The buffeting wind alerts me to our impending landing. Slowly, I open my eyes. Zhoric transforms and I’m cradled in the warmth of his arms. He stares down at me, his bare chest rising and falling much more rapidly than I would expect, the slightest tremor coursing through him into me, electric and wild. Still, he says nothing. He simply looks at me like there’s nothing else in the world to see. With the gentlest movement, he lowers his arms to let my legs slide down his body to the ground. His other arm doesn’t release me. The deep green of his eyes doesn’t leave mine. The heat and texture of his skin is nothing like the feel of him while mind walking, but there’s a familiarity that feels like home. Like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.
My gaze falls to his mouth and I catch the surge of alarm in his eyes. He doesn’t push me away though. He doesn’t draw me in, either. He stays still, as if at any moment I might vanish.
Outside, the sky is turning a deep blood red. In the corner of my vision, the gods eyes flash bright and forbidding in the rays of the setting sun. Zhoric won’t be swayed though. His eyes are only for me. I tip my head back a fraction. Zhoric holds his breath. I rise up on my toes, moving closer and closer to his face. My teeth tingle and I know I have the strength to draw my sharp teeth to my mouth, that my dragon wants to let me do it. I mean to strike, to sink my teeth into his neck, but when I get to it, I push myself the rest of the way up until my mouth collides with his.
Zhoric remains still for the barest second before his breath rushes out of him and his hands scoop behind my head and into my hair to hold me to him. He kiss is fierce and tormented. I can feel how much he wishes he could stop, but he doesn’t. And I know in this moment, he would do anything for me.
So I kiss him back like I mean it, and I do. I kiss him for all he could have been, for all he could be, if he hadn’t killed Ninon with his decision. I sweep my tongue into his mouth and he groans and pulls me hard to him, like he doesn’t want me to escape. And that’s when I pull too, taking a thread of his power into me.
Zhoric sways, like he’s light headed. His kiss hesitates. I pull again and I know he cannot stop me, because I have exactly what he would need to stop me. His power.Mypower. I take more into me and Zhoric physically rears back, but doesn’t make it far.
“Stop.” His word ghosts across my mouth and I wish that I could. I desperately wish that I could. But I can’t. I take more power into me and his forearms land on my shoulders. He struggles again, but it’s in vain. This has to happen. “Kaisa.” It’s a plea. Fear swarms his features.
His eyes lock with mine. I cannot care.
I drag his power into me again. I take another step until he’s flush against me, chest to chest, hip to hip. I raise mychin, mouth opening towards his neck. Realization dawns bright on his face as the last vestiges of daylight illuminate us, setting us aflame. His hands, still in my hair, grip harder at the base of my neck, pulling enough to hold me back but not hurt me. He puts an inch between his skin and my mouth. I take in more of his power, feel my muscles contract as I snake a hand up the back of his neck, drawing him towards me so that my lips skim across the fluttering pulse at his neck.
“Stop,” he says again.
It’s too late for that now.
My teeth sink into his flesh. His blood wells and coats my teeth, my lips, my tongue. I pull and swallow, and as fast as a strike of lighting, as quickly as I’ve taken a small part of his essence in me—he’s mine. The bond slams into place, fizzing and zipping down my spine. Feeling a bond connect us is like falling into bed after a long, tiresome day. It’s pure comfort, the promise of warmth and respite.
Zhoric draws me close as the bond settles, but then he tears his neck from my mouth, blood pouring from the wound, pooling in the crevice of his collarbone, running in rivulets down his chest and splitting over the deep black of the god scale. The deed is done. He still holds me against him, his ribs billowing in and out, every bit of contact between us pure, undiluted energy.
“What have you done?” His voice is an echo in my ears, the bond a vibration in my soul, his power a thrum through my veins.
Finally his arms slacken, or I’ve taken so much of his power that they fall to his sides of their own accord. I slowly step back, and trail my hand around to his chest, pressing my palm into the god scale. It’s cold, like the sea. Cold, like the feel of lifeless flesh. I dig my fingers into his skin and he grimaces. His hand comes up, leaden, to grasp my wrist. But the attempt is feeble. I’m too full of his power. I peel the god scale from his chest as easy as pulling skin off ripe fruit. Where there was once the shiny black parcel of a god, now there’s nothing but faint, pale streaks webbing out like lightning that struck the ground and left a starburstbehind in the force of its wake.
I lean close and whisper, “Taking back what’s mine.”
Zhoric wobbles, his breaths short and fast. His eyes roll back and he collapses into my arms as the sky rumbles and cracks.
CHAPTER THIRTY
A TREMBLE ROCKS the world as I ease Zhoric to the ground. There’s a static to the air, an energy that feels heavy and oppressive. Peering east, far across the Sere, and above the dispersing mists of the Realm, I see draconem rise. My fingertips slide along the smooth, empty skin of my sternum. My mark is gone.
It’s done.
I offer Zhoric one last fleeting glance. My elahi pulled his energy into me. I don’t know enough about draconem magic and energy to know if it will stay with me, never to return to him, or if it’s something that he’s able to regenerate, like a cut limb.
I don’t stay to find out. I can’t.
Once, not long ago, I imagined taking a dagger to his heart after this moment. But now that I’mhere, after I’ve seen him night after night, after he’s offered small pieces of himself that feel as real as any piece Ninon or my sister ever gave to me, I can’t bring myself to do it. I can leave him though.
I head into his rooms, intending to find Kalixta, but as I do, there’s a twisting, snarling voice inside me demanding I go back. The trembling of the world intensifies so much that what little items Zhoric has around the room rattle. Inside, my draconem roars at me, a knowing instinct thrashing, warning that danger is near and I need to protect what’s mine.No. Not mine.It doesn’t matter what I tell myself, though. I’m ripping myself apart the farther I am from Zhoric. I grit my teeth and squeeze my eyes shut. I can’t imagine how Zhoric’s bonded was able to hurt him. How was she able to fight against this tearing sensation within herself to do what she did to him?
Booms and cracks split my ears and I drag my feet towards the arched openings on the far side of Zhoric’s bed. All around Dyeus, as far as I can see, draconem take to the skies, flitting back and forth, sensing the impending doom as well as I. The sun is a half orb on the horizon behind a heavy haze, casting a red-orange glow on the craggy land below and blanketing the sky above in gold.
The battle between the Realm and Dyeus is inevitable. The women of Nevoba are free to choose their sides. I look down at the god scale in my hand, cold and heavy. Why then, do I feel like I’ve unleashed another sort of curse upon the world?
My gaze tracks to the place in the sky where the gods eyes are meant to be…and they’re gone. Dread sucks the air from my lungs.
With a violent lurch, the world tilts, taking the ground from my feet. I stagger, barely catching my balance. Furniture scrapes and screeches as it slides on the marbled floor. The tea set hits the ground and shatters, piercing the air with its sharp cry. Zhoric’s wide bed groans as it slides towards the balcony—towards Zhoric. I move before I have chance to think. I race back across the room, hurtling over the fallen bedside table, and in the next instant, I’mtransforming and gripping Zhoric in my talons, vaulting out the balcony window and up into the open sky.
The view of Dyeus is so baffling that at first, I don’t realize what I’m seeing. The islands tilt heavily to one side. I stay in place in the sky, but the land drifts down and away. Clarity rocks straight through me, bile collecting in my throat.
Dyeus is falling.
