Or so they said. Now that I think back on it…”
Ivy bit her lip. “My uncle might have been behind it? I felt so silly for even suspecting it back then. But I kept hearing him saybad things about me behind my back, like he wanted the others to think less of me. Maybe he wanted me to rely on him. He was the only one who was nice to me, even if he did treat me like a servant. I thought I just needed to work harder, you know? Prove myself. Beuseful.”
She fell silent, embarrassed. She had never said it aloud before. She’d never had anyone to say those words to.
Vale did not speak for several steps. At first, Ivy thought he was too lost in his pain or that he had nothing to say.
“You need not do that for me,” he said finally.
Ivy couldn’t help it: she laughed. She had spent these past few weeks working every moment of the day, save for sleep and slaking her pollen-lust. If anything, Vale had told her to work harder. She couldn’t even blame him. Everywhere they went was full of work to be done.
“You donot,” Vale insisted. “It is necessary now, with all the work that is to be done. But if you stay here, in my void… I can find other assistants. Iwillfind others.”
Ivy stared up at him in shock. “Really? Even… even after how finding your first assistant went?”
“I did not find you. You were given to me.” Vale walked several more paces, his tail swishing. Then he stopped and turned to her, taking her chin in his berry-stained claws.
“You deserve a life,” he said. “Not just work.”
The words were for her. But there was confusion in his voice, as if he was only just realizing that the same might even apply to him.
Ivy’s heart fluttered. She was so distracted by Vale’s intense gaze that she barely noticed that, yes, his claws were more brittle than the day before.
He tilted her chin up and kissed her. It was cool and soft and sweet, despite his fangs grazing her lip.
The pollen stirred inside Ivy’s blood. But before it could properly bloom, Vale grunted and pulled back.
Ivy stroked his mossy cheekbone. “How badly does it hurt?”
Vale didn’t answer. He twisted away from her, craning his head to peer through the trees.
“We are here,” he announced, and stalked forward.
Ivy followed. The trees came to an abrupt stop, and Ivy gasped as she saw the view waiting beyond them.
The castle had been rotting for a long time, aged bone crumbling into what was once a moat. It was even bigger than it had looked when the void pushed images into her head. Even bigger than the castle she had lived in as a child, bigger than any castle mortals could create. The ruined spires looked like they could scrape the sky. The doors were crafted from bone, so big and heavy, she doubted even Vale could heave them open. Luckily, there was a chunk missing in the bone big enough for both of them to walk through.
The void pushed another weak image onto her: giant beings fighting in the courtyard.Titans. A war before the Skullstalkers even existed, let alone mortals. An ancient siege machine, taking a chunk of the door. Then the image was gone, and she was alone in her head again.
Ivy reeled, holding her pounding head.
Vale stepped back toward her. “Ivy?”
“I’m fine,” she gasped. She shook her head, the void’s memories already fading.
Vale held out his hand.
Ivy took it, and the two of them set off toward the hole punched in those impossibly huge doors.
