“I require nothing—”
“You are lying to yourself. What of that man I sent to you.” The words flow through the air toward me like a banner announcing safety, like a heat source in the winter, like a balm for pain. “He was right, you know. Everything he said to you was his truth. He fell in love with you.”
“As if I’m going to trust you about anything—”
“But what if you could believe him again. What if you could go back and have what was lost. Do you mean to tell me that isn’t of value to you.”
For a split second, a yearning claws into my chest. He’s right. I only want to return to that place I was in, when the only danger that mattered was the physical kind, when I was united in purpose with a man of strength and protection, the other half of my whole by my side with me none the wiser about what is coming.
What did Merc tell me, though…if you enter the Fulcrum, remember that not all is what it seems.
“Love cannot exist in a maze of lies.” I sharpen my tone. “And truth does not need my acceptance to exist—you can take my memories, but my heart will always know what is right.”
“But what if it was all real. What if he loved you, even though he knew what you are.”
I try to control my breathing, try to give nothing away. But fates… if that were only the truth, and not just words honed to turn my emotions into swords used against me.
Except then I shake my head. “That’s why my mother would never have you, isn’t it. She knew exactly who you are… and youdisgustedher.”
There is an instantaneous change in the Dark King, the seduction gone, a rank rage changing the aura of flames around him from black to red.
“Fine, I will just take what I require.”
Without warning, my body is grabbed by a great force, an existential sucking extraction making me feel as though I am coming apart, even as I remain intact: The pain is unfathomable, indescribable, inescapable, tears flooding my eyes as I grit all my teeth and strain against the onslaught. Distantly, I hear the scream that rips from my throat as my arms and legs extend out from my torso and I begin levitating, the center of my chest pulling toward him.
The Dark King’s voice weaves in and out of my head, as if he’s inside my skin. “Your mother stole a part of me when she conceived you, and if you will not free me yourself, I will require it returned unto me now. The collecting of souls one by one whilst I am trapped in here takes far too long—but the seed of me that’s in you will make me instantly whole. Oh, Sorrel, your destiny was always coming back home to me, daughter mine—though having refused my generous offer, I will now take back what is mine on my terms.”
I scream again, and then choke as I cough up black grains of sand.
The agony is incandescent, my blood and bones alit with the vicious, drawing pull. I try to fight it, to marshal some magic to send at him, to hold what evil is within me back from him. As he extends a palm to me, however, I feel myself drifting forward—
Not my body, though.
As my physical form falls limp to the ground, my consciousness, my soul, my essential essence, floats toward him.
There’s nothing I can do.
He’s too powerful.
“We will be one, you and me,” he says in his warped, evil voice. “And then I will cast aside this Fulcrum of hers like the sand it is and be free to claim all the souls that are my due—”
And given your kindness, let me present you with something in return. You will know what it is for and when to use it.
From out of nowhere, I hear the Sooth’s voice.
With the last of my independent will, I order my hand to go into my pocket, and then I refocus on my father.
In a sensory parallel, my awareness registers the feel of the tiny pouch that was given to me, and I surreptitiously draw the thing free of its confinement. My fingers, stiff and clumsy, struggle with the string, but then the pebble, so unremarkable, so unimportant, is in my hand.
“This is as it has always been ordained,” my father is continuing with satisfaction as I get ever closer to him. “My missing piece returned—”
Surely this can’t work. It’s just a little rock.
Yet I’m compelled to toss the—
The moment the irrelevant pebble hits the red dirt, the Dark King hisses and jerks his head in that direction. The drawing suction that connects us is instantly broken as he concentrates on the stone, and I snap back into my floppy body.
Bracing my hands into the red dirt, I push myself up and cough out more black sand. But I haven’t been saved from anything. I’m weak, as if I have suffered from a dire illness, and glance up in defenseless fear.
