He’s fine, he’s fine, he’s fine,I think furiously, dropping to my knees beside him.It’s only the pain that’s overwhelmed him.
His eyes are closed, his lashes still. His lips—his beautiful lips—have gone pale and parted. His ribbons lie motionless around him, like someone has tangled them up and then strewn them about. Discarded, like forgotten trash.
Panicked tears pour down my cheeks, and my throat clenches as regret and fury mingle in my stomach so furiously, I’m sure I’ll shatter entirely.
Because I know without Sam’s sorrowful words, without Adira’s confirmation.
Dawson was right.
The King of Carrion is dead.
Chapter forty-four
The world goes quiet.
Not the soft silence of peace, but a violent hush that resonates against my entire body. Niko’s presence has always taken up so much space, his wild charisma and enigmatic power always such a consuming, physical thing, that its absence resounds through the island.
There are no more screams. No ring of swords, or crack of explosives.
There is only a silk shirt gripped in clammy fists, and hot tears falling on unnaturally cold skin. Only the stubborn beat of my own heart, its rhythm a taunt against the silence of Niko’s.
No, no, no.
I don’t know if I speak the words aloud or if they pound in my head. Over and over, a chant, a prayer. A goddamn plea.
I haven’t begged for anything since my father sold me, having learned well enough whatever gods inhabit the universe are too distant to care anything for human plights. But I beg now. Without restraint.
“Niko, wake up.Pleasewake up.” I dig my nails into the tattoos decorating his shoulders, like if I can keep hold, it’ll somehow prevent him from drifting further from me. “Wake up, you necrotic bastard!Wake up!”
Sam kneels beside me, but I feel none of the usual soothing of his magic. Whether because he depleted himself during the battle, or because he can find no peace without Niko, I don’t know. I don’t want it anyway—I don’t want relief when Niko gave himself up to his pain. So, when Sam tries to put a gentle hand to my shoulder, I shrug him off with a snarl.
I throw myself on top of Niko’s body, the familiarity of him beneath me enough to drive away the last of my reason. Balling my hands into tight fists, I hit his chest with the last of my strength. Pounding blows, over and over, as ragged sobs wrack my body. As silent as his heartbeat.
“Youpromised,”I cry. “You promised me we were eternal. That you wouldn’t leave me alone.”
“Willa…” Sam tries from beside me, his own tears leaving tracks over his blood-stained cheeks.
“You promised, you promised, youpromised.”
The words are a horrible rasp, dragged from the depths of my chest. Somewhere deeper than my power; somewhere that is caving in, shattering apart. Like shards of my delicate glass heart are exploding, shredding through everything tender left in me. Every soft space I allowed Niko into.
“Willa, you have to let him go,” Sam whispers gently. “Wehave to let him go. It’s what he wanted. For you. For the island. For the mainland. He did it to save all of us.”
I bare my teeth, brushing at wild tendrils of hair falling in front of my eyes. In this moment, I’m more animal than human; the vicious, desperate creature I always revert back to. I cannot think beyond the silence, beyond the absence, beyond the griefthreatening to swallow me whole. Because if Niko is truly gone, he isn’t the only thing to die.
Every piece of me I trusted him with will die along with him. The good and the kind and the brave.
Because if he’s dead, it proves Dawson right. It means that Niko orchestrated every movement, every emotion. He led me to sacrifice the only thing in the world that matters to me—him—without giving me a say.
How could this be the world Niko wanted when Iamhis world? There is no universe that makes sense unless we’re in it together—creation and void, death and life.
I shake my head, clearing my tears from my cheeks and sucking in a breath. Niko is king no longer. He gave up his royal seat, his right to craft futures and manipulate kingdoms. To me.
And I’m no longer the girl who runs.
So instead of falling apart or caving in, I erupt. A detonation of power, of rage, of willful determination.
I am the decider of fate, the creator of possibility.
