No,not Evander’s blood.
Torin’s.
Marina’s fingers twitched with the need to rake her fingernails over her skin, to extract Torin’s blood from each of her pores.
The breath in her chest went light. She focused on the solid floor underneath her heels as she dropped down into an unknown place.
Cool air nipped at her arms. A strong earthy scent accompanied the crisp layer of charcoal smoke that filled the atmosphere. She darted her eyes around the cavern, filled with hundreds of dense stalactites trickling from the ceiling. The cave stretched into a clearing and then formed a tunnel leading further into the mountain above them, its entrance protected by icicle-shaped formations jutting up from the stone.
Marina’s awareness quickly came back to Torin’s blood stinging on the skin of her cheeks and neck.
She pulled at the collar of her dress, the nightmare resurfacing and drowning her all over again. It was as if she stood in her bedchamber all those years ago, the silver moon shining in from the skylight and cutting through the darkness onto Evander—his head severed from his body in a puddle of cherry syrup, oozing down her bedsheets, seeping into the crevice of the crystal floor, in between her toes, decorating the walls.
No.
Marina slapped her shaking palm against the granite cavern wall and hunched over with her other pressed to her diaphragm, wheezing for breath that ran wildly from her.
“What is happening?” Acacius’s voice came from behind.
She’d forgotten he was with her. It was like stepping into winter river water—Acacius, the god who wished nothing more than to see her break, witnessing her at her most vulnerable.
Pull yourself together.
She swallowed, but the folds of her throat melded together. Her pulse magnified in her ears. She dug the heel of her hand into the gritted stone. The cavern felt as if it were closing in on her.
“I—” She looked back at Acacius, only to see him reduced to a shrinking speck stretched down a narrow path. It was as if she were looking through the end of a telescope. His mask was off, though. That much she could see—his blond hair pulled back, the animalistic skull laid off to the side on a nearby boulder.
Shit.
“His blood.” She pulled her trembling hand down her face. The dried streaks felt like patches of papier-mâché against the insides of her fingers.
What if it never comes off?
A sickness flooded up in her esophagus.
She forced herself to swallow against the strain in her throat and pressed her hand harder into her diaphragm, desperate to control the rough motion of her breathing.
Acacius reached inside his pocket, his movement slow as he analyzed her closely, and pulled out a black handkerchief. “Let me wipe it off.”
She searched his face, frantic and uncertain by his sudden mercy.
Her eyes dipped down to his handkerchief, and she nodded, giving him permission. Even if he ended up shoving the piece of cloth down her throat, she didn’t care. So long as there was a chance the blood would be washed from her skin.
Acacius lifted the material to his lips, his eyes never leaving her face, and wet the fabric with his saliva.
She held onto his gilded gaze as if it was her salvation.
Acacius took a step, reaching out his arm. “You really are something, Rina.” He wiped the damp cloth, gently, over her cheek. His other hand came up to cradle the back of her head, and he applied tender pressure down her face as he washed the scourge from her jawline. “First you arrive late to your own duel, and then you nearly lose your title.”
What was the fucking point? Nothing in her life mattered anymore. She loathed herself and only needed a reason to stay down instead of walking the path forward.
A god challenging her title was the perfect excuse—a fateful opportunity to wallow in the misery of her sins. The deeds she’d committed over the centuries, unintentionally following in her mother’s trail of greed and violence. Back then, Marina longed to be just like her, and now that she was, all she felt was disgust.
Relinquishing her title felt cathartic, like she was somehow going against the vision of herself that Mira made.
But then, Naia’s call cut through the noise and reached her. She’d never heard her sister’s voice soangry.
Naia’s disapproval jarred Marina back to life. Although, she didn’t have enough time to consider the fact that, without her nightrazers, she would have to fight with her own hands. The repercussion ultimately led to the virulence now plastered on her skin. Another part of herself that she was ready to let go of.
