I storm toward the door, pressing my palm to the shadowed magic. “I’ll be fine,” I mutter, more to the door than to Willa. It’s easier not to see her fury; or worse, her worry.
Her scowl is palpable, as she follows me into the hallway. “You won’t,” she insists furiously. “And I can help. Iwantto help.”
I spin to her with a grimace, my heart thumping in my chest at her earnest expression.Thisis the Willa I see beneath what the world has made her—the woman who doesn’t run but is strong enough to withstand the storm. She’s beginning to find the courage that was stolen from her—the courage to not only to survive, but tolive.It makes me want to get on my knees before her, humbled in a way I rarely am as king.
But instead, I fist my hands at my side and sharpen my gaze. I’ll make her hate me if it means keeping her away from the Strayed, away from the twisted inclinations of my brother. Willa has been through enough.
“And what help would you be?” I sneer derisively, raking her over with a dismissive gaze. “You have no control of your power, and you’d sooner disappear into thin air than fight.”
Willa’s lips press into a colorless line, and I hate myself a little more.
But rather the cowering, she plants her feet. Tilts her chin. Sets me with that same fierce expression as the first night we met.
Now, I understand what’s behind the wall—the things that have tempered the steel into an impenetrable fortress.
“I’m coming,” she insists, twirling the sword in her hand, before tossing it deftly in the air. In one fluid motion, she catches the hilt and raises the tip of the blade to my chest. “And you’re wasting time by arguing.”
When I open my mouth to do just that, Willa presses the tip of the blade more firmly into my sternum, and I nearly laugh at how many times she’s had me beneath her thrall—and how few I’ve had her beneath mine.
“Do you think I survived this long by being useless, Corpsey? I don’t need fancy magical powers to stab someone. I’m quite capable of doing it the old-fashioned way. Now, quit being such an arrogant bastard, and let me help.”
My death curls around my wrists as I stare at her, taking in the fierce glimmer of her hazel eyes, the pouted curve of her lips. I can’t tell her it isn’t arrogance urging me to lock her in my chambers, to tie her to a chair if I have to: it’s something far more dangerous. Something I can’t afford to examine.
Something born the moment I took her mouth for mine; not just a seed planted, but a fucking forest that’s ensnared every existing part of me. Something terrifying enough to keep me from ever doing it again, even if that’s all I can think about.
Whatever awaits me at the Grove won’t be any more dangerous than whatever is growing between Willa and me.
I drink in the hope on her face, the brave determination evident in the firm line of her jaw. And I memorize it—the breathtaking way it looks when Willa draws herself out of the cramped pit of fear she’s contorted to fit into and allows her wings to open fully.
And then I kill it with the same brutality I kill everything else around me. Twisting my face into a vicious mask, I look Willa up and down with a tinge of disgust. “A few parlor tricks of magic and a twist of a sword is hardly enough to hold one’s own in battle. Surely you know that.”
Her face falters slightly beneath her mask, a crack to dig my claws inside. To pry her apart and fill with her own insecurities.
A voice inside me pleads silently for her not to believe me; to see beneath my façade the way I see beneath hers.It hammers against my ribs like it’s trying to escape, but I lock it away.
“A moment of courage doesn’t change who you are at your core.”
Willa’s breath catches, and for a terrible moment, I half-expect her to cry. But she masters herself with brutal poignancy, as that same steel wall, the one I’ve worked so hard to break through, slams down around her face. I watch as she curls back into herself, as she seals herself back up. Away from me.
“I have enough to worry about without having to make sure you haven’t walked straight into a trap. So do us all a favor and go back to being the woman who does nothing when the world burns.”
This time, when I turn around, she doesn’t try to stop me.
She doesn’t say anything at all.
By the time Sam, Tiernan, and I reach the Grove, corrosive hatred runs so thickly through my veins, I think it’ll eat straight through my skin. The devastation on Willa’s face is burned behind my eyelids, and with each blink, I hate myself all over again.
For what I’ve done to her. For what I’ve done to Letum.
For not being able to withstand the cost of the power it would take to end this once and for all.
Sam’s magic brushes over my skin in a soft caress, and though all I’d like to do is close my eyes and revel in the oblivion he offers, I wave him away. “Save your strength, Sammy. Don’t waste it on me.”
Because even a beautiful magic such as Sam’s, borne of a gentle soul and kind heart, has a cost. Every moment of comfort his power gifts is a moment of anxiety Sam must endure himself. And with Adira being in danger, I’m certain his worry must already be eating him alive. Despite the decades of strife between them, Sam needs no magic to feel Adira’s pain when she is his heart.
I’ve watched him love her for so long, but never truly understood how it felt to have something so vital live outside of yourself. I always wondered why he’d even bother, why he hadn’t just kept his love to himself when Adira clearly didn’t want it.
Now I wonder if Sam never had a choice in the matter. If he’d lost the grip on his heart and soul slowly enough that by the time he realized they were gone, it was far too late.
